Intersectionality

This chapter addresses the concept of intersectionality in relation to gender-based violence. It provides an intersectional perspective on the ways in which policymaking treats target groups of gender-based violence, exposing the lack of attention to perpetrators, the main inequality categories intersected in policymaking, and showing the few works existing on class. It focuses on the quality of policymaking process and content from an intersectional approach, pointing at inclusiveness as a key feature of intersectional policy approaches. It further discusses approaches for applying intersectionality in policymaking that attempt to centre people who experience intersecting inequalities. Related to this, the chapter engages with challenging debates concerning the risks of stigmatization and culturalization that policy approaches that deal with multiple inequalities are not immune to. It points to the need for exploring ways in which policies include or exclude intersectional dimensions related to gender-based violence; the mechanisms by which intersectional demands reach policymaking processes or, on the contrary, are blocked; as well as the effects and impact of intersectional approaches in practice. Applying an intersectional approach to the study of gender-based violence policies contributes to expose power dynamics, in particular, the domination and subordination that intersecting systems of inequalities produce and their effects on people and policymaking.