Gender-based violence

The concept is mainly used to highlight that structural gender-based power differences place women and girls at risk from multiple forms of violence, understanding that it is any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, as well as threats of such acts, blackmail or deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.

Gender-based violence has features own:

• It is structural: We live in societies that are dominated by men who hold positions of power in all walks of life (political, economic, family …).
• It is historic: has been exercised during all stages of history (also today) and in all territories of the planet.
• It is a form of control: It sets rules that women must abide by to keep them in a position of subordination (how they should act, how they should dress, what they should consume, where they can go, …).

Spanish law determines that they exist 21 forms of violence against women, being the two most recognized by the company:

• Physical violence: is any act that causes physical harm or suffering to the woman, such as bruising, cuts and fractures.

• Psychological Violence: is any act that aims to decrease a woman's self-esteem. It consists of subjugating or humiliating through practices such as insults, criticism, blackmail, control, etc.

However, it is necessary to know those forms of violence against women related to sexuality, since some of them are a present reality in current Spanish society:

• Sexual harassment: is when a woman is required to engage in sexual acts or other behavior, under a threat or promise to harm her.

Other forms of violence linked to sexuality include sexual sexual slavery (when a woman is sold, exchanged, or forced to perform sexual acts), the female genital mutilation (a set of practices that involve the partial or total removal of female external genitalia or cause damage to them for cultural reasons), the forced prostitution (when a woman is forced to have sex in order to get money) and the trafficking in women, girls and adolescents (any process that seeks to sexually exploit women, girls or adolescents).

Other forms of gender-based violence:

• Violence at work: is discrimination against women in workplaces that hinders their access to employment, promotion, job stability, etc.

• Patrimonial and Economic Violence: any action aimed at producing economic constraints to control their income.

• Media Violence: uses any means of communication with the aim of women being exploited, discriminated against, dishonored or humiliated.

• Early or Forced Marriage is given when the woman has not given her free consent in the celebration, either because it has been the result of an agreement between third parties, is held under conditions of violence or intimidation, has not reached the legal age, etc.

• Violence arising from armed conflict: including all possible forms of violence, such as murder, rape, forced pregnancy, forced abortion or forced sterilization, among others.

• Sex-Reasoned Harassment: behaviour that has as its cause or is related to her status as a woman and is aimed at violating the dignity of women and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment in any field.