Gender Violence And Hegemonic Projects

Abstract

This essay introduces the Special Issue theme, gender violence and hegemonic projects. We discuss why re-thinking the relationship between gender violence and hegemonic projects is important for feminist theory and activism. Moving beyond the narrow, representational approach to ‘violence against women’, we argue that the hegemonic projects of the state are constituted through gender violence. Rather than an effect of power, gender violence is thus instrumental to the very operations and existence of hegemonic projects. We insert the contributing essays within this framework, elucidating their examination of three key issues: (1) how hegemonic discourses operate through gendered violence; (2) how dominant political institutions, ideas and discourses determine what ‘counts’ as gender violence; and (3) how responses to gender violence engage metanarratives about gender, race, class and nation/state, both resisting and sustaining hegemonic projects.