Managing Resources against Gender-based Violence. An Intervention from Feminism and Transversality, through a Case Study of the Simone de Beauvoir Association of León.

Abstract

This paper is intended to highlight the achievements of the Spanish feminist movement in reporting and making more prominent what is today seen as male violence against women in general and within the couple in particular. This is because private contexts are where the greatest number of abuses are committed against women. Moreover, they have been legitimized and supported by a patriarchal order, in which the historically unequal power relationships between women and men have governed our entire socio-cultural, economic and political system.As an example of this struggle, it is the aim here to make known the experiences undergone by the Simone de Beauvoir Association of Leon, a grouping of feminist women which first took shape in 1987, when it started running a refuge or home for abused women. Despite all the problems it has faced, it continues to operate to this day, and even has expanded to operating a further two centres, a Day Centre for women victims of gender-based violence and a Day Centre for minors. These have allowed it to adapt to the realities and needs of women and their dependent children and to intervene from a gender-based perspective. This sees every woman as unique, and her own capacities as key resources, which, when combined with those put at her disposal by the current system, may permit her to break out of the cycle of violence, recover and start a new, free and dignified life.