A review of radical feminist theories on child sexual abuse

The objective of this paper is to review some of the contributions of feminist theory to the reflection on sexual abuse against children. The paper focuses on the developments raised by the radical feminism of the 70s and 80s, mainly in the United States. Radical feminists raised criticisms of prevailing theories on child sexual abuse. Likewise, they made valuable theoretical contributions justified by the fact that almost all abusers are men. In their work, they identified a link between sexual abuse against children and male sexuality, analyzed the role of socialization in femininity in the prevalence of sexual abuse, and pointed to the patriarchal family for promoting and guaranteeing the impunity for sexual abuse. Recovering these ideas can serve to build a theory of sexual violence against children from a gender perspective.