From the discussion on violence in anthropology and social sciences to a feminist analysis of gendered violence

The article starts with a brief summary of some of the debates on gendered violence in social sciences, focusing on the definition of the concept, its significance in human society and its social meanings. This is supplemented by considerations in the field of social and cultural anthropology about the question of legitimity as a criterion of violence. The importance of dealing with questions like, who is legitimated to exercise violence and in what context, will be stressed. Besides this also the funcion of violence is shown as to be an important aspect of analysis. The central findings of these discussions will be looked at with regard to their relevance for a feminist (intersecional) exploration of gendered violence. In the end five points will be extracted as starting point of analysis.