"Asi Son Los Hombres" - That's How Men Are: How Gendered Violence Becomes Naturalized in Childhood, Propels Girls and Women into Violent Intimate Partner Relationships, and Prevents Help-Seeking in Lambayeque, Peru

Background and Purpose: Over 69% of women in Lambayeque, Peru self-report experiencing Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in adulthood, but many began witnessing and/or experiencing violence in childhood. My research examines how childhood experiences of violence contribute to the social naturalization of violence. It asks what kinds of gendered violence are understood as acceptable and ‘normal’ versus extraordinary. It also follows individual’s life-trajectories to explore possible connections between experiences of violence in childhood and IPV in adulthood.
Methods: This ethnographic research draws on two periods of fieldwork with the same women in Lambayeque: 4 months in 2010 and 18 months in 2017-19. I use ethnographic interviews, life history calendars, and participant-observation to explore trajectories of violence in mujeres abusadas’ (local term: abused women) lives. Participants were recruited through personal contacts and participant recommendations. Data were analyzed using case study and grounded theory methods.
Results: This research suggests that gender roles (which are strongly enforced both through patriarchal socio-cultural structures and gendered material conditions) significantly constrain girls’ and women’s life choices in Lambayeque. Because men are often expected to act violently, and women are expected to tolerate abuse because of their material dependence on men, men’s violence toward their partners is not typically treated as extraordinary or critically addressed. Rather, IPV is understood and commonly talked about using normative statements like, “así es el matrimonio” (that’s how marriage is). The pervasive idea that “así son los hombres” (that’s how men are) – a lesson taught to both boys and girls from a young age – excuses and legitimizes men’s violent behavior, which many women say undermines their ability to resist violence. Participants reported learning in childhood that partner violence is a normal – though undesirable – part of intimate relationships. Additionally, many participants report getting involved in relationships with boys/men they did not know well either to escape emotional, physical, and sexual violence in their childhood homes (e.g., sexual abuse by an adult family member; physical violence between parents) or as a result of sexual violence outside of their homes (e.g., pressured to marry their rapist), and that these rushed relationships often lead to a lifetime of violence.
Conclusions and Implications: In sharing their life histories, my research participants identified explicit links between their childhood experiences of violence and the violence they experience as adults. Many mujeres abusadas believe that childhood experiences of violence condemned them to lifetimes of inescapable violence. Experiencing violence in childhood often has a double consequence for girls and women in Lambayeque. First, it can propel girls, at an early age, into lifelong violent relationships. Second, the naturalization of violence can undermine women’s ability to resist violence in their relationships. Because they have been socialized to tacitly accept IPV and have learned that they cannot rely on others to offer them support, they are deterred from help-seeking. This fatalistic conceptualization of victimhood – which is also realistically grounded in their material reality – is a major barrier to help-seeking for women who wish to live free from violence.