“It’s as if you don’t know,because you don’t do anything about it”: gender and violence in El Salvador

Abstract

This paper explores how gendered violence in El Salvador contin- ues to be minimized within public and private discourse. Through an examination of social understandings and reactions to violence, based on qualitative research, the paper argues that gendered violence remains an issue sidelined from mainstream social and political debates. In a society where the threshold for tolerating violence is very high, gendered violence stands out as an issue which, to a great degree, has become normalized as a central element of gender relations. This is borne out by the scant attention paid to issues of gender in both policy proposals and debates on violence.