Abstract

This article analyzes the relationships between violence and gender, in reference to first author’s doctoral research on the Chilean shelter system for battered women (program “Casas de acogida”). This program indeed constitutes a heuristic case that allows us a better understanding of the dimensions of violence and discrimination associated with gender. It also allows us to analyze the political and cultural trends that are being reproduced or contested in a context of overwhelming neoliberal policies. Last, the study of this program sheds a light on how do state institutions deal with the problems faced by women in our contemporary society. On the ground of the following question: what and who does this policy protects?, we propose an analysis of shelters as a place of political exclusion for women, who are being denied the very condition of woman as long as they are being labeled as persons incapables of managing their own fragility when faced with gender-based violence.