Topics in Handouts 1. Culture of violence and GBV 2. Gender Based Violence in politics and public life 3. Poverty and Gender based violence 4. Women’s ownership of property and GBV 5. Alcohol, drug and other substance abuse and gender based violence Guide questions for groups discussions. Guide questions for groups discussions • • • What are the power relationships that contribute to the issue? Who has power and how is the power exercised to cause violence? Who are the victims and how is power used to victimize? Handouts Handout 1 : Unequal power structures and gender based violence The concept of ‘gender’ in itself sets out to clarify the ways in which patriarchal socialisation processes plays a critical function in creating socially ‘acceptable’ norms of behaviour and rights for women and for men. These socialisation processes in effect give more power to men over women and demarcate lines of conduct where women and men have differential and often unequal access to and control over resources, whether it is in terms of food, healthcare, skills training, credit, property, income or, in the arena of decision-making. Lack of access to such resources can also result in those with less ‘power’ being subjected to violence and intimidation, which could take the form of acts of verbal, physical and sexual violations, whether in the privacy of their own homes or in the public sphere. It is acknowledged that the issue of who or which group in society has more power than others and who can exert acts of gender based violence is not restricted to economic power but is very much rooted in notions of social power and hierarchies in access to exercising such power. The concept of gender based violence necessarily includes both the aspects of violence which arises out of asymmetrical power relations resulting from the socialisation processes, as well as gender based discrimination arising from structural violence against women, as can be seen, for example through the impact of violence against women as a result of armed conflict. 86