Why language matters Terms like domestic violence strongly imply that there is a gendered symmetry to interpersonal violence in families. Kathleen Ferraro notes the way in which legislative intervention against interpersonal violence against women has been accompanied by a shift in the language used to describe that violence. Legislative language employs terms like domestic violence, family violence, or spouse abuse , which fail to disclose the fact that it is largely men who abuse women. The language of the law therefore poses as an objective and neutral code that ends up obscuring the systemic use of violence by men against women.
Gender is a set of cultural roles.
It is a costume, a mask, a straitjacket in which men and women dance their unequal dance. Feminists above all others should want to point up that difference and should therefore be careful to use the appropriate words. The dominated exchange submission for protection, unpaid labor for maintenance. The subordination of female children and of wives is lifelong. In its narrow meaning, patriarchy refers to the system, historically derived from Greek and Roman law, in which the male head of the household had absolute legal and economic power over his dependent female and male family members.