What makes violence against women a systemic social practice? Biroli (2018) explains that it functions as a broad pattern where women live with the awareness that they may face harm simply because they are women.
Citing Young (1990), Biroli notes that women learn this systemic violence exists in the background of daily life, meaning they could experience it at any time merely for belonging to that group. This reality covers direct physical attacks alongside humiliation, harassment, intimidation, and stigmatization. While this violence targets women because of their gender, Biroli highlights Collins (2015) to show that their experiences are also shaped differently across intersecting factors like race, class, sexuality, generation, and nationality.
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Biroli, F. (2018). Violence against Women and Reactions to Gender Equality in Politics. Politics & Gender, 14(4), 681–685. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X18000600