The dominance of the masculine at the foundation of the social construction of gender
Abstract: The statements made by Italian Justice Minister Nordio — the head of the branch of the state administration that should be responsible for combating this phenomenon — suggesting that violence is a genetic fact are deeply concerning. An incorrect narrative of this issue contributes to a form of preventive absolution for acts that are now classified as crimes. Framing men’s inability to accept equality with women as a genetic matter hands this phenomenon over to a blind determinism, detached from individual consciousness and will, as if it were a stigma carried in one’s DNA. This is clearly not the reality. Let us therefore examine the origins of this problem, which can only be cultural in nature — and therefore subject to change.
Keywords: #CarloNordio #MinisterOfJustice #ViolenceAgainstWomen #GenderViolence #CombatingViolenceAgainstWomen #HumanSciences #Philosophy #Sociology #Anthropology #Bourdieu #ValerioSepiesti #EthicaSocietas #EthicaSocietasJournal #ScientificJournal #SocialSciences #ethicasocietasupli
The speech delivered by Justice Minister Carlo Nordio on the phenomenon of violence against women, presented at the High Level Conference against Femicide held in the Parliamentary Groups Hall of the Chamber of Deputies on 21 November, undoubtedly received wide media coverage.
For clarity, we report below the key passage:
“There is also a sedimentation in the mentality of man, of the male, which is difficult to remove, because it has been formed over millennia of oppression, of superiority; and therefore, even if today men accept—and must accept—this absolute formal and substantive equality with women, in their subconscious their genetic code always finds a certain resistance. If we look at the history of humanity, we see that unfortunately, with few exceptions, it is a continuous male dominance. It is necessary to intervene with criminal law, with repression and with prevention.”
The main reference seems to be precisely to the “millennia of oppression” of men over women which, according to the Minister of Justice, would be the result of a genetic — or “ontological”, if you will — fact, a condition that today would be countered more by criminal repression than by an authentic adherence to the idea of real gender equality.
And why is that? Because the dominant culture — that is, the patriarchal one — instead of acknowledging the privilege of male domination, prefers to take refuge behind an apparent scientific justification based on biological differences between men and women.
While this worldview is not surprising, it is nonetheless troubling that even the Minister of Justice has yet to adopt an alternative understanding of the phenomenon of violence against women and has not — to borrow the words of Paola Di Nicola, a magistrate deeply engaged in this field — removed his “gender lenses.”
But let us proceed step by step and try to understand why the problem of violence against women is above all, if not exclusively, a cultural issue.
In an insightful 1998 essay titled La domination masculine, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu explains how the division between the masculine and the feminine has a distinctly arbitrary character.
Drawing on anthropological studies — particularly on the androcentric structures of the Kabyle people in Algeria — he bases his argument on the premise that the distinction between masculine and feminine is the product of a division grounded in labor.
This differentiation, rooted in the diversity of biological bodies — one considered more suited to war and hunting, the other to caregiving — generated actual social structures within which mechanisms of male dominance over women were established.
However, unlike other forms of domination, this particular form is not exercised through physical coercion, but through symbolic violence: that set of practices, habits, and norms that “normalize” a given social arrangement, making it appear natural.
The failure of the dominated subject to recognize this form of violence results in spontaneous submission and the internalization of the idea that such a condition is immutable.
To use Bourdieu’s words:
“The symbolic force we are speaking of is that exercised by male domination, which extends beyond the consciousness of individual subjects because it tends to become unconsciously embedded in the body itself and in its biological sexual differences, making them appear no longer as contingent or arbitrary, but, on the contrary, as evident and natural (…) From this mechanism it follows that the biological body is always a ‘socialized body’, since, at an unconscious level, it must conform to a social and cultural definition.”
These instruments of domination, Bourdieu continues, have been further reinforced by institutions such as the family, the State and religion, which have contributed to preserving this equilibrium unchanged over time.
It is precisely in this differentiation that, according to Bourdieu, the dominated finds his or her identity, and masculine and feminine recognize themselves, thereby unconsciously perpetuating male domination.
This domination becomes all the more pervasive and effective the more it is justified and accepted as the only possible alternative — that is, as an immutable given.
On this point, Bourdieu observes:
“The division between the sexes seems to fall within the ‘order of things’, as is sometimes said to describe what appears normal, natural to the point of being inevitable. It is present, in its objectified form, in things (…) and, in its embodied form, in bodies, in the habitus of agents, where it functions as a system of schemes of perception, thought and action.”
Minister Nordio is right when he speaks of a “sedimentation formed over millennia of oppression,” but it is equally true that this sedimentation is the product of a very specific logic of domination. Failing to acknowledge this fact — indeed, continuing to regard female subordination as an immutable condition — makes this subordination ever more pervasive through the constant operation of symbolic violence.
And it is precisely on this aspect that action must be taken first, in order to address what, from a legal standpoint, constitutes a clear violation of human rights, as established by the Istanbul Convention.
We now know well that the distinction of biological bodies based on the division of labor has collapsed, and with it must inevitably fall the entire view of the feminine as subordinate and submissive to the masculine.
LAST CONTRIBUTION OF THE SAME AUTHOR
LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE SANCTIONING POWER: EVOLUTIONARY PROFILES AND REFORM PERSPECTIVES
LATEST CONTRIBUTIONS ON GENDER DISCRIMINATION AND VIOLENCE
NOVEMBER 25: THE FIGHT AGAINST GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IS STILL OPEN
NOVEMBER 25 WHAT MUST BE CHANGED IMMEDIATELY, INCLUDING FOR THE LOCAL POLICE
LANGUAGE AS A TOOL OF VIOLENCE AND REDEMPTION
SILENCE IS NOT LOVE, IT IS A CHEMICAL PRISON, AND OUR SILENCE IS COMPLICITY
THE BODY AS A BATTLEFIELD: SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN CONTEMPORARY ARMED CONFLICTS
LATEST 5 CONTRIBUTIONS
FROM WESTERN CANCEL CULTURE TO JIHADIST CANCEL CULTURE
“PEACE CANNOT BE BARTERED”: A CONVERSATION WITH UN MINISTER ALBERTO FLORES HERNÁNDEZ
IN THE FOLDS OF TIME: GUINEA-BISSAU AND SUDAN IN THE NIGHT THAT NEVER ENDS
NOVEMBER 25: THE FIGHT AGAINST GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IS STILL OPEN
NOVEMBER 25 WHAT MUST BE CHANGED IMMEDIATELY, INCLUDING FOR THE LOCAL POLICE
Ethica Societas is a free, non-profit review published by a social cooperative non.profit organization
Copyright Ethica Societas, Human&Social Science Review © 2025 by Ethica Societas UPLI onlus.
ISSN 2785-602X. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0