Care Has No Gender. Rethinking Relationships to Prevent Violence

Care has no gender

Every time a woman is killed, the same question returns alongside the grief: could something have been done earlier? Were there warning signs that could have been recognised? Where did institutions, families, schools and society fail? These questions are inevitable. Yet perhaps the crucial point lies precisely in that word: “earlier”. Violence against women does not suddenly emerge at the moment a crime is committed. Its roots may reach much further back, developing within distorted cultural and relational models and being fuelled by an inability to accept rejection, separation or another person’s freedom. It may find fertile ground in the confusion between love and possession, jealousy and control, authority and domination. This is why we cannot expect to address such a complex phenomenon only after violence has already occurred. Law enforcement is essential, as are victim protection, support for anti-violence centres, appropriate training for law-enforcement officers and other professionals, accurate risk assessment and women’s economic independence. Yet, necessary as all these measures are, they do not exhaust the problem. The real challenge is to intervene earlier. And intervening earlier means, above all, educating.

Prevention begins with relationships

Relationship education does not mean imposing models or turning schools into arenas for ideological conflict between men and women. It means teaching something much simpler and, at the same time, much more profound: recognising the other person as free. It means talking to boys and girls about respect, reciprocity, consent, responsibility and the ability to manage emotions and frustration. It means teaching them that a relationship can end, that rejection must be accepted, that loving someone does not mean possessing them and that the freedom of the person beside us does not diminish our own.

It also means helping young people recognise behaviours that, particularly during adolescence, may still be mistaken for expressions of love: constantly demanding to know where a partner is, checking their phone, friendships or clothing, demanding passwords, progressively restricting their social relationships, or resorting to emotional blackmail. Not every instance of jealousy is violence, and not every conflict is abuse. But when control becomes systematic and another person’s freedom is progressively restricted, we are dealing with a relational pattern that requires intervention. The formative years are precisely when we can teach young people to recognise it.

Women have changed. Models of masculinity must change too

There is another issue we should have the courage to confront. Over recent decades, the position of women has changed profoundly. Women have achieved greater economic, professional, social and emotional autonomy. They can choose whether to enter or end a relationship, make decisions about their own lives, pursue professional careers and achieve economic independence. This has been an extraordinary and irreversible transformation.

Yet while women’s roles have changed rapidly, the models through which male identity is constructed have not always evolved at the same pace. It may be partly within this cultural gap that certain dynamics need to be understood. If, for generations, male identity was associated with economic and familial centrality, authority, the ability to exercise control and the expectation of appearing strong and self-sufficient, moving beyond those models inevitably requires the construction of new points of reference.

For the overwhelming majority of men, women’s autonomy is naturally a shared achievement. Yet fragile individuals raised within a possessive conception of relationships may experience a partner’s independence, rejection or separation as a challenge to their own identity. This does not mean seeking mitigating circumstances for violence. Responsibility for violent behaviour always lies with the person who commits it. Rather, it means examining the cultural and relational conditions upon which prevention can act long before behaviour becomes criminal.

We need to teach that a woman’s freedom does not represent a loss of power for a man; that the end of a relationship can cause suffering without turning that suffering into an entitlement over another person; that being left does not mean being humiliated; and that accepting a “no” does not diminish one’s worth. In other words, women’s new freedom must be accompanied by a new awareness of masculinity.

We need men who speak to other men

For too long, combating violence against women has been perceived almost exclusively as a women’s issue: women helping other women, predominantly female associations, mothers expected to educate their sons, and teachers—in a heavily feminised education system—dealing with these issues every day. But a cultural transformation of this magnitude cannot be entrusted to women alone.

Men must become active participants in change. We also need men who speak to other men: fathers talking to sons, teachers to students, coaches to boys, educators to young people. We also need friends capable of intervening when humiliating, possessive or aggressive language towards women is treated as normal within their own social groups.

Boys need to encounter different models of masculinity: men capable of expressing emotions without feeling weakened, asking for help when they need it, and coping with defeat or abandonment without turning their pain into anger against someone else. A man can be strong without being dominant. He can be authoritative without being aggressive. He can acknowledge his vulnerability without perceiving it as a diminution of his masculinity. This is a cultural transformation that concerns us all.

Care has no gender

This is where another fundamental concept comes into play: care. For decades, we have rightly worked to free girls from stereotypes that restricted their opportunities. We have encouraged them to engage with science, technology, mathematics and professions once considered exclusively male. We have told them that they can become engineers, doctors, judges, scientists, entrepreneurs and leaders. We must continue to do so.

But perhaps today we also need the courage to travel in the opposite direction. If we have taught girls that science has no gender, we must teach boys that care has no gender either.

Caring for someone, listening, understanding, educating, nurturing, expressing affection and taking responsibility within relationships are not female characteristics. They are human capacities. Yet care continues to be associated predominantly with women. We see this within families, in educational and caring professions, and even in the composition of the teaching profession, particularly in primary education.

Overcoming stereotypes therefore means working in both directions: enabling women to fully occupy the spaces of science, employment, leadership and power, while simultaneously enabling men to inhabit the spaces of affection, education and care without stigma. This too may contribute to building more balanced relationships.

Schools are essential, but they are not enough

Schools are undoubtedly among the most important settings for prevention. Children and adolescents spend a crucial part of their formative years there, developing identities, relationships and a sense of belonging. But it would be wrong to place on schools a responsibility that belongs to the entire community.

Emotional and relationship education begins long before any school programme. Children learn what a relationship is by observing adults. They learn from the way their parents speak to one another, how they deal with conflict, how they share responsibilities and tasks, and the extent to which they respect each other’s choices.

Today, they also learn through a space unavailable to previous generations: the digital environment. Social networks, online platforms, messaging services and early exposure to sexualised content all contribute to shaping young people’s emotional and sexual imaginaries. Smartphone monitoring, demands for passwords, geolocation, the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and certain forms of online aggression have introduced new ways in which relationships can become intrusive or coercive.

Relationship education must therefore also include digital education. The aim is not to demonise technology, but to give young people the tools to recognise the boundary between sharing and control, intimacy and intrusion, desire and entitlement over another person.

Not a war between men and women

There is one final risk that must be avoided: turning the necessary fight against violence against women into a permanent conflict between the sexes. Not all men are violent, and it would be profoundly wrong to educate boys in a way that makes them perceive being male as a source of guilt or something from which they must distance themselves.

Collective responsibility does not mean collective guilt. It means recognising that all of us can contribute to changing the cultural environment in which certain behaviours are tolerated, trivialised or justified. Precisely because the overwhelming majority of men are not violent, they can become essential allies in this transformation. They can do so through their example, their language, the way they raise their children and their willingness not to remain indifferent when contempt, possessiveness or aggression are normalised.

The Istanbul Convention has long emphasised the need for an integrated approach: preventing violence, protecting victims, prosecuting perpetrators and developing coordinated policies. That perspective remains entirely relevant. But legislation alone cannot change a culture.

From a culture of possession to a culture of care

Perhaps this is precisely the transition we need to achieve. We cannot intervene only afterwards. We must progressively shift the focus from reaction to prevention, from control to respect, from possession to care.

Education alone will not eliminate violence. It would be naive to believe otherwise. But we can raise generations better able to recognise their own limits, manage frustration, accept rejection, respect the freedom of others and seek help when emotional pain becomes difficult to manage.

We have taught our daughters that being free means being able to choose their own path. We must teach our sons that this freedom takes nothing away from them. And we must teach both that loving does not mean possessing, that respect is not weakness, and that caring for another person is not a female responsibility.

Care has no gender. And perhaps a society capable of recognising this is also a society that is genuinely beginning to disarm violence.

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Essential Bibliography

Council of Europe (2011), Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention), Istanbul.

Bandura, A. (1977), Social Learning Theory, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs.

Connell, R. W. (1995), Masculinities, University of California Press, Berkeley.

hooks, b. (2004), The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, Atria Books, New York.

Bowlby, J. (1988), A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development, Routledge, London.

World Health Organization, RESPECT Women: Preventing Violence against Women, WHO, Geneva.

UNESCO (2019), Behind the Numbers: Ending School Violence and Bullying, UNESCO, Paris.