ABSTRACT
This article explores the link between state violence, democracy, and violence against women in Peru. Using examples of how the state, at certain points in contemporary Peruvian history, has both used and challenged violence against women as political tools in pursuit of broader political gains, it suggests that the separation between private and public violence is less ‘real’ than political discourse often suggests. The democratic state is seen as a male-dominated historical product of the society from which it emerges and the institutions that represent it. Using gender as an analytical category shows how state violence in war and peace are linked to existing perceptions and inequalities based on race, class and gender. For women, then, the boundary between private and public violence, and between war and peace, is not clear-cut. The lack of consideration for the security of (especially poor and/or indigenous) women by a male-dominated and racist society suggests a serious democratic deficit.
