Masculinities and Batterer Intervention Programs in Gender Violence in Spain

Intimate partner violence against women (called gender violence in the Spanish legal framework) is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that has been explained from different theoretical viewpoints. In this paper, we take as a starting point to analyze this violence a multi-causal model, called pyramidal model, which understands traditional masculinity and their conditionants as an important explanatory key for violence against women. In this context, data on the low presence of the notion of masculinity in the intervention programs for the rehabilitation of perpetrators that have been applied in Spain are presented, and suggestions on the need to increase the role of this element are provided.