Caught Between Care and Violence

This chapter analyzes the life histories of 30 Paraguayan women in the Tri-Border Area of Paraná (between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay), inquiring into the relationship between care and gender violence. It focuses on the contradiction between the reproduction of and the change in their experiences of violence at different moments in their life trajectories. However, it examines specifically the connections of these experiences within the private spheres of their lives. Its objective is to understand how said violence has crossed the life courses of these women: from their socialization to violent relational patterns in the families of origin to the persistence of these patterns in their adult lives. Therefore, the chapter investigates how female roles framed by gender mandates on care, social reproduction, and motherhood exposed our interviewees to violent experiences while also constituting a driving force behind their strategies of resistance. In other words, it highlights the forms of female response that link cultural and social capitals to which our protagonists have access due to their gender condition.