Samenvatting

Intimate partner violence (IPV) changed from a private problem to a public concern over the last decades. It has become subject of various discourses in different domains. In the social sciences the gender-based discriminatory nature of IPV is contested by some researchers who claim a gender equality in IPV. They call for a gender-neutral approach to IPV as a family problem, de-contextualized from gender-based inequalities. In the Netherlands this degendering is reflected in current policy discourse. However, in the international legal human rights domain, IPV is unequivocally considered to be an issue that affects women disproportionately as a form of women's discrimination that is the result of unequal power relations. Both international binding human rights law and recent ruling of the ECHR impose binding duties to acknowledge this. This article addresses the paradox that is reflected in these two positions and how to get beyond it.