The Limits of the Law: Women, Violence, and Legal Ambivalence in Nicaragua

This article analyzes the experiences of Nicaraguan women victims of domestic violence as a lens for developing a theoretical concept I term legal ambivalence. I define legal ambivalence as the process by which women experience hesitancy or reluctance about if, when, and how to pursue legal claims in response to situations of relationship violence. Drawing on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork and 38 in-depth interviews, I demonstrate how women’s legal ambivalence is produced through a combination of socio-cultural factors like family support, gendered expectations of women, and economic dependence on a male partner, and women’s everyday interactions with state officials and the ways that the law itself is used against them. Building on decades of critical feminist scholarship highlighting the limitations of legal frameworks for addressing gender-based violence, my findings illustrate how contextual constraints, quotidian practices, and the gendered structure of legal institutions contributes to women’s reluctance to resort to the law.