La violence économique et la désautonomisation financière des femmes dans Vie de femme, vie de sang de Baboni

Abstract

This study has examined the representation of economic violence in Baboni’s Vie de femme, vie de sang within the broader context of domestic violence and patriarchal domination. It has been motivated by the growing recognition of economic violence as a pervasive yet often overlooked form of gender-based violence that compromises women’s financial security, autonomy, and dignity. Guided by Sylvia Walby’s theory of patriarchal structures, the study has adopted a qualitative approach based on textual and interpretive analysis. It has aimed to identify the forms of economic violence represented in the novel and analyse how financial deprivation, interference with employment, exploitation of women’s income, and debt creation by Ambroise, the protagonist’s husband, have functioned as mechanisms of patriarchal domination. The study has found that these forms of economic violence have constituted interconnected mechanisms through which patriarchal authority has been exercised and perpetuated within the domestic sphere. The novel has demonstrated that financial domination has extended beyond material deprivation to erode women’s agency, self-esteem, and capacity for self-determination. The study has concluded that economic violence has constituted a major instrument of patriarchal oppression and has enriched feminist discourse on domestic violence. It has recommended greater scholarly attention to economic violence in African and Francophone literatures and continued engagement with socio-economic feminist theories, particularly Sylvia Walby’s theory of patriarchal structures.