Conference Program

Any reflection on women’s empowerment that leaves aside the issue of control over economic resources risks overlooking one of the most subtle and difficult to recognize forms: domestic economic violence. Money in this view becomes a symbol, which amplifies its instrumental function, taking the form of a power device that prevents the achievement of self-determination. "There can be no female empowerment without financial autonomy" (Granata 2024.) In our country, one-third of women do not have a personal current account, this prevents them from fully developing empowerment and often leads them to assume a position of subordination towards their husbands or partners. It is within the family as a safe place that domestic economic violence occurs. In the international legal framework, UN Women defines domestic violence as a pattern of abusive conduct within a family relationship, the man prevents the woman from using and managing the financial resources of the household. The goal is to make women weak and economically unstable, by exercising decision-making power over consumer choices, also establishing what can be bought and what must be denied, forcing her partner to ask him for money even for small daily expenses and refusing to contribute to the costs necessary for family subsistence. According to the World Bank’s report, Women, Business and the Law 2022, more than 30 countries do not yet have laws that limit or punish such violence. The regions where there are more cases are: Abruzzo, Apulia, Tuscany, Veneto, Valle D'Aosta and Sicily, a constant data is the economic vulnerability (Rinaldi 2023) of women who suffer violence, only 37% say they have a stable income from work or retirement. This data highlights how economic vulnerability can affect the possibility of escaping violent relationships and to undertake paths of autonomy. Of the total number of women who have turned to an anti-violence center instead, (Rinaldi 2023) 37% said they were subjected to economic violence, so more than one woman in three, and also in 91% of cases the perpetrator is a man with whom the victim has or has had a significant relationship, so it is rare that this happens at the hands of a stranger. In summary, the contribution is part of the pedagogical debate on power dynamics within family contexts, considering domestic economic violence as a formative issue. In this, we intend to analyze how financial literacy can be configured as an economic empowerment tool, which is not limited only to the transmission of technical knowledge, but is proposed as an emancipative educational device (Lopez 2025) which activates individual capacities and strengthens decision-making autonomy by increasing agency possibilities, also allows women to manage economic resources independently, countering risks of abuse, and supporting the possibility of making own decisions and actively participating in social life.