Violence is often considered gendered on the basis that it is violence against
women. This assumption is evident both in “gender-based violence” interventions in Africa
and in the argument that gender is irrelevant if violence is also perpetrated against men. This
article examines the relation of partner violence not to biological sex, but to gender as
conceptualized in feminist theory. It theorizes the role of gender as an analytical category in
dominant social meanings of “wifebeating” in Tanzania by analyzing arguments for and
against wife-beating expressed in 27 focus group discussions in the Arumeru and KigomaVijijini
districts. The normative ideal of a “good beating” emerges from this data as one that
is supported by dominant social norms and cyclically intertwined with “doing gender.” The
author shows how the good beating supports, and is in turn supported by, norms that hold
people accountable to their sex category. These hegemonic gender norms prescribe the
performance of masculinity and femininity, power relations of inequality, and concrete
material exploitation of women's agricultural and domestic labor. The study has implications
for policy and practice in interventions against violence, and suggests untapped potential in
theoretically informed feminist research for understanding local power relations in the Global
South.