This article discusses how men and women of low income and educational level, living in São Paulo City, think their affective and familiar relationships and the different violent contexts they live in. It consists of a qualitative study, based on focus groups and subsiding a more global study on violence against women and health. It has been conducted four groups (two with men and two with women, aging 25 to 35 years) broaching, free and instigated by popular sayings, conceptions on: the ideal man and woman, concretely experienced sexual affective and familiar relationships and on domestic violence. Thematic analysis was used. The results point in the direction of the division between physical attributes and moral conduct in the ideal woman referred by men, whereas the one referred by women defines a controlled autonomy. Men had difficulties in defining the ideal men, while, for women, this ideal is the family man. Violence is, in principle, always condonable. It is tolerable and instintictive for men, and fatality or destiny, because of masculine nature, for women, becoming a natural and trivial event in both of them day-to-day lives. The gender frame allows the comprehension of violence as a common occurrence, but in different senses for each of the genders
Violence against women; Family; Masculine éthos; Feminine éthos; Gender