What now may be called mainstream research on violence to women in intimate relationships fails to fully recognise and theoretically account for the links between gender and other forms of inequality, and their implications for violence in intimate relationships. The need for such an expanded problematisation of gender and violence become apparent when focusing upon the issues of parenthood and children exposed to men’s violence to women in their family. The first part of the presentation outlines a theoretical framework for understanding men’s violence to women in heterosexual relationships where the man and woman are also co-parents, drawing upon the critique of a “pure” gender concept raised by, for example, black feminists and in the debates about “intersectionality”, as well as the theoretical insights within the “new” sociology of childhood. The intersection and interaction between age, gender and kinship is considered crucial for understanding violence in a family setting, as well as for the responses to violence from outside. In the second part of the presentation this framework is set in dialogue with some empirical examples to illustrate the theoretical points made.