This study analyzes whether gender constitutes a modifying circums­ tance in criminal law. For this purpose, it takes as an example the Spanish case, where in recent decades there has been a change in the criminal policy of the State in favor of a criminal law with a gender perspective, specifically in gender­based violence. The article concludes that the term «gender violence» is appropriate because it responds to the essence of this phenomenon, whose particularities have led to a great impulse to its regulation in the Spanish legal system and in the international context. With a criminal policy of intolerance towards the manifestations of this type of violence, legislation with a gender perspective has been promoted, which has considered appropriate the inclusion of an aggravating modifying circumstance if the criminal acts are committed in a discriminatory manner in relation to ge...