This article looks at the extent to which Peruvian women have been able to use a legal and institutional framework designed to combat domestic violence, despite its significant defects, in order to transform the authoritarian forms of communication that prevail in their families, organisations, and communities. Using in-depth interviews with women in Lima, Huancavelica and Ayacucho, the article suggests that while democratisation from above may often result in limited transformations in many policy areas, we must be attentive to the way in which democratisation can be appropriated, transformed and reinvigorated from below.