This thesis explores how visual communication is used to address violence against women, with a particular focus on gender disruption strategies (GDS). Such strategies also reach out to men, placing them in the frame and including them in the target audience. Violence against women is a social and collective phenomenon that concerns acts committed by men qua men who target women qua women; it tends to be viewed through the lens of women. GDS refers to the disruption of relations, norms, and socially constructed representations of men and women and the notions of what is masculine and feminine. This thesis seeks to provide a better understanding of GDS. Whether GDS creations take the form of artwork, media products, or some combination of the two, they illustrate how artistic and social movements borrow from and reciprocally influence each other. Communication strategies that feature gender disruption are a mediatized form of human and social interaction. From this initial consideration, three lines of research are developed: 1) the study of GDS in terms of the different forms it takes (GDS creations); 2) the empirical study of creation, creative processes, and the intent to influence on the part of those who conceive of and produce GDS creations, and 3) the empirical study of reception, processes of receiving, and influences on the public, i.e. on audiences constituted as social subjects. To begin, an examination of a heterogenous group of GDS creations allowed the multiple forms of these works to be identified, revealing the hypertextuality of both gender and types of violence (data were collected systematically and evaluated with an analysis grid). Next, semi-structured and focused interviews with creators provided data on how GDS works are created. Creators assert the reality of violence and gender; they imitate and then transform these social realities in order to engage and challenge audiences, communicate negative affect, and disclose violence. Their perspective is social-cognitive-reflexive, but they also seek to call out, expose, and undermine perpetrators of violence, forcing them to become responsible for their actions and the abnormality of their behavior. Finally, the reception of GDS creations was studied using focus groups and quasi-experimentation. The social subjects who receive these works perceive the collective dimension of violence, experience psychological discomfort related to hypertextuality, and co-construct opinions that align with the intentions of the works’ creators. They may also recount stories of violence and sexism that they have experienced or witnessed. Although some audience members condemned gender transgression or contemporary feminist positions, thereby expressing a lack of support for GDS, this research shows that gender disruption strategies can have a positive impact on sexist attitudes.