This article presupposes understanding gender violence as a result of socio-cultural and political-economic contexts marked by inequality between men and women and other injustices. we did a narrative review by selecting twenty texts, between articles, theses and dissertations from 2005 to 2018, located in Virtual Health Library (BVS-Brazil). The objective was to carry out a narrative review of the literature on how the theme of gender violence is researched using the qualitative approach. From the analysis, three categories emerged: multiplicities of concepts; appreciation of the different places of speech and instruments to understand subjectivity. The results indicate that qualitative research, in different ways, enables the appreciation of the context that the episode of violence takes place, visualizing the symbolic mechanisms and singular mechanisms involved. Moreover, it evidences the importance of strengthening the ethical-political aspect of research to understand gender violence.