As Mulheres Erguem a Voz Diante das Violências Corporais e Sexuais

Abstract

This article problematizes the meaning of bodily and sexual violence (harassment, abuse, molestation) against women as a form of gender-based violence in the second decade of the 21st century. We identify a number of events that, in the present moment, have prompted this shift. Our analysis is grounded in the theoretical and methodological assumptions of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (2005). The analytical movement highlights that bodily and sexual violence take shape within a narrative territory of dispute and are connected to new forms of interaction in digital society — such as images — which introduce and produce new means and resources that sustain women’s words, helping them to “raise their voices” against bodily and sexual violence and to challenge the traditional responses of “impunity” and silence. In this sense, images contribute to the construction of women’s discourse and take on an educational role that, both preventively and interventively, bears witness — giving a “face” — to the voices and to the theme/problem of bodily and sexual violence within Brazilian cultural contexts