Abstract
The patriarchal social structure produces and sustains individual and collective violence every day. We are based on the idea of “bodies/experiences”, as a vital drive for existence, comprising occupational body-therapy, a predominantly female profession, to portray gender violence. The objective was to understand the perceptions of occupational therapists working in the health field about gender violence in their daily lives, through cartography as a methodological device. We analyzed 67 responses from occupational therapists among 1018 respondents to a remote questionnaire produced by the Adelaides collective in a research on experiences of gender violence in Brazil experienced by women in the field of public health. With narrative and multiple-choice questions, the questionnaire was divided into three sections: socioeconomic data; professional and academic performance; experiences involving machismo and violence, and in coping actions. Numerical data were analyzed using simple statistics and qualitative data based on the analytical technique of narrative translation. The results indicate that 91% of the participants suffered violence for being a woman in the daily spaces of the home, study, work and/or public environments. The coping ways used were organized into four actions: training and research, politicizing, breaking away and caring. We conclude that everyday life presents itself as a potential space-time of expressions, visible and invisible, of human action, which can be manifested by violent actions, as well as by confrontational actions, assuming aspects of reproduction or transformation of established relationships such as those embedded in in the culture of violence to which women are subjected.
Keywords:
Occupational Therapy; Activities of Daily Living; Gender Based-Violence