Abstract:
Based on a constructivist inter-sector approach and considering the possible agency and negotiations within violent relationships, the study aimed to understand how black women redefined gender violence according to their affective-sexual relationships. The procedures included participant observation in discussion groups and individual interviews with women seen at a Specialized Center for Women’s Care in the Baixada Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. According to the results, gender violence is present throughout the women’s lives. The narratives reveal a feeling of affective-sexual loneliness caused by neglect by their partners or potential partners, as well as experiences with racist and sexist treatment in their own relationships at school and work. Violence, apparently limited to intimate partner relations, spills over into other family relations. Understanding violence as “lack of respect” produced a kind of “collective surveillance” among the women, evidencing the building of a solidarity network. By retelling their life stories, these women remember the past, present, and future with expectations by poor black working women of reinventing themselves. A joint on-going effort is needed by civil society, teaching institutions, and the political sphere to deconstruct culturally instituted models that persistently keep black women in a place of submission, inferiority, and marginalization.
Keywords:
Gender-Based Violence; Race; Intersectionality