Three decades of the feminist resistance against sexism and violence towards women: 1976 to 2006

Abstract

This paper analyzes the main actions and resistance strategies unchained by the Brazilian feminist movement that, in the last thirty years, tried to eradicate violence against women. It discusses on one side, the violence as a control strategy on the female body and, on the other, the inefficacy of the Law N. 9,099/95. With the implementation of Maria da Penha's Law, an important legislative and juridical conquest in the struggle against violence towards women, changes are evidenced in the sociocultural strategies and in the juridical resources used in the country; however, expressions of institutional violence are still present in the culture and in the juridical practices. Such expressions are part of a male moral logic that still models the dominant procedures and that are present in the institutions and among public agents, as well as in the private sphere and in the family, in other words, in all Brazilian society.