VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, PATRIARCHY AND COLONIALITY: A READING FROM FEMINIST CRITIQUE

Abstract

This article aims to analyze violence against women as an expression of the patriarchal structure, based on the contributions of feminist critical theory. To this end, it adopts Heleieth Saffioti (2015; 2000) as its main theoretical reference, in dialogue with Saffioti and Almeida (1995), Rita Laura Segato (2012), Poliana Monteiro (2021), Simone de Beauvoir (2019), and Pereira (2007). Based on Saffioti, violence against women is understood as a manifestation of the patriarchal social organization that legitimizes male domination and female subordination. Segato’s analysis broadens the discussion by relating patriarchy and the coloniality of gender, highlighting that, especially in the Latin American context, violence against women is also crossed by historical processes of colonization, racialization, and social inequality. Monteiro contributes to understanding how these patriarchal and colonial structures materialize in women’s everyday lives, in territories, urban planning, and public security. The methodology adopted consists of a bibliographic review, through the reading and articulation of theoretical texts on gender, patriarchy, coloniality, and violence against women. It is concluded that gender-based violence is a social, historical, political, and structural phenomenon, whose confrontation requires a critique of patriarchal and colonial structures.