Citation

Dantas-Berger SM, Giffin K. Cad. Saude Publica 2005; 21(2): 417-425.

Vernacular Title

A violencia nas relacoes de conjugalidade: invisibilidade e banalizacao da

Affiliation

Escola Nacional de Saude Publica, Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. rsberger@ar.microlink.com.br

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Escola Nacional De Saude Publica)

DOI

/S0102-311X2005000200008

PMID

15905904

Abstract

This article presents the results of a qualitative study of women who had filed complaints of domestic violence, situating gender relations in a broader context. The authors focus on the meaning ascribed to sexual coercion in violent relations, suggesting that conjugal sexual violence is related to the perverse effects of changes in the sexual division of labor and the aggravated double demands on women from housework and the workplace, in relation to the dismantling of the male's role as provider in situations of poverty. In this context, women's refusal to engage in sex (a form of resistance which expresses their desire to be sexual protagonists and communicates disappointment with their partners) can be seen as contributing to the exacerbation of conjugal violence. In their partial position of "subjects of resistance", these women reveal a situation of oppression which is rarely referred to as violence: feelings of disgust and repulsion following sexual relations conceded as "conjugal rights" are similar to those manifested by victims of rape by strangers (which, in contrast, is generally recognized as "sexual violence").