La Violencia Simbólica: Undoing the Myth of Passion Killings

The brutal murder of Chiara Páez by her boyfriend sparked the beginning of the feminist movement of “Ni Una Menos” in Argentina. Her body was found buried outside of her boyfriend’s home; Chiara was just 14, she was pregnant and scared, and she was murder by the father of her would-be child. 

That was just the surface; as the trial unfolded, the details of her suffering rapted the country with intrigue. Only twenty hours into the investigation, her 16 year old boyfriend confessed. He told his father everything, how he forced her to take an abortion pill, how he killed her, and how he buried her and misled detectives by tampering with her phone. He confessed to all of it, and he told the police the same thing when his father brought him to the station later that day. 

Yet, armed with all of this knowledge, the judge sentenced this boy to just 21 years. The penal code in Argentina would have allowed the judge to pursue a life sentence, to threaten him with the same loss of life, but instead, he gave him another chance. A clear path to freedom. The judge said that he based his ruling on the perpetrator’s demonstrated guilt and remorse. 

The murder of Chiara began the movement, which soon spread across the whole continent. “Ni Una Menos” has been one of the most well-known forms of resistance against femicide. While it started in Argentina, it has inspired many other feminists in the region to begin their fight. Her death was a wake-up call for the nation, a big red flag that called into question much more than femicide but the state of women’s rights all over the country. 

There was something special about her death, something that shook the core of Argentina. Maybe it was the fear that laid dormant in every mother that their sons could be so cruel or the shock at someone so young following in the footsteps of the hundreds of men that had the same thing. Maybe they realized they had let these sentiments fester for far too long, and this was just the manifestation of that. No one can be sure, but feminists all over Argentina were happy to be supported, and that June, the first march for the “Ni Una Menos” movement was held. 

Art by Manu Ka

What the people didn't know - what they couldn’t until now was that they built around their sons, a society that breeds male violence. Moreover, one that entices us to accept it and be complicit in the actions of patriarchal and structural violence. Piere Bordieu first theorized of la violencia simbolica, or symbolic violence, and it describes perfectly the way patriarchal oppression is built into our language, customs, and worldviews.

For this article, I had the chance to talk with Ornela. She works with the NGO FENA in Argentina to combat the narratives that symbolic violence creates. She described symbolic violence as:

“[La violencia simbólica] básicamente son un montón de prácticas sociales, culturales, psicológicas que lo que hacen sentar las  bases para que las otras formas de violencia sean posibles. La violencia simbólica es la primera de todas las violencias en tanto es la que permite construir la creencia de que alguien vale menos que las otras personas. ”

“Symbolic violence is a bunch  of social, cultural, and psychological practices that lay the groundwork for other forms of violence to be possible. Symbolic violence is the first of all the acts of violence as it allows someone to think that they are worth less than others.”

It is about the small ways we, as a society, not just allow for violence against women but also incite and normalize that violence. It is the understanding that men have unearned ownership over women’s bodies. It is embedded in the very fabric of so many societies globally.

It is the reason that a young man felt he could unilaterally decide that his young girlfriend should have an abortion. It is the reason that he could ever envision murdering her. The same reason the judge’s ruling on this case came years later spat in the face of all of the goodness that sprouted from this tragedy—another notch on the belt of female oppression. 

To say so boldly that you know what was done and you understand its wrongfulness has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and yet find it within yourself to give this boy mercy. It makes a mockery of her suffering, and it fuels a global narrative that seeks to normalize and legitimize male violence.

Symbolic violence is vital to understanding the whole iceberg of violence against women, as Ornela said: “El feminicidio es la más terrible de todas las formas de violencia que pueden haber contra una mujer: significa matarla  por su condición de mujer”

“Femicide is the most terrible of all the forms of violence against women: killing  her just for being a woman.”

A big part of FENA, and by extension, the work of all feminist collectives in the country, is making women aware of this. Symbolic violence is insidious, and it is that embedded nature that makes it so corrosive. It encourages women to internalize and accept their oppression.

Ornela summed this up perfectly, saying;

“Si en un lado tengo a una  persona que no creo que sea superior a mí, y yo, al mismo tiempo, no me creo inferior a esa otra persona es bastante difícil que esa persona me oprima” 

“If, on one side, I have a person that I don’t think is superior to me, and I don’t think I am inferior to this other person, it is very difficult for that person to oppress me.” 

The problem is that there are messages everywhere in the patriarchal system that holds dominion over much of Argentinian society. At every turn, whether it is in your classroom, at home, or on TV, women are encouraged to be complicit in their oppression. Ornela puts this into context, with particular reference to the jokes that are prevalent in Latinx society:

“Todo lo que tiene que ver con la creación de los chistes, de las normas, de los lugares comunes, de las imágenes que nos vemos, de los mensajes que consumimos.”

“Everything that has to do with the creation of jokes, norms, common places, the images that we see, and the messages we consume.”  

The implicit message women are seeing is that their bodies are not their own. This creates problems that stretch far beyond the realm of the crimes themselves. 

Often femicides are reported as “crimes of passion,” a label that coddles and insulates the men involved from the real horror of their crimes. Initially, Páez’s case was referred to in the same way. A young boy overwhelmed and overcome by anger. This is just another way we are creating distance between men and their socially indoctrinated violence. 

Ornela had this to say about the misreporting of these sensitive cases: “Antes hablábamos de crímenes de pasión, ‘La mató por celos’ o ‘No soportó que lo dejara’. Eso también es una manera de violencia simbólica. En los medios por ejemplo, banalizan lo que son los feminicidios, dicen que son crímenes pasionales, que son problemas domésticos, que son temas familiares, que no son problemas estructurales. [...] Tratan de correr la de idea de que te matan por ser mujer, y que te mataron porque tu marido se enojó o ‘es un loco’. Así se normaliza la violencia masculina.”

“Before we talked about crimes of passion, “He killed her because he was jealous” or “He couldn’t stand her leaving him’. That is also a form of symbolic violence. In the media, for example, they trivialize femicides. They say that they are crimes of passion, that they are domestic problems, that these are things you see in a family, and they aren’t structural problems. [...] They try to give you this idea that they didn’t kill her for being a woman; she was murdered  because her husband was angry or he was crazy. This normalizes male violence.” 

Argentinian society is imploring its women to rationalize and accept male violence. In an eerie way, it asks them to simply sit with the idea that the men they live with and love might one day snap and murder them for whatever profoundly personal reason. It is a despicable thing to ask the women of a nation to do, and more and more of them are waking up to it. “Ni Una Menos” is just one reflection of all the many important and prominent ways women are doing away with the idea that they should; “romanticize a myriad of oppressions.” 

As Ornela put it, the country has hit a turning point, or at least a lot of the women have. Women have come to understand that

“No es un loco, no es un enfermo, es un hijo sano del patriarcado.”

“He is not crazy; he is not sick; he is a healthy son of the patriarchy.” 

That hasn’t meant as much as many hoped in the way of actual changes. It has been five years since the “Ni Una Menos” movement began and things have yet to pivot. Femicide rates have reached a ten year high since quarantine restrictions were set within the already fraught nation. This year is set to the worst for violence against women since the nation first began to count femicides in 2012.

One of the greatest challenges faced by the movement is trying to change the heart of the nation. These narratives - the ones that encourage to accept this violence or that attempt to diminish it in hopes of ignoring their true origins are seductive. They entice us to see the world with rose coloured glasses that blind us to the realities of the violence we are seeing. But we must do away with those ideas if we hope to make any real meaningful change. 

That is what FENA works so hard to do. It is about deconstructing the narratives that surround us, and giving women the power to create new ones. A lot of that is rooted grassroots activism, for and by women, but there needs to be more. Argentina is finally understanding what needs to be done, and after this horrific year there are genuine hopes that real systemic changes are on the horizon. 

Art by Manu Ka, Photo by Alejandra Ruiz

In early 2020, the Argentinian government unveiled the Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity. The first issue the Ministry is meant to tackle is identifying the root causes of gender based violence, and devising a plan for that the government might use to prevent the issue from growing. What this ministry hopes to do, in truth, is to undo this myth of passion and fervour and identify the true cause of anti-woman violence. Their true mission, however, is to give women the confidence and freedom they need to be “juntxs y sin miedo,” “together and without fear.” 

As the ministry begins its work in earnest, feminists across the country are looking on with rapt interest -  eager to see what happens. 

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Thank you for reading! This is the latest article in a series on femicide, but we here at the Whorticulturalist encourage you to get involved in these issues. If you would like to learn more and/or donate to any of the movements mentioned here are their donation and website links:

FENA, the organisation that Ornela works for, originally began as a photography project. It has since expanded and they conduct workshops, develop and produce resources, and do the grassroots organising that helps to liberate women from the toxic notions of masculinity and violence that trap them. You can donate to them here. 

NiUnaMenos is much more than just a movement, and the organisation offers lots of resources and opportunities to learn more about the situation in Argentina. They monitor femicide and lobby the government for a host of other women’s rights issues. 

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Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley