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. 

---

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. 

---

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

Stop Saying ‘People’ When You Really Mean ‘Men’

“Humanity doesn’t have a violence problem, we have a male violence problem.”

Humanity doesn’t have a violence problem, we have a male violence problem. It sounds confronting when you hear it put in such clear terms, but denying reality won’t change reality, whereas accepting and discussing it might.

The numbers don’t lie.

Some women are violent, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the majority of violence, whether against women or men, is perpetrated by men.

For those few of you who’ve been living in an alternate universe, I’ve included links at the bottom citing what we already know. Men are a lot more violent than women, across the board. Men throughout all cultures, ethnicities, men of all colours, creeds, and religions are much more violent than women—to each other and to women.

Men are the main instigators of war, commit at least 90% of all violent crime, and behave as though raping women in wartime is an aperitif.

Allow me to pause here for a second to allow the ‘not-all-menners’ to step away from the keyboard. If you’re not a violent man, you’re not under discussion, nor are my fiance, my son, or my brothers. Just as you know when you read an article about scientists searching for a cure for cancer they don’t mean all scientists, you already know “men” doesn’t mean “all men.”

How did this happen?

Nobody knows.

You can posit whatever theories you like, and they are plentiful. All we truly know is that somewhere humanity took a wrong turn. Some men, at some point, decided that the simplest way to get what they wanted was to use violence to get it. And they did that because they could.

Somewhere, at some time, physically stronger men decided that it was okay to harm others if their immediate whims were satisfied. Somewhere, somewhen, men started suppressing the knowledge that women are human too. Other men quickly learned they had to be violent to have their whims satisfied, too.

Women began being taught that defending themselves could lead to being beaten raped and murdered. Of course, women not defending themselves leads to them being beaten raped and murdered too, so women being taught to be subservient just makes it easier for violent men to harm women. But when you live in a society shaped by the most violent men (and we do) that sort of clear thinking logic is difficult to apply.

“It’s tempting to assume male dominance is the natural state of human society. It isn’t.”

We can apply all the theories we want. But the truth is, it doesn’t really matter why we have ended up living in such a dangerous, violent world run by dangerous, violent men. The reality is, we unfortunately do.

Sugar and spice and all things nice—men just can’t help it.

If we all woke up tomorrow and women were just as physically strong as men, many of your cherished myths about what is “natural” female behaviour would be dispersed fast. I know I’ve never remotely resembled a submissive or placid little doll who’d be happy to let you stomp on her rights. But that’s irrelevant because we won’t wake up in that world tomorrow.

However, what is relevant is that violent men are, for the most part, choosing to be violent men.

How many times have you seen the man who just snapped and couldn’t help himself from assaulting or murdering a woman at the local supermarket, church, school run, PTA meeting—or even the local pub? You haven’t. And if you claim to have seen this, you’re in the tiny minority. Even in a place where alcohol is regularly consumed, it is almost unheard of for men to “just snap.”

They wait until the woman is unprotected and choose to assault her away from protective eyes.

On almost every occasion violence occurs, men are choosing that violence. It is a choice. It starts as a choice to use violent language and moves into violent behaviour which ends, a lot more often than it should, in the rape and death of women by men.

Make the link.

The Make The Link Organisation discusses the link between sexist jokes, speech, and behaviours, and more violent behaviours. Turning a blind eye to ugly slurs and insults means you are turning a blind eye to potentially dangerous men.

Please don’t pretend you don’t already know that men who speak in foul terms about women are dangerous men. There is a direct link between sexist or misogynistic behaviours and “jokes” and more dangerous behaviours.

Why It Matters.

Language shapes attitudes. Attitudes shape behaviour. We police ourselves.

Our ape brains accept what the society of other apes accepts as normality. The majority of the time we naked apes will go along with the majority consensus. Blame evolution. Only when we actually make the effort to remove a behaviour from society do we see real change.

Remember when women weren’t allowed the human right of voting? Remember when people smoked everywhere, planes trains and automobiles? Remember the hardened believers telling everyone they couldn’t change anything, it was just the way it was and always would be?

And yet change things we did.

The vast majority of behaviours complied with by societal agreement are not policed by any outside source. It would be an unmanageable system. Without being aware of it consciously, we agree to social terms when approved by the majority, and for the most part, as social apes do, we go along to get along.

And male violence is taught to children, normalised, accepted and winked at, at every level of society. From kindy to the grave we make excuses for and turn away from male violence. The why of that isn’t really the issue. The issue is that we can change this.

And one easy way to start that change is to remove the bubble wrap around speaking about male violence. Stop worrying about hurting men’s feelings. Start thinking about pushing back and changing things for the better.

When reporting the news, commenting on an article, writing a post on Facebook, or out in the real world, indeed anywhere at all, if discussing male violence and male crimes, say so.

Say men kill women. Say men kill men. Say men are responsible for at least 90% of all violent crime. Say men start wars. Say men murder one another in horrific amounts. Say the word men if you are talking about men.

Violence didn’t kill her. A man killed her. Do not use the word people if you mean men.

If you imagine we already do this, I’m afraid you’d be wrong. Really look at the words people use and the headlines. Read things critically. Then name the problem. Let “people” see the extent of the problem the world has with male violence.

A First Step

The first step to forcing those men responsible for most of the violence in the world is to actually speak about their violence as being unacceptable in a loud clear voice. If we make the effort, as “people” to state the facts about male violence clearly, if we call out men for their violent behaviour instead of hiding behind the word people, we drag the problem into the light.

We can only do that by naming the problem. The problem is not human violence. The problem is male violence.

Once in the light, the second step should be speaking up loudly, often and regularly (when safe to do so) on how it is totally unacceptable that these men are so violent. Never victim-blaming. Never pontificating. Simply stating that violent men are disgusting men, they are choosing to be violent, and we want them to stop it. Make it clear that these men should and must stop it.

Shame As A Societal Tool

Shame violent men into being less violent. Shame is a well-studied tool, and it works.

There will always be a small core of resistant psychopaths, those with cognitive issues, and anti-social deviants. But if you bother to make a behaviour unacceptable (as we have in no way done with male violence) over a relatively short time all but the most hardened recalcitrants will, at worst, minimise their behaviour, and at best, stop it.

“Through the lens of evolutionary biology, shame evolved to encourage adherence to beneficial social norms. This is backed up by the fact that shame is more prevalent in collectivist societies where people spend little to no time alone than it is in individualistic societies where people live more isolated lives.”

Not only don’t we shame violent men, but we also glorify them. We glorify them in the media, in our speech, in our leaders. And then we hide male violence behind the word “people.”

The third step—who knows what that might look like. If we can all, collectively, agree to steps one and two, we can collectively find a third step to move forward.

Make the first step. You can do one thing differently. One thing that matters.

Please stop saying people when you mean men. Because the truth, for some, could be a matter of life and death.

---

Sources:

• https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23831740-400-the-origins-of-sexism-how-men-came-to-rule-12000-years-ago/

• https://makethelink.org.au/make-the-link/whymakethelink/

• https://fs.blog/2020/01/positive-side-of-shame/

• https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women

• https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts/

• https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2018001/article/54978/02-eng.htm

• https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/

• https://ncadv.org/statistics

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4628110/

---

Alison Tennent is Scottish by birth, bloodline and temperament, and Australian since 2002 by citizenship ceremony. She’s worked as a counsellor (Grief and Loss), and in disability and mental health for many years. She is an outspoken advocate for de-stigmatising mental health disorders and challenges, and resides in Queensland, Australia, where the weather offers sunshine one day, cyclones the next. You can find a link to her Medium work here: https://medium.com/@besomandbletherskite