By MANUELA D'AVILA*
The political violence to which female politicians are subjected is even more significant when crossed by racism.
Since 2014, our country has seen the rise of the far right – previously seen as a caricature and isolated in the small private circles of common and reactionary thought – assuming a political protagonism capable of presenting itself as the “only way out”, and an urgent one, of the political and economic crisis that we are experiencing in the world. Figures like Jair Bolsonaro have thus left the circle of folklore of the lower clergy of the National Congress and assumed a messianic role for the majority of the Brazilian middle class and elite.
On the other hand, we see the greatest setback for the popular and democratic camp since the end of the dictatorship in 1985. From the 2014 election to the coup that resulted in the impeachment of President Dilma, it was as if we were immersed in a “great night” – to paraphrase Frantz Fanon – that authorized a growing fascist wave reinforced by misogyny, racism and hatred against the people.
Even those who opposed this could not see a way out. Of course, these issues were already deeply rooted in the structure of our society and were opened there like a Pandora's box of fascism. The perception of many was that we were defeated and doomed to be governed by a wave of extremism that was sweeping the world, without us being able to do anything.
In this context, feminist movements play a central role – the year was 2018, and thousands of women took to the streets in hundreds of Brazilian cities. Their slogans were clear: broad political articulation. Through meetings held online, they sought to build a protective cordon for democracy: on one side, Jair Bolsonaro; on the other, all those who took a stand against his authoritarian ideas. The movement, popularly known as #EleNão, was the largest social mobilization of the last decade and symbolized more than electoral resistance – it represented a historic milestone in the fight against the extreme right in Brazil.
From Achille Mbembe's perspective on Frantz Fanon's ideas, we could say that this mobilization was a concrete gesture of seeking a way out of the "great night" that befell us after the 2014 election period and that paralyzed part of the left. Women thus found a possible path and a space to build resistance.
On the eve of the 2018 electoral process, the political strength of #EleNão may have been decisive in the ticket that I was part of as Fernando Haddad's vice-presidential candidate reaching the second round. That same year, a cycle of research began that highlighted the difference in voting behavior between women and men. In July, 22% of men spontaneously declared that they would vote for Bolsonaro, while only 7% of women did the same.
In October, another survey indicated that, among male voters, Jair Bolsonaro had 37% of voting intentions, while among women the number was approximately half that: 21%, which left him in a technical tie with Fernando Haddad, who had 22%. This difference was consolidated in 2022, when Lula won with 50,9% of valid votes, largely due to the female vote. It is estimated that 58% of women chose Lula, while 52% of men chose Jair Bolsonaro.
When analyzing the voting intentions of brown and black people, Lula's advantage was even greater: 57% to 35%. This leading role of women – especially black women – in the fight against the extreme right is not a detail, but evidence that female resistance, organized based on their own experiences and urgencies, is a driving force for transformation. #EleNão, as an expression of this resistance, not only confronted the authoritarian darkness that threatened to swallow Brazilian democracy, but also lit a light capable of guiding us out of the “big night”, towards a more just, plural and democratic future.
It is therefore possible to state that there is a gap between the political choices of women and men in Brazil. This, however, is not exclusive to Brazil, and the trend affects countries as diverse as South Korea, Germany and the United States. Alice Evans, a researcher at Kings College in London, announces that we are facing a gender gap, which becomes even wider as women and men get younger. These gender-based divergences require from us critical capacity and more complex responses than the finger pointing at women and the so-called identitarianism. After all, it is possible that we will only defeat the extreme right if we understand why women do not adhere to their ideas.
The state of the global economy contributes to this. We know that men and women are socialized differently, and that in a patriarchal society, it is up to men to provide for their families. Faced with a situation of crisis, unemployment and underemployment, jobs that are increasingly unable to guarantee dignity, and the growing inability to leave the parental home, leaderships forged from gender resentment are gaining ground.
These are leaders who attribute male failure to female successes, unable to see women's emancipation as something that benefits society as a whole. Social media, as we see closely in Brazil, is the natural environment in which these leaders exert their influence. Names like Andrew Tate, unknown to many and an icon of Pablo Marçal, form in that environment a generation of men with misogynistic ideas.
In a recent study conducted by Netlab/UFRJ, 76,3 thousand videos, which have more than 4 billion views and 23 million comments, were analyzed, highlighting not only the size of the audience of these channels, but also the profitability of the so-called “machosphere”. In politics, what Marcia Tiburi calls “advertising machismo” is consecrated, that is, more than monetization, misogynists gain votes by disseminating content that encourages perspectives full of discrimination and physical or psychological violence against women.
The dynamics of social networks themselves contribute to men and women having less and less in common and to men becoming more radical in defending their ideas. Previous generations lived together, sharing formative experiences; today's generations are increasingly formed in a fragmented way. With the advancement of data microsegmentation, users increasingly receive content that reinforces their beliefs, based on the connection with their desires and convictions.
This means that sexism is reinforced by what Eli Pariser defines as filter bubbles, that is, an intellectual isolation produced by algorithmic filtering. It is important to emphasize, however, that, beyond this automation that algorithms promote on social networks, they are, first and foremost, a human construction. As Deivison Mendes Faustino and Walter Lippold remind us in digital colonialism, algorithms are “crossed by traditions, subjectively and inter-subjectively shared values, but above all with historically determined purposes”. In this sense, racism and misogyny, as inseparable elements of capitalism itself, seem to be structuring elements in the development process of these technologies.
It is in this world where women and men are increasingly different, where big companies increase their profits through fragmentation and radicalization, where women organize demonstrations against the far right and men are increasingly influenced by misogynistic and racist gurus, that episodes of violence against women in the public sphere have become commonplace. Therefore, I affirm the need to understand the role they play in resisting the advance of the far right in the world in order to understand why they are placed in situations of violence when they occupy the political sphere.
What could be more antagonistic to misogynistic ideas than a woman who leaves the private/domestic space? Who are the spokespeople for this generation of women who are increasingly different from men? Women who occupy the public space. That is why we see female journalists attacked by the president in the “pen” of the Palace, female lawyers persecuted for allegations of harassment, female teachers filmed while teaching.
And, of course, female politicians, the boldest expression of leaving home, after all, they access spaces of power. The political violence to which female politicians are subjected is even more expressive when crossed by racism. These women, who have always been at the base of the Brazilian socioeconomic pyramid, by occupying Parliament at all levels, are the total subversion of what, historically, has been reserved for them.
The 2024 electoral process recorded 13 times more reports of political violence based on gender and race than the previous one. More than 60% of female mayors or deputy mayors say they have already been subjected to violence because they are women. The situations reported are diverse: Liliane Rodrigues, candidate for deputy mayor of Porto Velho, was raped at a political meeting; federal deputy from Rio de Janeiro Talíria Petrone was prevented from participating in her campaign activities while she and her two children were threatened with death.
Áurea Carolina returned to civil society after being subjected to the daily violence that affects women in an environment that does not belong to them. The phrases of support affectionately reproduce the logic that destroys us: you are strong, no one can handle what you can handle, don't give up/we need you. A path that reaffirms relevance without considering the condition of these women's permanence in the public sphere.
Threatened with death or rape, and often seeing their children also exposed to violence, these women live in a situation of political isolation. Detracted from disinformation distribution machines, attacked by political leaders or influencers of the “machosphere”, considered as “identitarians” by progressive sectors, loneliness becomes a companion for these women. In a survey conducted by the institute I preside over, “E Se Fosse Você?”, we monitored the social networks of the main leaders of the Executive and Legislative branches (350 in total) in one of the waves of threats that affected eight parliamentarians. Only 14% of them expressed solidarity with them.
If we assume that the agenda of those who make politics is determined by the opinions expressed on social media, we conclude that this is an unimportant topic, from which they want to keep their distance. In the same period of 2023, Father Júlio Lancellotti received death threats. Both social media and the government mobilized to recognize, correctly and of course, the relevance of his social work. It takes no effort to understand what made him deserving of protection and recognition, while women parliamentarians were abandoned to their fate.
I like O'Neill's idea that Big Data processes encode the past or what is happening. It is an indication that only we, human beings, can invent the future. And this future, not yet codified, is being invented by women, especially black women, who establish social justice above profit and violence. Stopping political violence based on gender and race is paving the way for this new world to be born and humanity to emerge from the "big night."
*Manuela of Avila is a journalist and former federal deputy.
Originally published on the website Other words.
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