Conceptual disputes on political violence against women in the Latin American context

analytical mapping and contributions to a critical approach to the Brazilian case

Abstract

This article aims to map the main conceptual milestones and disputes surrounding the category "violence against women in politics," with an emphasis on Latin American theoretical production and special attention to the Brazilian context. The analysis reveals the predominance of approaches that link the phenomenon to the recent increase in women’s institutional political participation, treating it as a contemporary reaction to female political presence. This perspective often neglects the historical, structural, and symbolic dimensions of the violence, thus limiting its understanding and the scope of potential theoretical and political responses. Throughout the text, the importance of adopting a critical, intersectional, and context-sensitive perspective is emphasized—one that considers gender, race, class, and territory, as well as the particularities of Brazil's sociopolitical formation. This is a theoretical, qualitative study, employing an inductive method and a historical-structural approach. The article identifies two major blind spots in current formulations: (i) the marginal use of intersectionality as a foundational analytical category and (ii) the under-theorization of symbolic violence. These omissions not only weaken explanatory capacity but also reproduce silencing and exclusion. The article concludes by proposing symbolic violence—manifested through political erasure—as a structural mechanism of patriarchal power and advocates for a critical feminist theory capable of denaturalizing the foundational exclusions of Brazilian politics.