The silence of the law in the oppression of women

an experience from Brazil and portuguese-speaking african countries

Abstract

This article understands the law as a predominantly androcentric and patriarchal arsenal, used historically and in the present as a hegemonic discourse, which has often performed and continues to perform symbolic and real functions of power, allowing various types of oppression through silence or omissions in the regulation and protection of issues important for the safeguarding of women's rights, such as reproductive rights, autonomy rights, and rights arising from the effective regulation of laws against domestic violence. In a way, the law has contributed to the regulation of unfair social security rights, which do not take into account the compensation subtracted or generated by the social and economic cost of motherhood and domestic activities, often not co-opted by social security justice. At the heart of this issue, it is worth noting that the law, controlled mainly by an androcentric government, has contributed to the maintenance of a silent necropolitics, which for a long time did not specifically regulate the problem of domestic violence in countries such as Brazil and most African countries, which did so belatedly. On the other hand, it should be emphasised that the law represents a system of language that shapes and structures social relations through the logic of command and order, controlled by the ideology of male celibacy, which often ignores feminist struggles in the light of a systemic option. In essence, this article aims to critically analyse the role of law in the conquest of women's rights, challenging the functional blindness of the law that supposedly claims liberal equality and freedom, which in turn obscures the differences between men and women in access to fundamental rights and goods. To achieve these objectives, a literature review will be used, combined with interviews and a comparative approach between Brazil and Mozambique.