Papers by Maria-José Magalhães
Health Care For Women International, 2016
In this article, we explore professionals’ representations of
elderly female victims of gender vi... more In this article, we explore professionals’ representations of
elderly female victims of gender violence. Semi-structured
interviews were used to explore seven professionals’ work
philosophies and intervention methodologies in their work with
elderly female victims of violence, their main problems and
difficulties, and their perspectives regarding shelters for elderly
women. Results show that there are no specific philosophies
and methodologies to intervene with these victims. There is a
tendency to homogenize all the victims of gender violence,
regardless of their age and specific needs. The professionals also
tended to trivialize gender violence against elderly female
victims, considering that these women tolerate violence.
Violência nas relações de intimidade: crenças e atitudes de estudantes do ensino secundário
Universidade do Porto, 2019
Revista de Estudos Curriculares, 2022
Gender-based violence (GBV) primary prevention has been recognized as a crucial dimension in prof... more Gender-based violence (GBV) primary prevention has been recognized as a crucial dimension in professionals' work in several areas of education, social work, psychology, medical and nurse sciences as well as in the judicial system. However, a detailed analysis of curricula established at undergraduate levels usually shows the absence of providing students with the knowledge and specific skills to deal with gender-based violence victims, namely when involving more vulnerable groups, such as those with cognitive diversity. In this way, more initiatives are needed in this field to fill the gap in professionals' training skills in order to improve the quality of services and give more adequate responses to victims. In this way, the project ATHENA BEGIN was designed to provide evidence-based material for professionals who deal with victims of GBV with cognitive diversity, using a set of complementary methodologies. This paper presents the main findings of the
O Observatório de Mulheres Assassinadas da UMAR União de Mulheres Alternativa e Resposta, publica... more O Observatório de Mulheres Assassinadas da UMAR União de Mulheres Alternativa e Resposta, publica, todos os anos, os dados de mulheres assassinadas, noticiados pela imprensa em Portugal. Considerando o período pandémico que vivemos, e o enorme impacto que sabemos ter na vivência das mulheres vítimas de violência doméstica, o Observatório das Mulheres Assassinadas analisou separadamente os femicídios durante o período de confinamento. Assim, no relatório "Femicídios em Portugal durante a pandemia COVID 19", analisaram-se os dados de femicídios, tentativas de femicídios e ameaças de morte publicadas nos media entre os meses de março e maio 2020. Este relatório está disponível em Português e Inglês.
The Observatory of Murdered Women (OMA) of Women’s Association Alternative and Response (UMAR), a... more The Observatory of Murdered Women (OMA) of Women’s Association Alternative and Response (UMAR), a Portuguese NGO, publishes every year data about murdered women, including femicides and attempted femicides reported by the press. The COVID-19 pandemic has marked the year 2020, and it is extremely important to analyse how the governmental lockdown measures have impacted the reality of people who experience violence in their homes.
The lack of visibility of sexual harassment as violence and a violation of human rights, resultin... more The lack of visibility of sexual harassment as violence and a violation of human rights, resulting in a gap in the public policies in what concerns to the protection of the victims, was the reason for developing a legal comparative study. The first task was to collect and compare the constitutional, penal and labour law on sexual harassment in Portugal, Brazil, Canada, Spain and France, about 115 sections were analysed. The second task was intended to continue the aim of the first one, in order to analyse if the law is being put into practice. Every penal code criminalizes harassment, with the exception of the Portuguese penal code. None of the analysed penal codes has an element of the crime such as to make others to suffer or to have a severe sexual act. With regard to sentences analysed, we found that convictions occurred in cases where it was proven based on: testimonies, written and expert evidence. We believe that policy statements and workshops are the best way to prevent sexual harassment in workplace.
This paper presents a discuss between the findings from a two-fold national study on the acceptan... more This paper presents a discuss between the findings from a two-fold national study on the acceptance of violence and the prevalence of victimization in intimate relationships among Portuguese adolescents and the possibility for integrating these themes in school curriculum. The survey includes a questionnaire (4562 participants) and focus groups with girls and boys from 4 different cities. Findings presented in this paper are crosscut with the three dimensions found as pertinent and relevant in the focus groups: masculinities and femininities, romantic love and adolescence sexualization and jealousy and control. Based on these findings, this article argues for the urgency of introducing intimate partner violence in the formal curriculum as part of citizen education.
O crime de feminicídio tipifica a morte violenta da mulher por sua condição de sexo/gênero. Ocorr... more O crime de feminicídio tipifica a morte violenta da mulher por sua condição de sexo/gênero. Ocorre nas inter-relações privadas e nos espaços públicos, aumentando cada vez mais em sua dimensão deletéria e na exacerbação da vulnerabilidade feminina. Como explicar o número crescente de mulheres assassinadas no Brasil e em Portugal? Em que medida a violência é tolerada como parte da vida da mulher? A manutenção persistente de imagens "tradicionais" – maternal, passiva, amorosa – acaba, ainda, por alicerçar situações subalternas em relação à sua identidade e aos seus corpos. E por que as mulheres são mortas? A violência é cometida, sobretudo, por homens que têm algum tipo de relacionamento com as vítimas: são maridos, companheiros, noivos, namorados, e todos os ex que, diante de um pedido de separação pela mulher, consideram motivo suficiente para infringir sua morte violenta. Crimes de ódio com profunda crueldade têm demarcado o corpo feminino como um "novo" território de vingança. Outra vulnerabilidade das vítimas é a desqualificação em relação às ameaças, violências e ofensas sofridas, somando-se a inoperância e a pouca celeridade do sistema judiciário que provoca ainda forte descrença e impunidade. Nessa direção, realiza-se uma análise comparativa entre o enquadramento midiático de crimes tipificados como de femicídio/ feminicídio ocorridos no estado de Goiás e no Distrito Federal com Portugal, entre os anos 2016 e 2017. Dadas as diferenças históricas, populacionais e estruturais, seguiu-se uma epistemologia de comparabilidade hermenêutica (Esser & Hanitzsch, 2012). O exame das dimensões comuns remete à reflexão acadêmica e à ação política. A análise é desenvolvida a partir das seguintes categorias: aniquilamento simbólico, propriedade sexual ou pertencimento sexual e terrorismo patriarcal ou crime de misoginia.
In the curriculum there is a need to create spaces and moments in the school for citizenship deve... more In the curriculum there is a need to create spaces and moments in the school for citizenship development of students fulfilling one of its main dimensions, educate for a global citizenship which necessarily includes gender violence prevention (Torney-Punta, 2004). Gender and domestic violence are a worrying social problem, with its patriarchal culture, in which distinct roles in society are distinctively attributed to men and women, namely the association of men with aggressiveness and strength, and, in counterpart, women as sensible and affectionate (Barry & Barry, 1976).
Interventions against child abuse and violence against women, Oct 28, 2019
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Papers by Maria-José Magalhães
elderly female victims of gender violence. Semi-structured
interviews were used to explore seven professionals’ work
philosophies and intervention methodologies in their work with
elderly female victims of violence, their main problems and
difficulties, and their perspectives regarding shelters for elderly
women. Results show that there are no specific philosophies
and methodologies to intervene with these victims. There is a
tendency to homogenize all the victims of gender violence,
regardless of their age and specific needs. The professionals also
tended to trivialize gender violence against elderly female
victims, considering that these women tolerate violence.
elderly female victims of gender violence. Semi-structured
interviews were used to explore seven professionals’ work
philosophies and intervention methodologies in their work with
elderly female victims of violence, their main problems and
difficulties, and their perspectives regarding shelters for elderly
women. Results show that there are no specific philosophies
and methodologies to intervene with these victims. There is a
tendency to homogenize all the victims of gender violence,
regardless of their age and specific needs. The professionals also
tended to trivialize gender violence against elderly female
victims, considering that these women tolerate violence.
Prevention of femicide is therefore a complex issue, as ideally all these levels should be addressed. In this chapter, we will focus on some aspects of prevention of femicide in order to highlight a number of avenues for possible action, including femicide fatality reviews, and risk assessment to identify relevant and critical risk and vulnerability factors. In addition, we will address primary prevention as an essential step for challenging patriarchal culture, and developing research, activism and intervention (Fitz-Gibbon and Walklate, 2016).
Our study took place at a par- ticular time, within speci c historical and national contexts, so it re ects the intersections and contradictions that exist in the four countries in the early 21st century. Our research was carried out before the sustained in ow of refugees and migrants over the years 2015 and 2016 met a political response framing migration as an issue of national security, and thus does not re ect the impact of this securitisation process.
We, the authors of this chapter, use “minoritised” intentionally here, to highlight that this is a social process, within which there is a default “majority” which invariably has greater access to resources, including the power to de ne what is normative. Differences are, therefore, not simply variations in practices – such as language, dress, food – but car- ry hierarchical worth, value and recognition. It is these processes which, in the white majority countries of Europe, mean that “culture” is frequently attributed to others or used to “instruct” those who are not the normative majority how the “culture” of the particular country supposedly is. Awareness of this process was part of our deliberations as a group of white researchers, finding ourselves within this framing, whilst seeking to question and challenge it.
Prevention of femicide is therefore a complex issue, as ideally all these levels should be addressed. In this chapter, we will focus on some aspects of prevention of femicide in order to highlight a number of avenues for possible action, including femicide fatality reviews, and risk assessment to identify relevant and critical risk and vulnerability factors. In addition, we will address primary prevention as an essential step for challenging patriarchal culture, and developing research, activism and intervention (Fitz-Gibbon and Walklate, 2016).
Palavras-chave: correntes dos feminismos, reflexão crítica feminista, universidade feminista, feminismo de agência.
É afinal uma questão simples de civilização: poder estar em casa sem medo dos que nos são próximos. Poder confiar no abrigo do afecto familiar. Um privilégio de humanidade que ainda está longe do alcance de muitas cidadãs e de alguns cidadãos (Teresa Pizarro Beleza 2000: 12).
Procura-se situar este debate à luz de uma perspectiva feminista. Colocar a questão nesta base leva-nos a pensar sobre a razão porque as democracias liberais ocidentais não conseguiram atacar o problema da violência contra as mulheres, apesar de o Estado ter pugnado pela cidadania e pelo estabeleci- mento das respectivas condições de garantia da sua realização.
To live in a body — be it male or female — implies a gendered relationship towards bodies; i.e., the understanding of our own body is something different from the relationship we may have with a body of the opposite sex, into which we always look from outside (as the art historian Lisa Tickner suggested in an article published in 1978 - quoted in Nead, 1992, pp. 64-65)?
Does being a man or a woman determine ways of dealing with the body which are basically different? (Cf. women's impotence, within patriarchal society, to keep the protagonism and control of their own bodies, in Berger, 1982; Nead , 1992).
If it does, in which way is this dissimilarity reflected in different behaviours, namely in the wearing of clothes? Furthermore, to which extend do these issues also intervene — albeit unconsciously — at the creation level, i.e. in the work of the fashion designer?
In what way is the difficult question of identity-building — through the relationship with the gendered body — not itself dialectically confirmed (should we say determined?) by stereotypes of male and female, which, being current in society, become explicit at the clothing level (one accepts here the concept of clothing as "system of signs"; cf Lurie, 1992)?
Finally, to what extend and in which way, are Portuguese designers, both male and female, affected by gender questions? For example, is the younger generation more aware of the issue? And, last but not least, is there any space in Portugal for a study of questions related to contextual design?
Esta investigação socorre-se do modelo de discurso pedagógico proposto por Basil Bernstein, para explicar que a prática pedagógica é norteada por regras discursivas de controlo e regras hierárquicas de poder, que medeiam o processo de distribuição e aquisição de conhecimento, entre grupos sociais.
Analisámos como ao longo de 32 meses, em 10 escolas se desenvolveram agências, que incidem nas relações entre sujeitos, entre discursos e entre espaços. A análise parte da recolha documental dos materiais produz idos nas sessões de formação, sendo complementada com reflexões obtidas numa observação participante. A intervenção feminista serviu de base para uma reflexão também feminista e queer sobre a relação entre o conhecimento produzido pelos movimentos sociais, a ação política e as desigualdades sociais. Confirmámos como no contexto escolar as relações de género são entendidas através de categorizações oriundas da educação informal, nomeadamente da família e da comunidade. Este projeto permitiu analisar a interconexão e as contradições entre o
patriarcado e o capitalismo como duas estruturas de poder no sistema escolar, permitindo concluir que um diferente tipo de escola transmite diferentes tipos de relações de género.