Symbolic Violence In Sirlei Dias De Carvahlo Pinto

Acts of violence amongst humans has transcended natural borders, time and has transformed in meaning. While we are often quick to associate violence with its physical definition and powerful images of direct physical harm towards individuals, its roots stem into deeper and darker spaces than the bruises and bodies we see. Physical violence has permeated through history because of symbolic violence. This term represents the “censored, euphemized and socially recognized harm that does not take place overtly and must be disguised under the veil of an enchanted relationship” (Bordeiu, 191). The offensive jokes in good humor that reflect alarming negative stereotypes about groups of individuals represents the presence of symbolic violence, and
its consequences can be detrimental. In fact, in a nation that prides itself on racial democracy and colorblindness, symbolic violence has become the mechanism by which Black and Mulata women in Brazil are placed into cycles of repression. To understand this, we will look at how symbolic violence has played a part in assigning societal roles for these two groups of women. Author Christen Smith introduced the narrative of “Sirlei Dias de Carvahlo Pinto, a 32 year old domestic worker” who was brutally beaten because she had been mistaken as a prostitute by “five, young, upper-middle-class, white-mestizo college students” because she was black (Smith, 1-2).
This narrative of physical violence is indicative of the more deeply engrained notion of symbolic violence against black women in Brazil. These men beat Pinto because they believed as a young black woman in Brazil her space was in prostitution. It is not uncommon “in contemporary Brazil [for] phenotype to be used as the basis for occupational and status based distinctions” (Caldwell, 51). Dark skinned women are often portrayed as either the bottom rung of prostitutes, earning less than mulata sex workers, or as “domestic labor[ers] that historically have ensured the survival and well-being of white families” (Caldwell, 52). Black women are expected to be surrogate mothers or caretakers because of the societally recognized places they have been assigned to. Although these stereotypes do not directly intend to cause harm or violence to individuals, they “grant African women the dubious distinction of being immortalized as domestic servants and sexual objects in nationalist discourse and legitimized sexual exploitation and economic domination” (Caldwell,
56). Black women are not the only ones in Brazil facing symbolic violence for merely living in their skin, mulata women face similar stigmas. Hyper sexualized and expected to pleasure the fantasies of white men; women of brown/lighter brown complexion have been assigned a place in society without being given the agency to decide if they belong there. Unfortunately, symbolic violence has diffused through Brazilian society and became the mechanism to repress black and mulata women in Brazil because, unlike physical violence, symbolic is hard to notice. Symbolic violence is hard to be aware of because “the dominated cannot grant to the dominant.” When women of color in Brazil have only been given knowledge that they are the sex workers and domestic laborers of society, it begins to appear natural instead of violent (Bourdieu, 339). Misconceptions about women of color have been given power in Brazil and became so ingrained that it has given society permission to make decisions about the places these women belong to in society. While these limitations on the potential of women of color in Brazil may not produce visible scars, they continue to have lasting damaging effects.