"Como é que não me dei conta disso?" transformando dor em luta: os feminismos como forma de empoderamento de mulheres que vivenciaram violências de gênero

Abstract

The present study consisted of analyzing the process of empowerment of women who experienced gender violence and found in feminism a possible way of overcoming it. From listening to the life stories of self-declared feminist women, the research intended, therefore, to investigate how the encounter of women with feminisms took place, to identify subjectivities in discovering themselves as feminists, to understand the experiences from the crossings of gender violence and to know which strategies are used to reach other women. The theoretical articulation involved contributions from bell hooks, Leone Walker, Joice Berth, Cecília Sardemberg, with emphasis on psychologists in the field of feminist psychology Grada Kilomba, Valeska Zanello and Conceição Nogueira. The methodology used was qualitative and data collection was carried out using the life history method with five interviewees in the remote modality. Five categories of analysis were created, which are entitled, Experiences and the crossing of gender violence; Knowing feminism, the first contact; Becoming a feminist, a (re)encounter of oneself; “I was a feminist without knowing it”; Struggles, challenges and reaching out to other women. Being the analysis of the data aligned to the content analysis method of Laurence Bardin. The results found in this research confirm that, in fact, feminisms have shown to be a great transforming power in the lives of women with a history of violence, intervening significantly in autonomy, self-recognition, influencing and enhancing a critical way of thinking, of being and be in the world. In addition, the influence of feminist thought strengthened the understanding that the personal is also political, and that empowerment is not just an individual process, but mainly, collectively constructed.