Abstracts

Panel 1
The role of the SUN Programme in preventing sexual violence with adolescents

Eunice Carmo

The SUN Programme (Stand Up Now against sexual violence) is a new sexual violence prevention programme aimed at secondary school adolescents. It is centred on a bystander approach, which aims to train individuals to intervene in situations where there is a risk of violence or where violence has already taken place. Students practise skills such as preventing someone from taking advantage of an unconscious person to have sexual contact, reporting someone who has raped another person or supporting a victim of sexual violence. SUN includes ten weekly 50-minute sessions led by psychologists and researchers trained in the programme’s themes. The topics covered in the programme include sexual and reproductive rights, sexual violence, sexual consent, myths about sexual violence, bystander intervention and empathy for victims of violence. The SUN Programme aims to contribute to the prevention of sexual violence in adolescent populations.

Obstetric racism in the perception of the involved social actors: Development of a substantive theory

Ariane Teixeira

Introduction: Obstetric racism is a phenomenon that occurs throughout the reproductive trajectory of black women, causing precarious access to services and the provision of quality obstetric care. Objective: To understand how social actors experience racism during obstetric care. Method: qualitative research, using Grounded Theory as a methodological reference and interpreted in the light of Intersectionality Theory. Expected results: the aim is to understand the intervening structural conditions in which obstetric racism is immersed; how relationships of racial violence are established during the practice of obstetric care; what the meanings of this type of violence are for the various social actors involved in reproductive care; and how people signify negative experiences. At the international level, this study contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 30, as well as the guidelines of the Unified Health System, in terms of equity and comprehensiveness, because by understanding this phenomenon, we hope to contribute to the creation of a fairer and more inclusive health system for all women and people with a uterus.

Panel 2
Can journalists’ give voice to the voiceless? A case study on journalism’s attempts to represent the Other

Gustava Schwabe

The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists of the United States affirms that journalists should ‘give voice to the voiceless’. However, the institution itself recognises that many of its members advocate removing this expression from the code. That is why, in this paper, the statement becomes a question: Is it possible to ‘give voice to the voiceless’? Through a review of the literature, including works such as Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator, Edward Said’s Orientalism and Gayatri Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak?, answers are sought through a multidisciplinary approach to concepts such as objectivity, informational disorder and representation. In addition, the critical analysis of two reports illustrates how knowledge of the ‘Other’ directly influences news content and can generate the reproduction of hegemonic discourses through the phenomenon called ‘journalistic ventriloquism’.

The media and the care of sexually abused children and adolescents: a preliminary analysis

Marimeire Morais da Conceição

Objective: To describe the use of the media in caring for sexually abused children and adolescents. Method: Grounded Theory developed in the Northeast Region of Brazil - Nordeste, starting in 2022, with the participation of professionals, family carers, children, and adolescents. The interviews were analysed in NVivo by coding and composing the paradigmatic model. Approved by the Ethics Committee. Results: The discovery that children and adolescents have experienced abuse is an emotionally shattering phenomenon, but it also prompts family carers to seek out public safety and judicial services. Faced with the delay in bureaucratic procedures, in an act of desperation, carers turn to the media and social networks to report the crime. This measure intends to gain social support and, consequently, to put pressure on and push forward the legal process. Conclusions: intersectoral services are urgently needed to prioritise cases of sexual abuse to guarantee the rights and protection of young people.

Panel 3
Coverage of Caste-based Sexual Violence. Dalit Rape Survivors’ perceptions of their representations in Indian news media

Sumithra Prasanna

What are Dalit women rape survivors' perceptions of how news media construct the realities of sexual violence? What can their experiences reveal about why they engage with the media? The study utilises a multi-step approach involving interviews with both rape survivors and journalists, guided by the feminist principle of reflecting women's experiences accurately without distortions. The research framework employs a critical qualitative inquiry engaging with notions of injustice to examine how survivors negotiate their identities during media engagements and how media represent survivors. This is in line with the contributions of Donna Martens, Norman Denzin, and Kathy Charmaz, whose approach to critical inquiry is oriented towards helping redress historical, cultural, or social wrongs. A constructivist grounded theory approach undergirds data collection and analyses. Recent scholarship on constructive journalism, journalistic deontology related to sexual violence as well as survivor discourse strategies, will inform the final analysis helping to derive policy recommendations, media guidelines, and avenues for future research.

Feminist Television, Racist Twitter? Diverging Discourses on Sexual Misconduct in the Dutch Media Landscape

Sarah Burkhardt

This paper examines the mediation of sexual misconduct in Dutch media, focusing on the role of social media (Twitter) and legacy media (public broadcasting) in a national media ecosystem. Through a historical analysis of Dutch television (1984-2019) and Twitter discourse (2011-2019), it challenges the assumption that social media promote progressive feminist agendas and discourse. The study reveals that Dutch television consistently advocates for feminist perspectives, portraying sexual misconduct as an "internal" systemic issue, whereas Twitter discourse, particularly since 2015, is increasingly dominated by far-right rhetoric, framing the issue as an "external" cultural threat linked to Islam and the immigration of Arab men. The findings suggest that Dutch television operates as a more "feminist medium" than Dutch Twitter, which promotes hate, racist ideology and populist sentiments. The paper concludes by calling for further research on the intersections between far-right and feminist discourses in both national and global media ecosystems.

“If it was my account with my name, I would be scared for my life”: Queer Online Sex Work in Turkey

Rukaya Al-Zayani

This paper explores modalities of violence against queer online sex workers in Turkey, a context characterised by homophobic and anti-queer politics. Based on narrative interviews and grounded in a feminist understanding of violence, the article illustrates how different forms of violence travel between the online and offline by identifying three spatiotemporal patterns: the offline experience of online violence, the threatening offline, and the merging of online and offline. The article concludes that while the violence is often banal, mundane, and normalised, the impacts are not. Further, broadening the conceptualisation of violence benefits the investigation of how violence(s) travels between the offline and online contexts and where they intersect, thereby contributing to the fields of violence studies, feminist studies, and queer sex work studies.

Panel 4
Image-Based Sexual Violence: A Comparative Analysis of the Victimisation and Reaction of Heterosexual and LGBT+ Individuals

Ana Júlia Torres

The ubiquity of communication and digital technologies has significantly boosted the perpetration of image-based sexual violence (IBSV), offering new ways of practising it and audiences on a myriad of online platforms. This study (N = 210) aimed to analyse victimisation by IBSV and explore reactions to it, particularly among the heterosexual and LGBT+ population. The results show that transgender people and individuals from sexual minorities are significantly more likely to be victimised by IBSV and, in particular, have a higher incidence and prevalence in three of the manifestations analysed (non-consensual capture and dissemination of nude and/or sexual images and cyberflashing). Furthermore, the victims tended to be younger, with no statistically significant differences between genders. Although the majority of people in the sample (58.1%) had been victimised at least once, 97.2% (n = 104) said they had not reported it to the police.

RedPill on Redcast YouTube channel: The Maria da Penha law and false accusations of domestic violence (including sexual violence)

Verónica Ferreira

This paper proposes to explore the discourses (re)produced by Red Pill's masculinist influencers on their YouTube channels, as well as their guests, about the consequences of the Maria da Penha Law - which establishes that every case of domestic and intra-family violence is considered a crime and must be investigated by a police enquiry, referred to the Public Prosecutor's Office and judged by the Specialised Courts for Domestic Violence against Women, or, in their absence, by the Criminal Courts. The focus will be on the repercussions of this law on the lives of Brazilian men, specifically those living between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, who associate the legislation with the issue of false accusations of domestic violence, including sexual violence. The paper is based on part of the post-doctoral research currently being carried out at the University of São Paulo's Centre for the Study of Violence – NEV/USP, which focuses on the discourses and constructions of gender in the universe of Red Pill on Brazilian YouTube.

Panel 5
Trails of Honour and Violence in Santa Maria da Bocca do Monte: deflorations, rapes and kidnappings (1910-1939)

Bárbara Textor

The research looks at gender relations through criminal cases located in the Municipal Historical Archive of Santa Maria (AHMSM), relating to deflorations, rapes and kidnappings. The work aims to analyse social and cultural practises and moral values, considering the actions and narratives that permeate the practises and ‘strategies’ of victims and defendants regarding the crimes in question. Likewise, it is interesting to investigate how the main differences between the three types of crime discussed in the study are constituted, proposing to analyse them separately. This is justified in order to apprehend possible inflexions, but it also stems from the criticism based on the observation that many analyses of the subject do not focus on the typification of the crime and its implications, suppressing particularities, especially with regard to the fine lines that exist between the sexual crimes of defloration and rape, to which the latter loses in projection.

“Womens’s elderliness” navigating new meanings

Ângela Virgínia Brito Ximenes

This work aims to explore the discursive dynamics of visibilisation and re-signification of female ageing produced and negotiated in the context of the Instagram profile entitled #avosdarazao, created and aimed at this audience. This is an exploratory-descriptive case study, based on a qualitative approach that combines a transversal analysis of the object based on three perspectives of knowledge: Feminist Studies, Discourse Studies and Communication Studies. The main corpus of the research is made up of the content produced and circulated in the media communication process of the aforementioned profile above between November 2023 and February 2024. By analysing the messages, textual marks and signs that circulate, both on the social network and in its derivations (videos on You Tube, a published book, interviews for television channels and websites), we seek to understand how new ways of growing old in contemporary life are mobilised and managed. Focussing on this performance, this research aims to provide a theoretical-methodological framework that situates and makes explicit - in concrete places of enunciation - the dynamics of reproduction, negotiation and resistance associated with the dominant representations of female ageing in contemporary times.