Kathlyn Mayorga's interview with Der Spiegel magazine in which she claimed to have been raped by Cristiano Ronaldo was met with disbelief in Portugal, sparking a wave of support for the national football icon. Mayorga was often portrayed as a self-interested and unreliable woman who took advantage of the #MeToo moment to extort "more money" from the millionaire footballer.

This seminar aims to discuss how certain traditional gender norms, certain imaginaries of sexuality and some rape myths have made it possible to reinterpret the accusation of rape in a case of extortion, in discursive processes that imply the normalisation of the sexual abuse of "immoral women". We will discuss how the intersection of local patriarchal traditions and the neoliberal order produced a morality that normalised the commodification of bodies as a means of social ascension. First, we will analyse the commodification of Ronaldo's body - as a "super-body" and the key to professional success - and how his exceptional sporting performance gave him respectability, a privileged social status and access to the sexualised bodies of women. Next, we analyse the discursive construction of Mayorga's body as a sexualised body of lesser moral and/or commercial value, performing in a professional area considered indecent, and whose inflicted damage could be compensated through money.

This seminar presents partial results of research carried out as part of the projects UnCoveR: Sexual Violence in Portuguese Media Landscapes (DOI 10.54499/2022.03964.PTDC) and Dis/entangling Rape: Sexual Violence in 21st Century Portuguese Literature and Cinema (DOI 10.54499/2022.05885.CEECIND/CP1754/CT0003). 

Readings:

Garraio, J., Santos, S.J., Amaral, I. & Carvalho, A.S. (2020). The unimaginable rapist and the backlash against #MeToo in Portugal. Europe Now: A Journal of Research and Arts. https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/03/09/the-unimaginable-rapist-and-the-backlash-against-metoo-in-portugal/

Garraio, J., Amaral, I., Simões, R.B. & Santos, S.J. (2023). Forward and backwards Sexual violence in Portuguese news media. In K. Boyle e S. Berridge (org.), The Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence. London: Routledge.

Garraio, J. (2023). Our Hero and That Kind of Woman: Imaginaries of Sexuality, Masculinity and Femininity in the Discussion of the Rape Allegation against Cristiano Ronaldo in Portugal. Social Sciences, 12(8):461, https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12080461.

Silveirinha, M.J., Simões, R.B. & Santos, T. (2020). Him too? Cristiano Ronaldo and the news coverage of a rape case allegation. Journalism Practice 14: 208–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2019.1693279

Bio note 

Júlia Garraio is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra, where she integrates the research thematic line on Democracy, Justice and Human Rights. She is co-coordinator of the working groups Policredos - Religions and Society and GPS - The Research Group on Sexualities. She is a fellow (CEEC) of the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) with the project Dis/entangling Rape: Sexual Violence in Portuguese literature and cinema in the 21st century (2023-2028). She is Co-PI of the FCT project UnCoveR - Sexual Violence in Portuguese Mediascape (2023-2025). She is co-founder of the international research group SVAC-Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict. She is review editor of the European Journal of Women's Studies. She integrated the Historical Research Group of the Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church (2022-23). She participated in several projects in the areas of Memory Studies, Gender Studies, Media, Literature and Cultural Studies. She was engaged as a researcher by the projects DeCodeM - (De)Coding Masculinities: Towards an enhanced understanding of media's role in shaping perceptions of masculinities in Portugal and DeOthering - Deconstructing Risk and Otherness: hegemonic scripts and counter-narratives on migrants/refugees and 'internal Others' in Portuguese and European mediascapes.
 

Activity within the Doctoral Programme in Feminist Studies (FLUC/CES)