“Medindo forças na enxada, no machado, na foice”: patriarcado e resistência das mulheres rurais organizadas à violência no Alto Sertão alagoano

Abstract

Male violence against women is a complex social problem. Patriarchy underlies the system of domination-exploitation of women all over the world. However, women are not passive subjects of history and remain to invent and reinvent forms of resistance. From a historical materialist approach, this research answers whether and to what extent the organization of rural women in autonomous collectives can resist the manifestations of patriarchal oppression in their communities. To do so, it specifically analyzed the reality of rural women in a small community in Alto Sertão of Alagoas, a highly vulnerable and neglected group, examining how violence is presented, which public policies are aimed at confronting this violence in the countryside, and how this collective organization takes place. As a methodology, it used bibliographical research to study the participation of women in peasant movement, patriarchy and its intertwining with capitalism, colonialism and racism, and male violence against women; documentary research for the analysis of public policies aimed at rural women; and field research focused on rural communities in the Alto Sertão of Alagoas, with the use of individual in-depth interviews, individual interviews with a semi-structured script and interviews under the focus group technique, participant observation, production of a field diary and photographic records. As a result, it is possible to affirm that public policies aimed at confronting violence against women are practically non-existent in the Sertão of Alagoas, whose political formation imposes a culture of violence. It was also possible to observe that the organization of rural women in autonomous collectives in the Alto Sertão of Alagoas is capable of resisting the manifestations of patriarchy in their communities and is, little by little, searching for a new communitarian way of living with dignity.