Digital patriarchy: from visible to symbolic violence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9584-2026v34n186752Keywords:
Ecuador, Facebook, Cyber-violence, Verbal violenceAbstract
Based on the pyramidal model to explain violence against women, through thematic content analysis, 2,140 comments are categorized in 12 news items (about a gang rape and a femicide) published on the Facebook fanpages of three Ecuadorian newspapers. The positioning of women and men in the face of direct or visible violence is analyzed to understand how they reconfigure it into symbolic or invisible forms. The findings suggest that the toxic disinhibition and permissiveness of interactions in digital social networks encourage men to use aggressive speech acts to attack women. Through language, as a disciplining device, a continuum between direct and symbolic violence against women is established.
Downloads
References
ANANÍAS-SOTO, Cecilia. “Discurso de los lectores de medios digitales ante la violencia policial contra la mujer: ¿otra forma de violencia virtual?” Estudios sobre el mensaje periodístico, v. 24, n. 2, p. 1023-1041, 2018.
ANANÍAS-SOTO, Cecilia; VERGARA-SÁNCHEZ, Karen. “Violencia en Internet contra feministas y otras activistas chilenas”. Revista Estudos Feministas, v. 27, n. 3, p. 1-13, 2019. DOI: 10.1590/1806-9584-2019V27N358797.
AURREKOETXEA-CASAUS, Maite. “San fermines# la manada case: An exploratory analysis of social support for victims of sexual violence on Twitter”. Computers in human behavior, v. 108, 2020. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2020.106299.
AUSTIN, John L. How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
BAÑÓN, Antonio. “Comunicación destructiva y agresividad verbal en la Red. Notas en torno al discurso sobre las enfermedades raras”. Discurso & Sociedad, v. 4, n. 4, p. 649-673, 2010.
BARDIN, Laurence. Análisis de contenido. Madrid: Ediciones Akal, 2002.
BARREDO-IBÁÑEZ, Daniel. “La violencia de género en Ecuador: Un estudio sobre los universitarios”. Revista Estudos Feministas, v. 25, n. 3, 1313-1327. 2017. DOI: 10.1590/1806-9584.2017v25n3p1313.
BENGTSSON, Mariette. “How to plan and perform a qualitative study using content analysis”. NursingPLus, v. 2, p. 8-14, 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.npls.2016.01.001.
BERELSON, Bernad. Content Analysis in Communications Research. Free Press, 1952.
BOURDIEU, Pierre. La dominación masculina. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000.
BOSCH-FIOL, Esperanza; FERRER-PEREZ, Victoria. “El Modelo Piramidal: alternativa feminista para analizar la violencia contra las mujeres”. Revista Estudos Feministas, v. 2, n. 27, p. 1-14. 2019. DOI: 10.1590/1806-9584-2019v27n254189.
BOYD, Danah; ELLISON, Nicole. “Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, v. 13, n. 1, p. 210-230, 2007.
BRAUN, Virginia; CLARKE, Victoria. “Using thematic analysis in psychology”. Qualitative Research in Psychology, v. 3, n. 2, p. 77-101. 2006.
BURT, Ronald. “Models of network structure”. Annual review of sociology, v. 6, n. 1, p. 79-141, 1980.
CASTELLS, Manuel. La era de la información: Economía, sociedad y cultura. Volumen 1 La sociedad red. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1998.
CASTELLS, Manuel. “La dimensión cultural de Internet.” Debates culturales. Sección 1. Cultura y sociedad del consentimiento. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 2002.
CONSTANTINIDES, Efthymio; FOUNTAIN, Stefan. “Web 2.0: Conceptual foundations and marketing issues”. Journal of direct, data and digital marketing practice, v. 9, n. 3, p. 231-244, 2008.
CROSAS-REMÓN, Inés; MEDINA-BRAVO, Pilar. “Ciberviolencia en la red: nuevas formas de retórica disciplinaria en contra del feminismo”. Papers: Revista de Sociología, v. 104, n. 1, p. 47-73, 2019.
ERSTAD, Ola. “Educating the digital generation-exploring media literacy for the 21st century”. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, v. 10, n. Jubileumsnummer, p. 85-102, 2015.
ECKERT, Stine; STEINER, Linda. “Feminist uses of social media: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram”. In: NOVAK, Allison; EL-BURKI, Alaami (Eds). Defining identity and the changing scope of culture in the digital age. Pennsylvania: IGI Global, 2016, p. 210-229.
ECUADOR. Fiscalía General del Estado. Caso Martha. 2019a. Disponible en https://www.fiscalia.gob.ec/caso-martha/. Consultado el 30/11/2019.
ECUADOR. Fiscalía General del Estado. Caso Diana Carolina. 2019b. Disponible en https://www.fiscalia.gob.ec/caso-diana-carolina/. Consultado el 30/11/2019.
ECUADOR. Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos. Boletín técnico de la Encuesta Nacional de Relaciones Familiares y Violencia de Género contra las Mujeres ENVIGMU-2019. Quito: INEC, 2019.
EXPORTCOMMENTS. ExportComments. 2021. https://exportcomments.com/.
FACEBOOK. “¿Qué significa la opción “Más relevantes” en la publicación de una página de Facebook?” [en línea]. Disponible en https://es-la.facebook.com/help/539680519386145. Consultado el 25/08/2021.
GING, Debbie; SIAPERA, Eugenia. “Special issue on online misogyny”. Feminist Media Studies, v. 18, n. 4, p. 515-524, 2018. DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2018.1447345.
HARDAKER, Claire; MCGLASHAN, Mark. ““Real men don’t hate women”: Twitter rape threats and group identity”. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 91, p. 80-93, 2016.
HORAN, Geraldine. “Feminazi, breastfeeding nazi, grammar nazi. A critical analysis of nazi insults in contemporary media discourses”. MediAzioni, n. 24, 2019.
IBÁÑEZ, Jesús. “Análisis sociológico de textos o discursos”. Revista Internacional de Sociología, v. 43, n. 1, p. 119-160, 1985.
INHORN, Marcia. Infertility and patriarchy: The cultural politics of gender and family life in Egypt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
KIM, Elvis. “Democratization and authoritarianism in the information age”. International Area Studies Review, v. 24, n. 3, p. 205-223, 2021. DOI: 10.1177/22338659211026006.
KOROSTELINA, Karina. Political Insults: How Offenses Escalate Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University, 2014.
KSIAZEK, Thomas. “Commenting on the news: Explaining the degree and quality of user comments on news websites”. Journalism Studies, v. 19, n. 5, p. 650-673, 2018. DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2016.1209977.
LAPIDOT-LEFLER, Noam; BARAK, Azy. “Effects of anonymity, invisibility, and lack of eye-contact on toxic online disinhibition”. Computers in Human Behavior, v. 28, n. 2, p. 434-443, 2012. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.014.
MANTILLA, Karla. “Gendertrolling: Misogyny adapts to new media”. Feminist studies, v. 39, n. 2, p. 563-570, 2013. DOI: 10.1353/fem.2013.0039.
MARTÍNEZ-JIMÉNEZ, Laura; ZURBANO-BERENGUER, Belén. “Posmachismo, violencia de género y dinámicas de opinión en los cibermedios. Aproximaciones a la realidad española a partir de la experiencia de eldiario.es”. Teknokultura, v. 16, n. 2, p. 213-228, 2019.
MCCARTHY, Brigid. “‘Who unlocked the kitchen?’: Online misogyny, YouTube comments and women’s professional street skateboarding”. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, v. 57, n. 3, p. 362-380, 2021. DOI: 10.1177/10126902211021509.
MIRANDA-BUSTAMANTE, María; AGUDELO-VIZCAÍNO, María. “Mujer contra mujer: misoginia femenina en comentarios de noticias en Facebook”. Revista de Comunicación, v. 20, n. 2, p. 243-257, 2021. DOI: 10.26441/rc20.2-2021-a13.
MONTERO, Maritza. Teoría y práctica de la Psicología Comunitaria. La tensión entre comunidad y sociedad. Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2003.
NURIK, Chloe. “‘Men are scum’: Self-regulation, hate speech, and gender-based censorship on Facebook”. International Journal of Communication, v. 13, n. 21, p. 2878-2898, 2019.
ONU MUJERES. “Violencia contra mujeres y niñas en el espacio digital. Lo que es virtual también es real”. 2020. Disponible en https://mexico.unwomen.org/es/digiteca/publicaciones/2020-nuevo/diciembre-2020/violencia-digital. Consultado el 21/10/2021.
PÉREZ-RETANA, David; FICOSECO, Verónica. “Violencia y descortesía en redes sociales”. Káñina, v. 45, n. 2, p. 161-181, 2021. DOI: 10.15517/rk.v45i2.47888.
PIÑEIRO-OTERO, Teresa; MARTÍNEZ-ROLÁN, Xabier. “Eso no me lo dices en la calle. Análisis del discurso del odio contra las mujeres en Twitter”. Profesional de la Información, v. 30, n. 5, 2021. DOI: 10.3145/epi.2021.sep.02.
PULEO, Alicia. “El patriarcado ¿una organización social superada”. Temas para el debate, v. 133, p. 39-42, 2005.
REQUENA-SANTOS, Félix. “El concepto de red social”. Reis, p. 137-152, 1989.
SEARLE, John. Actos de habla. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra. 1994.
SULER, John. “The online disinhibition effect”. Cyberpsychology & behavior, v. 7, n. 3, p. 321-326, 2004.
THE BRITISH PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. Ethics guidelines for internet-mediated research. 2021. Disponible en https://www.bps.org.uk/guideline/ethics-guidelines-internet-mediated-research. Consultado el 12/12/2021.
UDUPA, Sahana. “Gaali cultures: The politics of abusive exchange on social media”. New Media & Society, v. 20, n. 4, p. 1506-1522, 2017. DOI: 10.1177/1461444817698776.
VERGÉS-BOSCH, Núria; GIL-JUÁREZ, Adriana. “Un acercamiento situado a las violencias machistas online y a las formas de contrarrestarlas”. Revista Estudos Feministas, v. 29, n. 3, p. 1-14, 2021. DOI: 10.1590/1806-9584-2021v29n374588.
WAGNER, Angelia. “Tolerating the trolls? Gendered perceptions of online harassment of politicians in Canada”. Feminist Media Studies, p. 1-16, 2020.
WE ARE SOCIAL. Digital 2021 Global overview report. 2021.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Revista Estudos Feministas
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Revista Estudos Feministas is under the Creative Commons International 4.0 Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), that allows sharing the work with recognition of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
The license allows:
Sharing (copying and redistributing the material in any support or format) and/or adapting (remixing, transforming, and creating from the material) for any purpose, even if commercial.
The licensor cannot revoke these rights provided the terms of the license are respected. The terms are the following:
Attribution – you should give the appropriate credit, provide a link to the license and indicate if changes were made. This can be done in several ways without suggesting that the licensor has approved of the use.
Without additional restrictions – You cannot apply legal terms or technological measures that prevent others from doing something allowed by the license.
