The masculine domination and the symbolic violence against the woman in the religious discourse

Abstract

Violence against women, presented in this article, is a widely discussed topic in various areas of knowledge, among them the territorial studies, whose objectives are focused on finding solutions which envisage the promotion of women in society, as a person endowed with rights. This paper discusses male dominance which generates symbolic violence against women, present in religious discourse that legitimizes the process of male supremacy, from the historical context of the patriarchal family and the theory discussed by Pierre Bourdieu (2014). This work of Bourdieu presents important elements for analysis of the issue of male dominance in considering the existence of symbolic violence against women, on the assumption that Western societies cultivate the same principles rooted in the Kabyle society, in Algeria, where the author carried out this study, and consequently wrote the referenced book. The methodology used in this study was based on a literature review on the topic. We considered the descriptive perspective to the approach and contributions of Engels (1975), Muraro (2003), Beauvoir (1982) and Belizário (2006), Giordani (2003), Del Priori (1990), Gebara (2000), Perrot (2003), Borin (2007), and JarscheNanjari (2008), among others. It was concluded that male domination was a creation of man with the emergence of the monogamous and patriarchal family, after the short period of matriarchal dominance, in the prehistoric stage. And that, to legitimize and reproduce this social structure, the role of the Christian religion was fundamental with the exhortation to the continued practice of submission and obedience of women to men who, through the symbolic violence, naturalizes and perpetuates this power relationship. The liberation from this male domination can only occur through the liberation of men from the same territorial structures that contribute to this imposition. If women are subjected to a work of socialization that leads to the reduction and denial of their virtues, men are also prisoners of the same structure, and sometimes without realizing it, are subjects of this same representation and violence. The reconstruction of territoriality that protects women's dignity passes therefore through the reversal of social structures which provide and reproduce the myth of female inferiority in comparison with the man. There have been many advances made by feminist movements in the social and political space, but it is also true that there is still a male-domination in all fields of the life of women. After all, if men and women are created equal as human beings, they should share the same territory of equality.