Feminist activist Brisa Batista took part last Sunday in one of the largest demonstrations held in Brazil against femicide — the daily drip of violence that kills four Brazilian women every day. This time, the sociologist felt supported alongside the thousands of women who took to the streets of São Paulo, Rio, Brasília, and dozens of other cities to express their outrage at sexist murders and the normalization of misogyny… shouting, “Stop killing us.” It was a massive protest, nothing like her lonely protest in 2019.
Back then, the femicide of Elitania de Souza affected her deeply, Batista recalls. It was easy for her to identify with the young woman from Bahia, shot by the boyfriend she had wanted to leave. A university student, Black, an activist. “How could I have lived until now without realizing that this is such dramatic violence?” she thought, astonished. She wanted to shout to the world: “Stop killing us!” — so she wrote the slogan on a sheet of paper, added #Elitania, and at a crowded São Paulo subway station, held the sign high and asked a stranger to photograph her solitary protest. She posted the photo on social media. Her protest didn’t gain traction; the post never went viral.
A string of extremely cruel femicides in just a few days — around the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women — has given unprecedented visibility to the issue. Gender-based violence has reached an unprecedented level of media and political attention.
Images of Tainara Santos being dragged for a mile along a São Paulo expressway by an ex-boyfriend horrified the country; she survived, but both her legs had to be amputated. Allane Matos, head pedagogue at a Rio de Janeiro educational center, and Layse Pinheiro, a psychologist, were shot and killed by a subordinate who could not accept having female bosses. Isabele de Macedo and her four children, aged one to seven, were killed by her husband and their father when he set fire to their family home in Recife. Maria de Lourdes Matos, an army corporal and saxophonist, was murdered by her boyfriend, also a soldier, in a Brasília barracks; he stabbed her and set her on fire.
These extreme acts of cruelty have now struck a nerve. Murders of women at the hands of their partners have made front-page news, dominated television coverage, and become the focus of articles by leading columnists in major newspapers. Among the proposals being discussed are adopting a state pact against gender-based violence similar to Spain’s 2017 model, and implementing a similar integrated care model.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has called for the harshest penalties for femicide and urged men to mobilize against femicides, rapists, and abusers.
In this context, women from diverse backgrounds quickly organized marches on Sunday, December 7, which brought together 10,000 people in São Paulo and several thousand more across the country — a resounding success.
Activist Batista understands well how perceptions have changed because she collaborates on the project Quem Ama Liberta (Who Loves You, Frees You), a social media memorial that commemorates every victim recorded over the past 18 years.
Batista believes there was an underground movement that has now surfaced thanks to a combination of factors, highlighting three women in particular: Supreme Court Justice Carmen Lúcia Rocha, the only woman on the court, who has become a feminist icon in Brazil through her incisive speeches against gender inequality; Mexican President, Claudia Sheinbaum, powerful and a recent survivor of sexual assault; and Janja da Silva, Lula’s wife, who has ensured that more women’s and feminist concerns are included in his political agenda.
Last year, 1,492 women were killed in Brazil by femicide. For the third consecutive year, the daily average reached four women — a grim statistic of four women murdered every day since the start of 2022.
Other forms of aggression have increased significantly, warns Manoela Miklos, senior researcher at the Brazilian Forum on Public Security (FBSP), an organization focused on analyzing violence. “The numbers surrounding the number of lethal victims tell us that violence continues to rise, and that’s important because we know that aggression doesn’t begin with femicide,” she says, drawing attention to the enormous spike in attempted femicides: “Attempted femicides have risen by 19%; cases of stalking by 18.2%. Protective measures for victims have increased by 6%, but violations by aggressors are up 11%,” she explains. “And, furthermore, we must consider that non-lethal violence is more underreported than lethal violence.”
Miklos cites several reasons for the rise in the violence that precedes femicide: “There is a certain rebound effect, a retaliatory effect, due to feminist gains and the rise of communities that promote a concept of masculinity that hates women, along with the rhetoric of leaders who legitimize that discourse.” Meanwhile, in Brazil’s rural areas, far from urban centers where feminist advances have not taken root, traditional violence persists.
Everyone in Brazil is proud of the Maria da Penha Law, a powerful piece of legislation against gender-based violence dating back to 2015, though much remains to be developed. Codified a decade ago, femicide carries the harshest penalty in the Penal Code — 40 years in prison.
Hannah Maruci, a political scientist from the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (Cebrap), argues that public authorities focus on the aftermath of a femicide — the legal aspect, the punishment — which she considers necessary but not enough to eradicate gender-based violence. “There’s a lack of investment in the ‘before,’ in prevention,” she says. “For example, in education. But more than teaching women to defend themselves, we need to teach boys that there shouldn’t be this power imbalance and this hatred so closely linked to the idea of a masculinity that reacts violently to rejection.”
President Lula recently addressed this issue. “We need a national movement of men against the animals who mistreat women and rape daughters,” said the veteran politician during an event at an oil refinery, after recalling the most horrific femicides. Even a Catholic bishop, the Bishop of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, has joined in with a “letter to men,” in which he emphasizes that “masculinity, according to Christian principles, does not dominate, humiliate, control, shout, threaten, or impose fear.”
Year after year, the number of femicides set new records, although the rate of increase has slowed. Miklos, the gender-violence specialist, explains that “when you work with these numbers, seeing a response of this magnitude is encouraging.” She hopes the spiral of violence against women will be recognized as a political issue and enter the agenda for next year’s elections.
Political scientist Maruci prefers not to speculate about whether the spotlight on gender-based violence is a passing trend or the beginning of deeper change: “When media visibility generates citizen mobilizations and political actions, we can begin to glimpse structural changes, but it needs to translate into public policies.”
The most direct way to grasp the high human cost of gender-based violence in Brazil is to visit the Quem Ama Liberta Instagram profile, patiently maintained by Regina Jardim ever since a man murdered her daughter Priscila in 2007. There, she posts brief profiles of the four women murdered each day, ensuring Brazil does not forget Maria Katiane da Silva, 26; Indianara da Silva, 27; Maria Graciele Santos, 25; and Auriscléia do Nascimento, 25…
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