DON’T BE SILENT – a digital feminist campaign that instigates the power of the voice and the speech in the face of violence

Abstract

In Brazil, there is a history of naturalization or even of erasure, of non-registration, of non-recording of violence. As an attempt to escape physical violence, some movements have expanded through contemporary digital feminist policies, activating campaigns that evoke the debate on the silencing of violence or that claim non-violent practices. From a set of digital feminist policies, we have chosen the DON'T BE SILENT campaign. The objective is to analyze this campaign from its guiding statement, in order to understand the historical conditions of possibility that motivate the enunciation of the ability to speak in the face of bodily violence. The corpus of analysis of the campaign, in this article, consists of images and enunciative sayings posted on the profile on digital social networks, such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. For the analysis, we have proposed a methodological approach inspired by the Foucauldian perspective, considering the statement DON'T BE SILENT. The results of the analysis have led us to highlight that the campaign unfolds in two interconnected movements. The DON'T BE SILENT campaign causes a certain fissure. On the one hand, it points out that women can speak, “must speak” and not be silent in the face of violence, signaling that the confrontation to break the silence in the face of violence involves the dimension of care of the self, of a new singular and active political subject who takes action when faced with violence. On the other hand, and at the same time, it shows a new memory, of resistance, highlighting that, in a violent world, the voice, the word, the speech emerge as the first option.