Patriarchal backlash: Representations of sexual violence on Uruguayan TV

Abstract

The article investigates the tensions between feminist conceptualizations of sexual violence and the persistence of patriarchal discourses that challenge it resulting in a justification of violence and misogynistic representations in a Uruguayan TV program. We argue that the return of conservative discourses that question sexual harassment accusations, reinstate gender differences, and gender inequality by installing a new normativity and naturalization of violence against women. Through the analysis of representations, evaluations, and discourse strategies deployed in two episodes of a high rating debate TV show centered on sexual violence, we show the victims are not recognized as such. There is a recontextualization of the sexual violence situation by which participants in the TV show challenge the policies and practices that have been recently established to prevent and sanction sexual violence. The findings evidence certain cultural transformations in the threshold of moral sensibility that define what is acceptable or not and make visible a patriarchal backlash.