There are dangerous stereotypes in both images and words, which instead of fighting male violence against women and gender-based violence, reproduce it.
They can be 'in good faith', even contained in anti-violence campaigns like the many we see for the International Day against Violence against Women on November 25th.
The marketing and communication agency of Bologna, Comunicattive, a feminist company that has always been committed to the issue of gender, has created a small guide to give some examples:
1) Violence is not love.
It is wrong to associate violence with love
through the use of the heart or symbols and images that refer to the idea of a happy couple.
2) It is often thought that the
bruises and wounds
on faces and bodies are misleading and
prevent us from recognizing each other because violence is not only physical.
3) Blood in particular recurs often.
The imprint of the bloody hand is a cliché far from the concrete experience of those who suffer violence
4) There is another recurring symbol in communications on violence.
The mouth shut, sewn shut, erased: it is a paradoxical
blaming of those who do not report
.
5) Even feminist symbols have been transformed into stereotypes.
A pair of red heels is a stereotype
, hundreds of used red shoes and all different ones are not (as in the famous work that gave rise to the image,
Zapatos Rojos by Evelina Chauvet
, now also the title of a film by Carlos Eichelmann Kaiser).
6) And the representation of men who commit violence?
Monsters, primitive men or defenders of morals are stereotypes that deprive men of choice, responsibility and the possibility of change
. For a real contribution to the fight against gender-based violence, these stereotypes must be avoided in journalistic communication but also in daily comparisons on the subject, avoiding spectacularisations, sensationalism.
Stereotyped communication about gender-based violence is part of the problem
.
