A violência contra a mulher como expressão do contrato sexual: uma análise da teoria do contrato sexual de Carole Pateman

Abstract

The present dissertation aims to analyse the violence commited against women under the perspective of the “Sexual Contract”, whose theory was developed by the philosopher Carole Pateman, and verify if the violence to which women are submited has its origin in the sexual pact to them imposed. According to the studied philosophical theory, the passage from the natural state to civil society by means of the original social pact allowed men to move into political life, while women were restricted to the domestic environment. In this sense, Pateman argues that women were not part of the social contract, for how much they were never seen as citizens capable of signing it. On the other hand, for family – the core of civil society – to be established, men needed to marry and, in virtue of this need, they allowed women to sign with them the contract of marriage, even though they did not recognize that women had autonomy to do so. By signing the contract of marriage, women subjected themselves to the sexual contract inherent to the first. The patriarchal system resulting from the subjection relationship between the spouses was ratified and evidenced by the capitalist system, which remunerated men’s work while despised the activities performed by women in the domestic environment. The sexual contract also allowed the emergence of the male fraternity, which still is one of the obstacles for the eradication of gender violence. Thus, an attenpt will be made to verify whether it is possible to explain the reasons of violence against women from the theory of the “Sexual Contract” of Carole Pateman