Displacing the “Political”

Abstract

According to an old Portuguese saying, in quarrels “between husband and wife, nobody sticks in a spoon,” indicating, in other words, that certain domestic issues are to be kept “private.” Although when applied to domestic violence this is now legally false and despite the many national deaths and injuries to women and children, many social constraints keep the issue out of the national public sphere. The exceptions to this are the police or officially sourced news in the press and the rare occasions when public figures are involved. Because of the awareness public figures can give to the cause, feminists should research the role of the media in the latter cases. This being the opportunity to bring a socially silenced issue to the public fore, we need to understand the role of the media in breaking down the public/private distinction that feminists have long argued for. The article discusses how the Portuguese media covered two such cases of domestic violence involving public figures. By considering both feminist claims and media theory, it argues that media logics and workings must be considered when discussing their role in voicing the issue of domestic violence in the public sphere.