The legal structure as tool for dialetic of social changes: achievements of women conducted by legal activism in Brazil

• Grant number: 12/19727-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2012
• End date: November 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Agnaldo de Sousa Barbosa
• Grantee: Ana Carolina de Morais Colombaroli
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Historically, the sexual differences between men and women also represented profound inequality in legal treatment. However, since a more careful reflection, we can see that the contemporary world passes sweeping changes. We are experiencing an important period of historical transition, characterized by frantic changes that are able to profoundly restructure our entire way of life, spanning every area of the globe. One of the most important changes is one that affects the personal scope, that is about the family, sexuality, relationships. Women, in a historical process of struggle, have achieved important gains. Thereunto, they have resorted systematically to the judiciary, the legality appears as a major route of struggle, an important source of achievement of rights and recognition of the differences. Although it may seem paradoxical, the legal structure - androcentric and hegemonic par excellence - has an important role confrontating the gender violence, and represents one of the main weapons against inequality, oppression and domination of women. The project proposes the implementation of a survey that involves literature review, the analysis of jurisprudence and newspapers, looking for news about the gender achievements, in order to study the gender achievements conducted by judicial activism in Brazil, and demonstrate the legal structure, in the current historical moment, as an important instrument of dialectics of social change.