Giving a voice to the most silenced violence. Suffering experiences of activists against obstetric violence in Buenos Aires

Abstract

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, women’s activism played a fundamental role in the consolidation of reproductive rights, specifically the laws on humanized childbirth and obstetric violence. Although they have not been officially recognized, the activists were pioneers in raising their voices and pushing to give meaning to the term. They politicized their own experience of suffering during childbirth by naming it obstetric violence, a form of gender-based violence. Moreover, they recognized themselves as victims and made audible the gender mandates and naturalized practices of the care system: being treated as body-objects for reproduction. Thus, we consider obstetric violence as an epistemic, ambiguous category whose meaning has been politically contested by different social actors. The main objective is to analyze -in a gender and feminist perspective- the ways in which suffering during childbirth was recognized by the activists themselves as obstetric violence, together with other women, and was transformed into a political tool with a community scope. To this end, the ethnographic method, as a qualitative methodology, allows us to delve into the reflexivities involved as an approach to the social, to power relations and to the intimate everyday life of the actors. Thus, their testimonies on obstetric violence were a gateway to the development of political networks and militancy on the issue. They played a leading role in the moral dispute over the meaning of obstetric violence, in which their bodies played a vital role.