The uses of silence: Researching sexual harassments against female domestic workers in Brazil
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3161
In questo articolo analizzo l’esperienza del silenzio in due ricerche sul campo in Brasile, a Rio de Janeiro, durante le quali ho indagato il tema delle molestie sessuali contro le lavoratrici domestiche da parte dei loro datori di lavoro. Nella prima ricerca ho intervistato un gruppo di uomini che si auto-identificano come bianchi di classe medio-alta. Con l’obiettivo di studiare i processi di apprendimento della bianchezza e della mascolinità, ho affrontato il tema dell’“iniziazione sessuale” con le lavoratrici domestiche. Gli uomini hanno presentato queste “iniziazioni sessuali” come una forma di “normale” violenza, ben conosciuta nella società brasiliana. Benché per questi uomini fosse facile nominare queste molestie, ho dovuto confrontarmi con il modo in cui essi silenziavano le molteplici forme di dominazione racchiuse in esse (sessuale, razzista e di classe). Nella seconda ricerca sul campo, ho intervistato lavoratrici domestiche e attiviste del sindacato delle lavoratrici domestiche (entrambi per la maggioranza nere) riguardo al problema delle molestie sessuali da parte dei datori di lavoro. A differenza degli uomini, per le lavoratrici domestiche è stato assai più difficile parlare di questo tema: il silenzio è stato il codice comunicativo più diffuso per riferirsi a questa esperienza. Ho dovuto quindi trovare le parole adatte per affrontare l’argomento. Mettendo a confronto queste due esperienze di ricerca, rifletto infine su come il silenzio può essere sia un modo per legittimare relazioni di potere, sia contrastarle.
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
2239-625X
3161
1
en
Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz
Anuac
The uses of silence: Researching sexual harassments against female domestic workers in Brazil
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac
7
Articles
2018-07-24
2018-01-03
2018-07-24
2018-07-24
43-65
1
Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz
2018/07/24
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3161
43
Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy
2239-625X
1
en
65
The uses of silence: Researching sexual harassments against female domestic workers in Brazil
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac/article/download/3161/2970
7
                                               2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65




The uses of silence
Researching sexual harassment against female domestic workers in Brazil
Valeria RIBEIRO COROSSACZ
Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia




ABSTRACT: In this paper I discuss the experiences of silence related to two fieldworks in
Brazil, during which I was investigating the topic of sexual harassment against female
domestic workers by male employers. In the first fieldwork I interviewed a group of up-
per-middle class men self-identifying themselves as white. With the aim of investigat-
ing their apprenticeship of whiteness and masculinity, I asked them to talk about their
first sexual experiences; some of them talked with ease about their «sexual initiation»
with female domestic workers. Men presented these «sexual initiations» as a form of
«normal» violence, well known in Brazilian society. Even if for those men it was easy to
name these harassments, I had to face the way they silenced the multiple forms of dom-
ination included in them (sexual, racial and class). In the second fieldwork, I inter-
viewed female domestic workers and union organizer (most of them black) asking them
to talk about the problem of sexual harassments by male employers. Contrary to the
men who had practiced this violence, for female domestic workers it was much harder
to talk about it: silence was the main code to relate to this experience, and I had to find
out the right words to approach the question. Comparing these two fieldwork experi -
ences I will consider how silence can be at the same time a way to legitimate power re-
lations and to contrast them. I will also reflect on silence’s role in the ethnographic re -
lations.

KEYWORDS: SEXUAL HARASSMENT, SILENCE, RACE, CLASS, BRAZIL.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz
The uses of silence: Researching sexual harassment against female domestic workers in Brazil
2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3161
44                                                            VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ



Introduction
   In this paper I discuss my encounters with silence in two fieldwork-based
research projects I conducted in Brazil, investigating the sexual harassment
of female domestic workers by their male employers 1. In 2009-2012 I inter-
viewed a group of upper-middle class men living in Rio de Janeiro and self-
identifying as white (Ribeiro Corossacz 2018). With the aim of investigating
their apprenticeship in whiteness and masculinity, I asked them to talk
about their first sexual experiences: some of them talked with ease about
their iniciação sexual («sexual initiation», losing their virginity) with female
domestic workers and prostitutes. This topic proved to be key, not only for
investigating certain characteristics of the trajectories of whiteness and
masculinity sketched by interviewees, but also for understanding how ra-
cism, sexism and class inequalities intersect in producing the two social
groups involved: white middle-class men and poor women, mainly black or
non-white2. I therefore decided to delve deeper into this phenomenon by
listening to female domestic workers’ and union organizers’ accounts of
their experiences. In subsequent the second fieldwork (2013-15 and 2017), I
interviewed female domestic workers and union organizers (most of them
black) in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Campinas, Nova Iguaçu and Natal, asking
them to talk about the problem of sexual assault and harassment committed
by employers (Ribeiro Corossacz 2016, 2017).
   In the first research, men presented these «sexual initiations» as an ex-
ample of «normal» relationships of power, relationships they could talk to
me about without particular forms of censorship or embarrassment. As I will
discuss, although it was easy for the men to name these instances of harass-
ment, I had to address the fact that they simultaneously silenced the mul-
tiple forms of domination involved: sexual, racial and class domination and
their imbrication. In particular, the men did not consider their whiteness to
contribute significantly to these instances of harassment, nor did they con-
sider it a relevant factor in their social relationships more generally. In con-
trast to the men who had enacted this violence, for female domestic workers
it was much harder to talk about this phenomenon: silence was their main
code for relating to these experiences, and I was faced with the emotional

1. I wish to thank Anuac anonymous referees for their useful and stimulating comments,
which helped me to improve the paper and further develop my research.
2. In Brazil there are 7.2 million domestic workers, of whom 93% are women, and 62% of
those women are black (Ipea 2011). In 2016, Brazil’s population was 205 million, of whom
46,7% are pardos (dark skin people), 44,2% are white, 8,2% black (PNAD 2016, IBGE).


2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                                45


burden of asking the women to talk about moments of suffering and humili-
ation. I thus focus on these two experiences with the aim of understanding
different uses of silence in researching the same social phenomenon.
   In this article I compare two ethnographic studies involving two hierarch-
ically opposed social groups: white middle-class men and poor, mainly black
women engaged in one of the least valued jobs in Brazilian society. My ana-
lysis thus focuses on the silence produced by individuals belonging to dom-
inant groups and that enacted by members of the dominated group. Al-
though they occupy hierarchically opposite positions, these two groups
maintain a relationship of proximity historically marked by slavery, a rela-
tionship that takes shape within domestic space, namely the home, per-
ceived as a site of affection and intimacy. At the same time, in analyzing the
type of silence found in each experience I also examine my own ethnograph-
ic position in relation to these groups, a position that takes different shapes
within the intersection of class, color and gender.
   In this paper I address silence understood both as «the absence of sound»
in the interview process and as a lack of words to define and talk about spe-
cific aspects of Brazilian social life and individual social lives: whiteness, and
the sexual harassment and assault of domestic workers. I thus use the term
silence to refer to micro-units, such as pauses, as well as macro-units (Sel-
jamaa, Siim 2016: 7), silence in interactions and silence in collective dis-
course. In the latter case I examine the silence that negates the sexual har-
assment and assault of domestic workers as sexist and racist violence, as well
as the silence that surrounds this problem, manifesting as a scarcity of com-
prehensive information about its scope (DeSouza, Cerqueira 2009; Mori et al.
2011; Ribeiro Corossacz 2016).
   Class and race are deeply interlocked in Brazil (Guimarães 2002), and
studies demonstrate that domestic work is associate with blackness and,
therefore, with low status; employing domestic workers is instead associated
with superior social status and whiteness (Santos-Stubbe 1998; Goldstein
2003; Silva 2010). This state of affairs also stems from the historic formation
of Brazilian society, in which domestic and plantation slavery played a cent-
ral role in defining the social hierarchy with African slaves, Indigenous
people and both their descendants at the bottom and European slave owners
and their descendants at the top. As noted by Goldstein “the site of employer
and domestic worker relations is really a site of class formation and differen-
tiation” (2003, 67) in which class always has color connotations. For this
reason, analyzing the way different actors consider and define the sexual
harassment of female domestic workers by male employers also contributes
to a broader comprehension of Brazilian society as a whole.

                                        2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
46                                                       VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


Facing silence in the field
   I encountered various kinds of silence during the interviews. The first was
the silence between my interlocutors and myself as an anthropologist: fun-
damentally, this was a silence that occurred during the interviews when the
participants did not have answers to my questions or when they paused,
began sentences without completing them, or made non-verbal sounds. This
silence was generated by my questions, and in many cases it was enhanced
by my own silence while waiting for an answer; in other words, this silence
was amplified by my choice to wait for my interlocutors to speak. The second
kind of silence is the one surrounding certain aspects of the lives of the
people I met, a silence that took shape when I posed questions about those
particular aspects. In this case, for example, my (female) interlocutors told
me that they do not speak about sexual harassment suffered at the hands of
their employers, or do so only rarely, while the men communicated that their
whiteness is not something they are used to thinking about or talking about
with others. These types of silence were enacted at an individual level, dur-
ing the course of the interview or the person’s life; nevertheless, they consti-
tute collective forms of silence that must be understood as such.
   In tackling the ethnographic experience of silence, I found myself enga-
ging with the banal idea that silence must always be interpreted and that the
ethnographer is obliged to transform it into words in order to include it
among her anthropological considerations. Although silence is a communic-
ative act, this process of transposition deprives it of its communicative side,
its non-verbal character. In order to name it and communicate it to others,
namely readers, silence itself must be set aside. When speaking of silence, in
fact, we encounter the paradox of transposing what is inexpressible, what
one cannot or does not want to name, into the process of writing up, under-
stood as the crowning stage marking the completion of an anthropological
study. In reflecting on her research on witchcraft in Bocage, Favret-Saada in-
vites us to recognize how «ordinary ethnographic communication – verbal,
voluntary and intentional communication, aimed at learning a system of in-
digenous representations – constitutes one of the poorest varieties of hu-
man communication. It is particularly inadequate in providing information
about non-verbal and involuntary aspects of human experience» (1990: 8).
Silence represents precisely one of these non-verbal forms of communica-
tion and knowledge. Seljamaa and Siim’s observations also contribute to this
point when they argue that «language is not the only way to grasp people’s
experiences and to understand cultural practices, nor is it always feasible or



2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                               47


even possible to rely on language» (2016: 6). Other forms of communication
are also involved in producing silence, therefore, forms stemming from
glances, sensations and physical tensions that are difficult to transcribe. Sel-
jamaa and Siim rightly note that «the methodological challenges related to
studying the unspoken point to fieldwork as an embodied experience (Okely
1992) and to the importance of the sensitivity of the researcher» (2016: 10).
   Silence as an ethnographic experience explicitly touches on the emotions
of those who produce as well as those who listen to it. It can also come to
represent a moment of uncertainty for the ethnographer in assessing the
correctness of her own methods and understanding whether it is better to re-
main silent along with those who remain silent or to break the silence. Enga-
ging with silence in the field thus involves confronting the sphere of emo-
tions. My experience is shaped by this maze of forms of conditioning: I re-
acted to silence by thinking that I had asked the wrong questions or been in -
discreet, always trying to keep a record of the emotions and forms of non-
verbal communication that accompanied its production.
   The experiences of silence in the two studies represented different types:
with the men, silence was staged and experienced during the interview while
simultaneously evoking a precursory form of silence shared with others.
During the interviews with the female domestic workers, in contrast, we
spoke about the silence surrounding the sexual harassment of domestic
workers, the difficulties they face in breaking this silence and the fact that
women who suffer harassment often do not report it. In the first case, silence
was the result of the fact that the men were somehow unprepared, catching
them almost by surprise during the interviews; in the second case, instead,
the silence was a known element, it was addressed as a problem or simply
described by the women as they explained how they had faced situations of
harassment. It was not a silence produced during the course of the interview,
it was a silence that the interview set out to explore.

The men’s narratives
   I conducted 21 interviews with men who self-identify as white and upper-
middle class living in wealthy neighbourhoods in Rio de Janeiro. At the time
of the interviews they were aged from forty-three to sixty-year-old. The ma-
jority of them were freelance professionals, but they also included state em-
ployees and one employee of a private company. All of the interviewees ex-
cept for one grew up in families with one or more domestic workers. At the
moment, they were interviewed, all of them employed one or more women
to take care of their houses. These men shared the experience of having lived

                                       2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
48                                                                   VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


their childhoods and adolescence in settings where black people were
present but almost always in the capacity of service workers, and still today
they live in a social landscape where whites and blacks almost only ever
meet within clearly codified circumstances in which the white people occupy
privileged positions and the black people subordinate positions. In the inter-
views, several men described how the female domestic workers were con-
sidered inferior to their families and social environments, and how they were
taught to reproduce these hierarchical relationships from a very young age.
Eight of the 21 interviewees recounted having experienced «sexual initi-
ation» with a domestic worker, and 10 of them with a prostitute. In some
cases, these had been collective experiences in which a group of friends or
cousins harassed or raped a female domestic worker. At other times, they de-
scribed a male relative known to have had sexual relationships with domest-
ic workers, even if this fact was not openly discussed within the family. The
men who had not experienced this «sexual initiation» with an empregada3
nonetheless recognized it as a very common social practice among their gen-
eration.
   The way I was socially classified in terms of color, class and gender played
a key role in shaping how the interview unfolded. As a white, middle-class
Brazilian woman (although currently living in Italy) and university research-
er, these men identified me as one of them, as somebody with whom they
shared a common cultural background. The fact that I was considered part of
the social environment to which the interviewees belonged encouraged dia-
logue, as my interlocutors felt they could refer to supposedly «mutual» per-
ceptions and representations. While this simplified our encounter, in some
cases the qualities they perceived us having in common instead represented
an obstacle to speaking about whiteness. Most of them did not expect me to
consider whiteness an object of research for understanding social relations
and racism any more than they did. At the same time, I noticed that the men
I interviewed felt comfortable talking with me about their adolescent «sexual
initiations», incidents which in reality constituted sexual harassment of oth-
er women4. The fact that I was white and middle-class clearly led them to
think I would not feel affinity with the poor, black women they had harassed.
Rather, they assumed I would more easily identify with their point of view
regarding the «normalcy» of these incidents of sexual assault and harass-
ment.

3. Literally «employed», implicitly domestic.
4. Although it is possible that the men did not report all of their experiences of «sexual initi -
ation» with domestic workers.


2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                               49


   During the interviews with this group of men, therefore, I explored two
different forms of communication: on one hand, a silence surrounding
whiteness and difficulty in speaking about it, when in fact I would have liked
to dialogue about whiteness with more ease. On the other hand, I found the
men exhibited a certain casualness when speaking of harassment targeting
domestic workers, a topic I would have expected to provoke more reticence
and silence. I thus reflected on this distribution of words and silence to un-
derstand what remained unspoken and what was expressed, as well as what
this combination of words and silence revealed about the interviewees’ posi-
tion.
   White people’s silence, understood as a lack of responses or specific ideas
regarding their position within the system of racism and as the socializing
element of racism itself, is one of the most widely studied elements in critic-
al whiteness studies (Frankenberg 1993; McIntosh 1997). Indeed, it was one
of the behaviors I observed most frequently among my research participants
over the course of the interviews. Silence, embarrassment, laughter, pauses,
hesitation, facial expressions of surprise were the most common reactions
when I asked them to define who is considered white, to classify their own
skin color and to describe moments in which they had felt classified as white.
In these cases, silence did not indicate a refusal to answer the question but
rather an inability to engage with questions concerning their whiteness. In
these interviews, silence referred to the obvious, an experience that was per-
ceived as taken for granted, natural, and thus not in need of being defined or
named. In many cases, I did not change the subject but instead tried to find
new paths that would allow my interviewees to speak. Usually, in these mo-
ments of communicational dead-end, the men found a way out by using
class to define whiteness, that is, by evoking social relationships described in
terms of class inequality to outline their position in terms of color as well. I
interpreted this difficulty in talking about their whiteness and subsequent
tendency to define it in terms of class as a reflection of the fact that these
men were sure of their social position as whites: they were subjects who did
not have to think about the privileges whiteness entailed and the con-
sequences these privileges have on others.
   Indeed, the men’s silence about whiteness as a condition of their social
lives must not be understood as solely a silence inherent in the interviews;
rather, it is a form of silence that already existed beforehand. It was clear
that the majority of my interviewees had never asked themselves questions
that exposed their whiteness as a social position, and they expected the
same from me. The expressions of amusement, laughter and silence revealed
that no spaces of verbal communication existed between relatives and

                                       2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
50                                                                VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


friends regarding this aspect of their lives. Therefore, silence was first and
foremost a genuine element of the process through which they had been so-
cialized to racism and their whiteness (Sherover-Marcuse 2017).
   In contrast, when we spoke of «sexual initiation» with domestic workers,
the men were relatively open in describing their experiences, explaining how
they viewed these episodes that they themselves saw as embedded in a con-
text of oppression, often connecting them to the history of slavery. Many of
them described a situation involving power relations in which the domestic
worker was completely subjugated to the desires of her male employers. Ac-
cording to Aécio, having sex with domestic workers was considered
«normal», and Fábio remembers that when adolescent «you perceive that she
has… is a black woman over whom you exert domination». Others recalled
that references to the sexual harassments of domestic workers had been
cloaked in irony, clearly illustrated by the expression TED, terror das
empregadas domésticas5, that demonstrates the air of legitimacy surrounding
these instances of harassment. In the interviews, many men made a connec-
tion between female slaves’ «availability» in the slavery-period fazenda and
female domestics’ «availability» in urban apartments, based on the idea that
a domestic worker is characterized by the obligation to provide both domest-
ic and sexual services6. However, the interviewees’ did not consider the color
of these female domestic workers to represent an important element for un-
derstanding their own experiences of «sexual initiation», even though when
speaking in general terms they identified domestic workers as a group as
black or nordestina7.
   The ease with which they approached this topic can be explained by con-
sidering two factors: my status as a person simultaneously outside of their
world (because I live abroad) and part of it, as they saw me as sharing their
skin color and social background by virtue of my also being Brazilian; and
the status of «normalcy» middle class white people commonly attribute to
this kind of relationship, although the interviewees were careful to clarify
that they had developed a critical stance on it over time as a result of more
recent cultural and social changes. They did not censor themselves when
talking about a situation they recognized as being related to “normal” power
relations and violence. This attitude produces a normalization of this form of

5. The Terror of domestic workers refers to young men harassing domestic workers.
6. For a more detailed analysis of slave owners’ sexual abuse of female slaves, how they were
used to provide first sexual experiences for their sons in the slavery period and how these
incidents of violence were celebrated in literature and naturalized and incorporated into
Brazilian common sense, see Gonzalez 1983; Ribeiro Corossacz 2005 and 2018.
7. A person from Brazil’s Northeast, of indigenous ancestry.


2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                               51


harassment that is clearly conveyed by the use of the expression “sexual ini-
tiation” to refer to incidents of violence. Indeed, not labeling this act as
sexual harassment is part of the process of silencing the phenomenon. Men
also explained to me that, although these episodes of violence were effect-
ively legitimized by their male relatives and the larger culture and made the
butt of jokes among peers, at the same they were supposed to be kept secret
in a way, not considered something to be made public. Mothers were the
ones who most frequently disapproved, however I was not able to gather suf-
ficient information about white middle-class women’s position in relation to
this violence: did they have enough strength to challenge their husbands’
and sons’ harassment of domestic workers? Were they interested in contest-
ing this form of violence against poor black women?
   Therefore, even though the men felt comfortable talking with me about
episodes of sexual assault against domestic workers, they also explained to
me that such practices were often cloaked in silence. However, it seems that
the silence in question here is partial, as this is a phenomenon everybody in
Brazilian society is aware of regardless of their color, gender or class. It is
not a secret, therefore, but rather a topic unanimously treated as something
that cannot be spoken about openly. The tacit silence surrounding the sexual
harassment of female domestic workers serves to ensure that it is not
defined as an illegitimate form of violence. As long as these practices are
considered childish or an example of legitimate violence, it is still possible to
name them.
   This brings us to the question, under what conditions is silence produced?
«The meaning and evaluation of silence is not revealed by its length, but by
the way it is framed by context and co-text» (Crapanzano 2008: 37). In con-
versations with the men interviewed, silence manifested especially when it
came to speaking about whiteness, but it was also evoked, in the form of
something that must be kept hidden, when the men did speak to describe ex-
periences of «sexual initiation» with domestic workers. In this later case, two
different codes of communication existed side by side to produce an “open
secret”: one code that recognized sexual harassment against domestic work-
ers as common practice, and thereby normalized it, and another code that
sought to diminish its significance through joking, thus negating the re-
sponsibility/accountability of offenders. In this case, there is clearly a simul-
taneous movement to both deny and recognize the realty of sexual violence.
Lastly, silence also manifested where experiences of whiteness and «sexual
initiation» intersected: the male interviewees’ silence regarding the color of
the empregadas was also silence regarding their own skin color, forming a
part of the unmentioned whiteness I encountered with when trying to talk

                                       2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
52                                                       VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


about their whiteness. In the interviews, it is clear that the men considered
their own color to be an irrelevant factor in their relationships of «sexual ini-
tiations» with female domestic workers. The context and co-text of these ex-
periences convey the sense of legitimacy the interviewees expressed: para-
doxically, both the men’s ability to describe power relations («sexual initi-
ation») and their lack of preparedness in recognizing and talking about them
(«whiteness») reveal that the interviewees perceived their social position as
legitimate and normal, part of a natural order of things.

The women’s narratives
   For the second research project, I collected accounts from 10 union organ-
izers, all but one domestic workers, and 20 domestic workers as well as two
lawyers who provide free legal services at the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo
offices. The workers I interviewed were aged between 67 and 34 years old,
with a majority of women in their fifties. The oldest of them had begun
working at approximately 8/10 years of age, without having completed com-
pulsory education. Of the 20 respondents, five self-identified as black-
-skinned/negra, six as brown-skinned/parda and five as white or yellow, with
nordestinas making up a majority of this latter category. In the case of four
workers I was not able to ask how they self-identified: of these, two were
black, one nordestina, and one white. Of these 20 women, nine reported that
they had never experienced sexual harassment and assault, but were aware
that it is a widespread problem; 11 said they had suffered harassment or at-
tempted assault at the hands of the husbands of their female employers or
other male relatives. Of the 10 union organizers, three of them had been
sexually harassed by their employers.
   Silence is central for understanding the general conditions of female do-
mestic workers in Brazil. Despite the substantial improvements in labor
rights achieved in recent decades, the entire history of domestic workers’
political organizing can be understood as the effort to overcome the silen-
cing that rendered them invisible as workers and the conditions of exploita-
tion under which they worked (Cornwall et al. 2013). The initiatives launched
by female domestic workers – poor and majority black women – were char-
acterized by speaking out, producing political discourses and making claims
to oppose the dominant white, wealthy representation of their subjectivity,
that is, as figures who are invisible yet maintain a silent presence in taking
care of middle-class white homes and families (Gonzalez 1983). This broader
picture is necessary to understand the obstacles encountered by domestic
workers when addressing the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace,


2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                              53


where silence was the tool most frequently used to manage these forms of
violence. We must, in fact, interpret the prevailing silence surrounding the
issue of sexual harassment as reflecting the extreme difficulty domestic
workers face in naming, and therefore reporting, this kind of violence, and
not as an indication that it does not exist.
   Beginning with my first conversations with union organizers, they ex-
plained that workers rarely speak about these experiences, not even with the
union organizers themselves: according to my interviewees, this silence re-
flects a prevailing sense of shame, not the fact that harassment is somehow
rare or uncommon. In her analysis of racism in Brazil, Sheriff notes that «the
experience of vergonha (shame) and the possibility that it may be exacer-
bated rather than relieved by talking» (2006: 121) is central, although this
alone does not explain the silence surrounding racism. In my research as
well, I found that silence is a way for women to deal with a sense of shame
originating from an experience of violence in which sexism, racism and class
oppression come together. Indeed, union organizers interpret domestic
workers’ silence as reflecting, in part, their awareness that most of society
will not believe them. Naira, a 50-year-old morena woman who had experi-
enced attempted assault on two occasions, explained to me that the position
of domestic workers means that, even when they are in the right, they are
not believed: «because, you know, we are always the ones who end up pay-
ing».
   I approached my interviews with domestic workers with a full awareness
of these elements and the fact that I might cause them embarrassment and
uneasiness. It was clear to me that the phenomenon of sexual harassment
could not be isolated from the broader context of their working and living
conditions, so I concentrated on these aspects in order to explore the prob-
lem of sexual assault in more depth. Crapanzano notes that, in some cases,
the ethnographer realizes that he cannot ask direct questions about the
things he wants to explore. «You have to wait, so you are being silent in the
sense that you are not talking about something you want to talk about»
(2008: 35). In these cases, according to Crapanzano, the issue for the ethno-
grapher’s interlocutors is less silence and more reticence, and in fact I found
this to be true when interviewing domestic workers. I also considered this
reticence to be linked to the structural conditions of the ethnographic en-
counter, about which I was aware: a meeting between a poor and usually
non-white domestic worker and a white, middle-class woman who might
easily be seen as a potential employer. The only way to overcome the com-
plications inherent in this structural social disparity is to be aware of it.
After my first encounters, I fine-tuned my tools for addressing the most del-

                                      2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
54                                                      VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


icate issue during the course of the interview, waiting until the end to ask if
an employer had ever faltou de respeito, «treated her disrespectfully». This
was the most allusive yet clear and effective phrase for addressing the issue
of sexual assault, an issue I knew would be difficult to name and deal with.
The task was thus one of striking a balance that would grant space to both
the aspects of experiences that were most important for the domestic work-
ers and the aspects I was most interested in, aspects which were probably
cloaked in silence. Thus, each interview was an experience of mediating
between speech and silence, between what was possible to talk about and
what was not, an experience in which I constantly sought to avoid putting
my interviewee in a position, that of victim, that would clash with her own
self-perception.
   Depending on the type of dialogue I managed to establish with the inter-
viewee, I was able to address the issue of harassment more or less explicitly.
In raising the issue, I always made clear that I personally condemned this be-
havior. When my interviewee revealed that she had undergone this kind of
experience, I tried to understand how much she was able to talk about this
issue while respecting her emotional state, in other words, how much I could
ask. I was not always able to ask «how did it happen? When? Where? How did
you react? How did the man of the house react?» Indeed, silence was a cent-
ral element: although this communicative act apparently did not provide in-
formation (Pinçon and Pinçon 2002), I opted to accept it in view of the fact
that this silence is part and parcel of the historical tendency to deny and si-
lence forms of violence committed against poor, black women in Brazilian
society. It is also possible that some of the women preferred not to speak
with me about their experiences because we had just met and therefore did
not enjoy a deep degree of intimacy, or because of my specific class and color
position. There were thus two forms of silence permeating this research: a
silence of omission that did not recount certain events, and a silence of allu-
sion that hinted at them but without providing a precise description.
   The interviews revealed that workers’ most common reaction when facing
sexual harassment was to leave the job, often without explaining the real
reasons behind their decision. This attitude stems from the fact that, as do-
mestic workers and activists report, female employers generally would not
believe the accounts of their employees or would deny that the incidents had
happened. In the interviews, female employers appeared in the role of ally in
only a few cases; most of the time, domestic workers and activists described
these employers refusing to believe that the violence had occurred. Aware
that they might very well not be given credit for telling the truth and influ-
enced by the pressure to remain silent, leaving without reporting the sexual

2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                               55


assault represented a way for these women to rebel against the violence and
exert their own subjectivity, a strategy of resistance (similar attitudes are de-
scribed by Mori et al. 2011). Reporting the incident to the authorities repres-
ented a further step that might earn them nothing but frustration and humi-
liation. If the domestic workers find it hard to speak of these experiences
with the female union activists, it is easy to imagine how hard it would be to
face the prospect of reporting the attack to the authorities. In this context,
in fact, words have a public and institutional value: they are tantamount to
breaking the silence surrounding the harassment workers suffer. It is reason-
able to assume that pressing charges with the competent authorities is par-
ticularly difficult, as such an act also represents taking a stand against the
collective silence that has allowed these forms of harassment to pass as
something of minor importance rather than a real problem. According to the
two lawyers, there are very few cases in which domestic workers have de-
cided to press charges and initiative legal proceedings, in part because of
their fear of suffering the associated stigma. The female lawyer from São
Paulo described a case she worked on in which a woman decided to press
charges, after which her husband left her, she lost her job and in the end she
was not able to achieve a fair verdict. Furthermore, it is very difficult to win
such cases: the lawyer from Rio de Janeiro reported that she has never been
able to win a sexual violence case against an employer because it is im-
possible to prove that the incident actually took place. In her opinion, it is
the word of the empregada against that of her employer, and the individual
tasked with judging the case is strongly prejudiced against the empregada:
«Employers of domestic workers are everywhere. They are judges, lawyers,
ministers and politicians». Behind each of these professional profiles is a
man with a domestic worker, a white, upper-middle-class man. The lawyer’s
comments seem to suggest that there is an automatic mechanism of identi-
fication between the man judging the case and the man on trial, an identific-
ation that creates complicity based on their belonging to the same sex, class
and race as well as a culture that makes light of and legitimizes incidents of
sexual violence against domestic workers. Female domestic workers there-
fore choose to remain silent in this context as well. In view of the considera-
tions raised by the lawyers, the workers’ silence represents a reaction to a
situation in which pressing charges would lead not to obtaining justice but
rather to being made to feel even more socially inferior, and thus silence is
part of a strategy of resistance. This was made quite clear by my conversa-
tions with Anazir Maria de Oliveira, Dona Zica, an 80-year-old historic black
leader of domestic workers in Rio de Janeiro, about the difficulties domestic
workers encounter in their interaction with the justice system, specifically in


                                       2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
56                                                        VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


proving that the sexual harassment and assault committed by their employ-
ers actually took place. First of all, she explained, workers find it difficult
even to «report the incident». According to Dona Zica, episodes of violence
against female domestic workers have decreased as compared to the past,
but it is important to keep in mind that this phenomenon is very «well hid-
den» (oculto, in Portuguese). Union organizers’ struggles over the last few
decades have been central to changing the situation and helping domestic
workers, with the result that these women are much better supported in re-
porting experiences of sexual harassment and assault and thereby challen-
ging the culture that silences this phenomenon.
   At this point I would like to examine how women react to sexual assault,
including verbally, to explore how the domestic workers themselves recog-
nize the silence about sexual harassment as a problematic element. Debora,
a 34-year-old morena, started working as an empregada when she was 15. She
described an incident of sexual assault that took place when she worked on a
live-in basis in an apartment looking after the house and the couple’s chil-
dren. The male employer got into the habit of walking into her room, then
one night he came in and tried to molest her. She had the impression that he
was drunk. The morning after, Debora talked to the man about what had
happened. She confronted him, saying that the next time it happened she
would report him. For some time all was well, then one night he tried to mo-
lest her again. The next morning Debora, who had decided to report her em-
ployer, asked to talk with him, but in the end she instead requested that she
be let go. She decided to continue working for the family but no longer as a
live-in, and to justify this change in the eyes of her female employer, who
she had not told about the incident, she gave the excuse that she wanted to
go back to school. Debora completed her account by saying, «Because it is
like that, I specifically see it like that: the man of the house in his place, and
me in my place. But maybe the employer sees us as…you’re there as an
empregada and I don’t know, maybe they end up seeing us as a sexual object
for their use». Through her actions, Debora managed both speech (with her
harasser) and silence (with his wife and the police) in a way that illustrates
her ability to navigate spaces «where the conditions and limits of action and
choice are negotiated, contested and tested» (Seljamaa, Siim 2016: 6).
   Maria José, a 70-year-old, nordestina, came to Rio when she was 20 years
old to escape the drought: «I came from the countryside, I was a young wo-
man with no experience, no boyfriend, and he molested me. It was horrible
because I was in the kitchen washing the dishes and he came into the kit-
chen from his room, naked, that was horrible for me». The sexual harass-
ment went on, with her male employer masturbating in front of her and ask-

2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                                       57


ing her to touch him. It was not possible for me to ask for more information
during our conversations. Maria José wept as she described these experi-
ences. Many years later, by participating in Theater of the Oppressed8 activ-
ities together with other domestic workers, Maria José was able to talk about
these incidents for the first time: «I cried all day because we hold these
things inside and we do not have the courage, we are ashamed to talk about
them». Hearing her story has encouraged other workers to talk about similar
experiences and organize theatrical performances about this issue.
   A key point is the possibility that the women might report the attempted
assault to someone else or even simply scream. Laura, a 54-year-old light-
skinned morena, noted that «lots of women don’t say anything. I told him: if
you try to molest me again, I’ll tell your wife». The man responded, «Are you
sure you’ll tell her? If you do, I’ll fire you. Will you really be brave enough?».
A similar situation was narrated by Zezé, a 71-year-old retired nordestina. In
one of her two experiences of sexual assault, when she asked the male em-
ployer to stop he yelled at her to «shut your mouth, Zezé!» She answered
him: «“I won’t be quiet, because you are there”. He ordered me to shut up
…». The fact that the men in these accounts did not want the women to
speak out indicates that the power they exercise is never truly absolute: wo-
men have the capacity to speak. The men recognize that the women’s ability
to speak up and name this form of violence represents the first step in a re-
bellion that goes beyond physical self-defense, and this is why Zezé’s har-
asser ordered her to shut up 9. Another woman who experienced two attemp-
ted assaults reported that, in one case, the man was afraid: «afraid I would
talk».
   Objecting entails naming these forms of harassment as what they really
are, illegitimate acts of violence. The interview with Dona Zica also revealed
another factor that is key for understanding the dynamics of the silence sur-
rounding these forms of violence: the role color plays in women’s ability to
name them. At the age of 15, Dona Zica moved from the countryside to Rio
de Janeiro to work in a woman’s house, sleeping there every night except for
Sunday when her mother came to pick her up. Her employer’s brother har-
assed her: he would knock insistently on the door to her room, sometimes so
hard that he pushed on it. «I was scared to death, I would never have opened
the door, but I was afraid he would force it open. It was a very serious thing…
in the end I confessed to my mother and she made me leave the job...But I

8. Teatro do Oprimido was created in the 1960s by Augusto Boal in an effort to use theater to
contribute to social change and work for social justice.
9. In the study by Mori et al. (2011) as well, women report that the men who molested them
wanted them to keep silent.

                                             2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
58                                                       VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


was lucky, because he could have come in, and gone through with what he
meant to do». Her mother did not explain the reason why she was taking her
daughter away, making up excuses instead. «At that time you remained si-
lent, period. It happened and you didn’t say anything, understand?». She
told me that today matters are different, in that the union provides informa-
tion and guidance about how to report and talk about this problem. Further
on in the interview she reiterated: «I never protested. I protested by speak-
ing about it with my mother and she took me away from that house». When I
asked about the color of the people she worked for, she answered that they
were white: «one more reason for not believing me, right?». This statement
is the only one, among the multiple accounts I collected, explicitly address-
ing how much skin color influences the definition of who is considered cred-
ible when reporting incidences of harassment, a problem the lawyers and
union activists are well aware of. Dona Zica’s statement implies that the oth-
er components of the family would not have believed her because they were
white and she was black. She thus raises the question of how the color classi-
fication of the subjects involved conditions the very possibility of naming
this violence. As observed by Rottenberg, we need to pose «the absolutely
crucial question of when and where claims of sexual harassment and assault
are heard and whose voices count» (2018). The fact that she spoke about it
with her mother suggests that she knew she would be able to access credibil-
ity, to draw on a network of social relationships, a community, likely to re-
cognize the oppressive working conditions Zica found herself facing. Dona
Zica’s long history of political activism and developing awareness of the ex-
ploitation underlying her job contributes to explaining her choice to reveal
the role racism plays in establishing what is nameable, credible and condem-
nable.
   In our interview, Dona Zica also positioned the question of credibility in
relation to the sense of guilt many domestic workers feel when experiencing
harassment: «in these episodes there is also a sense of guilt that the domest-
ic worker herself feels. Why didn’t I resist? Why didn’t I speak up? Why did-
n’t I do this or that? In general, however, the issue is something else: the
family doesn’t believe the domestic worker». Breaking the silence surround-
ing this harassment therefore means facing the experience of not being be-
lieved, which materializes in the employer family’s accusation that the
workers is a «liar». The family makes her feel «a bit inhibited, because how
could she prove it?...She is completely isolated, how can she prove it?».
   These women’s stories differ in various ways including historical period,
but a recurring element is their awareness of how difficult yet crucial it is for
them to react verbally: for the women who were able to fight back as well as

2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                               59


those who were forced to «hold it inside», naming the attempted violence,
breaking the silence, represents a way of trying to conceive of themselves as
subjects deserving of dignity. This is therefore a form of silence tied to a
situation of oppression, and winning free requires effort: the silence hurts
(Maria José’s tears) or invokes deep feelings of impotence, «because you
know we are always the ones who end up paying» (Naira). The act of posing
questions about this subject is tantamount to breaking the cultural conven-
tion that uses a blanket of silence to deny the existence of this problem. The
difficulty of collecting data about this problem shows that silence plays a key
role in relation to this form of violence. Indeed, silence can represent a lin-
guistic practice for denying that this phenomenon actually constitutes a
form of violence but, at the same time, also a means of resisting it: «silence
and inarticulateness are not, in themselves, necessarily signs of powerless-
ness» (Gal 1991: 176). As Sheriff notes, «silence appears to be experienced as
a form of dissent and defense» (2000: 125) in a context of obfuscation, not
only of sexual harassment as sexist violence, but also of the racism that is in-
volved in them.
   Indeed, if we view domestic workers’ silence in the broader context of the
imbrication of racism, sexism and class inequality they experience, it is clear
that this silence should not be taken as an indication that they accept this
violence, but rather as a way of denouncing the level of oppression these wo-
men experience and their feelings of impotence. Like the black residents’ ex-
periences of racism in the Rio Di Janeiro favela described in Sheriff’s re-
search, «if concrete amelioration cannot be expected, they seem to suggest,
then there is no point in discussing the issue (of racism)» (2000: 124).

Conclusion
   The silence surrounding the sexual harassment of female domestic work-
ers has long been maintained by various actors, each with their own different
and sometimes even conflicting positions and interests. At the same time,
however, it has always been a collectively-produced silence, variously gener-
ated by empregadas, white middle-class men and a culture that obfuscates its
character of violence. As Sheriff notes, «silence demands collaboration and
the tacit communal understanding that such collaboration presupposes»
(2000: 114).
   The domestic workers’ silence is a forced one, a «silence linked to the
overwhelming force of domination» (Sheriff 2006: 129), but it is also the
product of a form of agency enacted in conditions of oppression. The partial
silence white middle-class culture produces around the sexual assault of do-


                                       2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
60                                                      VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


mestic workers is a way of denying the violent character of these instances of
assault and rape and the overall oppression these women experience. On the
other side, men’s silence regarding their whiteness is an expression of the
social power that allows them to avoid dealing with the effects of their priv-
ilege; theirs is a chosen silence that allows them to go on exercising domin-
ance, including in their relationships with domestic workers. In fact, the
men’s tendency to render their whiteness invisible also impacts the problem
of sexual harassment of domestic workers: although the men spoke with me
about this issue in a casual way, they denied the role color and specifically
their own whiteness played both in these forms of violence and in presenting
them as licit. The interviews also revealed that, within the men’s social back-
ground, these forms of violence were treated as an open secret through a
communicational code involving jokes, allusions and indirect remarks that
served to diminish the significance of the incidents. Talking about this viol-
ence using specific communicational modes (joking, laughing, allusions) ef-
fectively reproduces the collective silence about the violent nature of these
acts. The position of white middle-class women in “reproducing” this silence
should also be considered, although this is the only group involved in this
phenomenon that I did not consult directly. By denying that their husbands
and sons harassed domestic worker, female employers would seem more in-
vested in defending their whiteness, class status and family image than con-
fronting their husbands or sons about their sexual harassment of domestic
workers. However, if in so doing female employers are participating in the
racism that diminishes the gravity of this violence against poor black wo-
men, they also reveal themselves unable to confront the male culture that
considers female bodies sexually available. To understand female employers’
position in reproducing the silence surrounding the sexual harassment of
domestic workers, therefore, we must consider not only the role racism and
class inequalities play in relations among women, but also the role sexism
plays in relations between husbands and wives, and mothers and sons.
   Comparing these two experiences of silence, the men’s silence about their
whiteness and the women’s silence about sexual harassment, it is clear that,
while the former are not aware of their silence about whiteness and in par-
ticular the role this silence plays in sexual harassment, the latter do recog-
nize the silence of women abused by their employers. Furthermore, although
domestic workers actively produce silence as an instrument for facing viol-
ence and dealing with prevailing structural limitations in order to react to
this violence, they also acknowledge that this silence is problematic. While
for the men silence is a way of not naming a specific aspect of sexist violence
against domestic workers, namely that of racism, and of naturalizing this ex-


2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                               61


perience of racism, for the women silence is not only a simple absence of
speech; it is an action they take in order to move on. Therefore, we must re-
cognize that silence is used in tactical ways «and grounded in given cultural,
social and economic circumstances» (Selijamaa, Siim 2016: 10).
   Silence can also function as a form of in-group complicity and solidarity:
the men’s silence regarding their whiteness and its role in racism is a way of
reproducing forms of racist oppression by rendering them invisible or cast-
ing them as trivial. The women’s silence, and the ability of the female work-
ers and union organizers to recognize this silence, is a way of embracing the
suffering involved in workplace harassment. It is also an expression of un-
derstanding, of the ability to create a protected space in which women can
comprehend and overcome the structural difficulties entailed in naming
these forms of violence. This silence stems from an awareness of the «dra-
matic differences in the power of opposing interlocutors» (Sheriff 2006: 120).
The domestic workers’ awareness of this silence and the problematic role it
plays in these forms of violence, as part of the overall conditions of exploita-
tion they live under, represents a starting point from which they create the
premises to overcome silence, to encourage self-disclosure and discussion in
environments that are perceived as protected and in which their statements
are recognized and appreciated. First and foremost, these environments are
created and supported by the domestic workers unions, as these organiza-
tions are playing a pivotal role in breaking the silence around the phe-
nomenon of sexual harassment and assault. Given this context, my research
interviews, although conducted by a white middle-class woman, may have
been seized on by the women as an opportunity to grant value and signific-
ance to their experiences, promoting the chance to speak out rather than re-
maining silent.
   The women’s silence about instances of sexual harassment can also be
understood as a strategy for not remembering, a way to forget the violence
they endured, a violence combining sexism, classism and in many cases ra-
cism. In the men’s case, in contrast, their silence regarding their whiteness
in general and the role it plays in their perception of harassment in particu-
lar is a way of affirming their hegemonic position and continuing to render
their whiteness invisible.
   For both of the groups analyzed in this research, silence is a form of
agency; the outcomes in the two cases are much different, however. In the
women’s case, silence is recognized as part of a strategy of resistance, al-
though they also identify it as an attitude that must be overcome in order to
change power relations and their position within them. For the men, silence
and the move to not recognize it as problematic are a way of performing and

                                       2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
62                                                      VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


reproducing their position, of reproducing a pattern of social relations based
on multiple forms of oppression. This kind of silence tends to represent
power relations as inevitable. As Achino-Loeb writes, «silence is a vehicle for
the exercise of power» because it «allows us to believe that the nonspoken is
nonexistent» (2006: 3, 11).
   The casual attitude the men displayed in talking about this assault and
harassment shows that they and the larger environment they belong to con-
sider these acts to be tolerable, albeit troublesome, behavior by virtue of
their being inscribed in power relations they are intimately conscious of be-
nefitting from. Precisely for this reason, the men know that this behavior
might lead to rebellion. This is why some men, as domestic workers recoun-
ted, demanded that their victims remain silent. Although the uneven power
relations are in favor of the male perpetrators, they seek to keep the domest-
ic workers from speaking out. This may be a well-known and tolerated phe-
nomenon in a certain white middle-class culture, but it is nonetheless neces-
sary to keep it concealed as much as possible, even if in the end the «secret»
is common knowledge. Domination is never completely safe from the pos-
sibility that it might be challenged by describing reality. Silence is imposed
to keep this open secret: domestic workers are asked to remain silent regard-
ing these abuses of power, but their silence cannot be enforced altogether.




2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
THE USES OF SILENCE                                                                  63



REFERENCES
Achino-Loeb, Maria-Luisa, 2006, Silence as the Currency of Power, in Silence: The
      Currency of Power, Maria Luisa Achino-Loeb, ed, London, Berghahn Books: 35-
      50.
Cornwall, Andrea, Creuza Oliveira, Terezinha Gonçalves, 2013, “If you don’t see a
      light in the darkness, you must light a fir”: Brazilian Domestic Workers’
      Struggle for Rights, in Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy:
      Beyond the Weapons of the Weak, Naila Kabeer, Ratna Sudarshan and Kirsty
      Milward eds, London, Zed Books: 149-180.
Crapanzano, Vincent, 2008, Engaging with Silence: Interview with Vincent Crapan-
      zano, Interview by Chowra Makaremi, Altérités, 2: 33-45.
DeSouza, Eros, Elder Cerqueira, 2009, From the Kitchen to the Bedroom, Journal of
      Interpersonal Violence, 24, 8: 1264-1284.
Favret-Saada, Jeanne, 1990, Être affecté, Gradhiva, 8: 3-9.
Frankenberg, Ruth, 1993, White women, race matters: The social construction of
      whiteness, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Gal, Susan, 1991, Between Speech and Silence: The Problematics of Research on
      Language and Gender, in Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge, Micaela di Le-
      onardo, ed, Berkeley, University of California Press: 175-203.
Guimarães, Antônio Sérgio Alfredo, 2002, Classes, Raças e Democracia, São Paulo,
      Editora 34.
Goldstein, Donna, 2003, Laughter out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in
      a Rio Shantytown, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press.
Gonzalez, Lelia, 1983, Racismo e sexismo na cultura brasileira, Ciências Sociais
      Hoje. Anpocs 2: 223-244.
McIntosh, Peggy, 1997, White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of
      Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies, in Critical
      White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefanic, eds,
      Philadelphia, Temple University Press: 291-299.
Mori, Natalia, Soraya Fleischer, Ângela Figueiredo, Joaze Bernardino-Costa, Tânia
      Cruz, 2011, Tensões e experiências: Um retrato das trabalhadoras domésticas de
      Brasília e Salvador, Brasília, Centro Feminista de Estudos e Assessoria.
Pinçon, Michel, Monique Pinçon-Charlot, 2002, Voyage en grande bourgeoisie, Paris,
      PUF.
Pinheiro, Luana, Natália Fontoura, Cláudia Pedrosa, 2011, Situação atual das traba-
      lhadoras domésticas no país, in Tensões e experiências. Um retrato das traba-
      lhadoras domésticas de Brasília e Salvador, Natalia Mori, Soraya Fleischer, Ân-
      gela Figueiredo, Joaze Bernardino-Costa, Tânia Cruz eds, Brasília, Centro Fe-
      minista de Estudos e Assessoria: 33-69.
Ribeiro Corossacz, Valeria, 2005, Razzismo, meticciato, democrazia razziale. Le politi-
      che della razza in Brasile, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino.

                                          2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
64                                                            VALERIA RIBEIRO COROSSACZ


Ribeiro Corossacz, Valeria, 2016, Molestie sessuali nel lavoro domestico e passato
      schiavista. Un’indagine tra lavoratrici e sindacaliste in Brasile, in Variazioni
      africane. Saggi di antropologia e storia, Fabio Viti, ed, Modena, Il Fiorino: 149-
      175.
Ribeiro Corossacz, Valeria, 2017, Lutte des travailleuses domestiques au Brésil.
      Racisme, sexisme et inégalités de classe, Journal des Anthropologues, Racisme
      et Sexisme. Femmage à V. de Rudder, G. Guillaumin N.-C. Mathieu, 150-151:
      159-180.
Ribeiro Corossacz, Valeria, 2018, White middle-class men in Rio de Janeiro: The mak-
      ing of a dominant subject, Lanham, New York, London, Lexington Books.
Santos-Stubbe, Chirley dos, 1998, Cor, cultura e sociedade. A questão da etnicidade
      entre as empregadas domésticas, Estudos afro-asiáticos, 33: 51-69.
Silva, Elizabeth, 2010, Maids, Machines and Morality in Brazilian homes, Feminist
      Review, 94: 20-37.
Seljamaa, Elo-Hanna, Pihla Maria Siim, 2016, Where Silence Takes Us, if We Listen
      to It, Ethnologia Europaea, 46, 2: 5-13.
Sheriff, Robin, 2000, Exposing Silence as Cultural Censorship: A Brazilian Case,
      American Anthropologist, 102, 1: 114-132.
Sheriff, Robin, 2006, The Muzzled Saint: Racism, Cultural Censorship, and Religion
      in Urban Brazil, in Silence: The Currency of Power, Maria-Luisa Achino-Loeb,
      ed, London, Berghahn Books: 113-137.
Sherover-Marcuse, Erica, 2017, Towards A Perspective On Eliminating Racism,
      www.unlearningracism.org/writings.htm. Accessed on 15/11/2017.




2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65
                                               2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65




 Valeria RIBEIRO COROSSACZ is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University
 of Modena and Reggio Emilia. She earned her doctorate in social anthropology
 from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales of Paris and the University
 of Siena in 2003. Since 1996 she has been conducting fieldwork in Brazil on
 racism, sexism and their intersection, racial classification in day-to-day life and
 health documents, the notion of race in the nature/culture dichotomy. In Italy, she
 has carried out research on immigration and racism among industrial workers, and
 on the intersection of racism and sexism in male violence against women. Among
 her recent publications: White middle-class men in Rio de Janeiro: The making of a
 dominant subject (Lexington Books, 2018); La produzione del genere. Ricerche etno-
 grafiche sul femminile e sul maschile (edited with Alessandra Gribaldo, Ombre corte,
 2010).
 valeria.ribeirocorossacz@unimore.it




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz
The uses of silence: Researching sexual harassment against female domestic workers in Brazil
2018 | ANUAC. VOL. 7, N° 1, GIUGNO 2018: 43-65.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3161
