Violent orders: materialist-feminist perspectives on sexualized violence in heteronormative-patriarchal capitalism

Abstract

This paper examines sexualized violence as a societal phenomenon that upholds and stabilizes heteronormative-patriarchal capitalism through a feminist materialist lens. Building on Marxist and queer feminist theories, it argues that sexualized violence is not the ‘other’ but rather a foundational element reinforcing androcentric, heteronormative, and racialized inequalities in capitalist societies. Capitalist accumulation has historically upheld norms of patriarchy and heteronormativity, relying on unpaid reproductive labor and the regulation of bodies within a gendered division of labor. By focusing on qualitative data from interviews with survivors, the paper reveals how sexualized violence operates across five structural dimensions—the public/private-divide, the order of availability, hierarchical social relations, gender binary, and labor—each of which normalizes and sustains sexualized violence and its silencing within social and economic relations. This framework positions sexualized violence as intrinsic to the (re-)production of heteronormative-patriarchal capitalist systems, suggesting that these structures facilitate and silence such violence as a means of preserving social order.

Keywords: feminist materialism, sexualized violence, silencing, heteronormative-patriarchal capitalism.