Ex-votive retablos as support for reporting violence against women

Abstract

Ex-votos are the object of study of this work, they show in their narrative’s scenes of violence against women and represents a historical document of the society, in which they are inserted.  They are configured as a media of social denunciation, an aspect of folkcommunication, that gives voice to people in vulnerable situations and who go through different types of aggression in their daily lives.

Women are one of the main victims of violence within societies. With the outbreak of Covid-19, and the need for home isolation, women were even more vulnerable, becoming victims of their own partners. Violence is expressed in different ways: physical, psychological, etc... Mexico is one of the countries in Latin America that preserves Catholic traditions and has a large production of ex-votos. In this work, five Mexican ex-votive altarpieces will be presented; they have a transgressive character, since its nature runs away from the traditional religious theme.  They will approach themes that are considered stigmatized. From iconographic and iconological studies of these ex-votive plaques, some aspects can be verified: the relationship between violence and abusive use of alcohol, and the perception of the roles assigned to women and men within an affective relationship and in the sociocultural context.