The Discursive Construction of Sexual Violence Against Adolescents in Legal Contexts: Moral Values and Negotiated Meanings of Gender and Violence

Abstract

This article results from the work of the Macrosocial Studies Unit of the Psychosocial Executive Secretariat of the MPDFT and aims to analyze how the discourses of various actors within the legal sphere regarding sexual violence against adolescents negotiate and reproduce socially shared meanings about gender relations, the construction of femininity and masculinity in Western societies, and generational inequalities; it proposes to promote self-reflection within legal institutions in order to improve them and make them more just by understanding the moral values that shape these institutions and are, in turn, shaped by them.