Graffiti and the “Women's Cause” - Maria Irene Ramalho

Maria Irene Ramalho

Professor Emerita, Faculty of Arts, University of Coimbra;

The anonymous graffiti that defaced the walls of CES appeared in 2017-18. 2018 was the year of the 40th anniversary of the founding of CES and a year of great celebrations for the institution and many tributes to its Director. Experts from around the world came to Coimbra to pay tribute to CES and its founder at a colloquium held in the Auditorium of the University of Coimbra Rectory on November 7-10. As the English jurist William Twining, now sadly deceased, said at the time, it is not surprising that, at times such as the celebration of CES's 40th anniversary, students would protest. At the time, there were derogatory signs in the auditorium's bathrooms.

But in this case, there is a moment of “radical feminists” that must be taken into account. The defamatory chapter would later give strength to these “radical feminists,” concerned with the “Cause of Women” for the destruction of the “Patriarchy,” of which Boaventura de Sousa Santos, at the height of his scientific and intellectual prestige, would have seemed to them the perfect symbol. It was, as Isabel Allegro de Magalhães so aptly put it, a case of “voltear la tortilla, which in this case means replacing male domination over women with female domination over men, rather than seeking real parity between the sexes”.

(https://aviagemdosargonautas.net/2025/03/05/ainda-o-ces-de-coimbra-por-isabel-allegro-de-magalhaes/).

What remains to be seen is what powers later took advantage of the “women's cause” to silence a powerful critical voice. Or what other intentions that moment may have had. Who thought of forming the “victims' collective” and how? Once the conclusions of the Independent Commission were known, which did not mention victims or aggressors, only “complainants” and “accused,” letters from the “collective” soon appeared. The second, signed by the Brazilian lawyer representing the “victims,” clearly stated that the work of determining ‘guilt’ had not been done and that it would be up to them, the “victims,” to take on this task. This is also what Élida Lauris said in her interview with NOW last November. It is curious, among many other things, that one of the “victims,” Eva Garcia Chueca, speaks of “micro-abuses,” evidently because she has nothing to complain about, on the contrary, as the published documentation proves.

The truth is that the graffiti was done by two young women with no connection to CES: A. F. and S. C. Both were, however, linked to the Coimbra Feminist Assembly and the Rosa Luxemburg Feminist Republic, where the dominant figure at the time was CES student, now researcher, Gabriela Rocha, alongside other CES female students. On November 25, 2017, the Feminist Assembly promoted a “March for the End of Violence against Women in Coimbra,” subtitled “All together against institutional violence.” Note the word “institutional,” which rightly referred to the famous case of the Court of Appeal's decision, in which a judge justified “a husband's cruel assault on his wife on the archaic and patriarchal grounds of moral defense against adultery,” but which already points to other intentions, as this case is associated by the graffiti with what was allegedly happening at CES. The “Call for participation in the March” ended with the announcement of a get-together and a “Benefit Vegan dinner at the Rosa Luxemburg Feminist Republic,” with the time and place of the gathering and “Press contact.”

It was immediately after the March that the graffiti began. It is hard to believe that two young women, one of them a minor, knowing nothing about CES or its Director, would go to the CES building late at night, with backpacks full of spray cans, to obscenely deface the walls of the institution. Where did the idea come from? Who encouraged them? We know, from the testimony of a woman who was previously involved with the Feminist Assembly and who left it disillusioned with what was happening there, and who asks to remain anonymous, that the graffiti originated there, in the Feminist Assembly. Instead of a shelter for victims of male violence, she says, the Feminist Assembly of Coimbra had become a space for “witch hunts”: a supposed feminist justice that involved doing “justice” to men whom women in the Assembly had for some reason become “disaffected with”. The Feminist Assembly of Coimbra no longer exists.

It is impossible not to think of the “Women's Cause.” In her recent and extensive autobiography, Margaret Atwood has much to say about the “Women's Cause” (Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, 2025). Read what she writes about the case of Stephen Galoway, an award-winning Canadian novelist and professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia, who at one point was accused of sexual harassment by a former student with whom he had in fact had a consensual relationship, and who suddenly finds himself accused by countless women.

When some people begin to realize the falsity of the accusations, contradicting the #MeToo principle that “women don't lie,” a movement immediately emerges demanding that Galoway plead guilty for the sake of the “Women's Cause.” Atwood, who is quick to point out that it is as false to say that “women don't lie” as it is to say that “women always lie,” notes that Galoway, certainly due to certain personality traits, was not even very well liked by many people, including herself. But that did not stop her from co-signing a letter addressed to the University of British Columbia, protesting against the suspension of the presumption of innocence and demanding a serious and fair stance. Which is what happened.

It is worth asking: what kind of re-infantilization of women is this that insists that adult, intelligent, educated, experienced, free, and truly privileged women do not understand that they are being harassed, as the “victims” claim and as some commentators in leading newspapers have suggested among us? How can they decide to contribute to the destruction of a human being whom, until a certain point, they say they greatly admire and to whom they owe so much? And how can they not realize that their attitude undermines the assessment of the many cases of real violence against women that continue to shame us? How many women were murdered out of misogynistic hatred in Portugal in 2025?

Maria-Irene Ramalho^[1]

^[1] Professor Emerita, Faculty of Arts, University of Coimbra;

International Affiliate, UW-Madison (1990-2018); Researcher at CES (1990-2024)