Chicas muertas from Selva Almada: On the Normalization of Gender Violence
In light of the reflections on violence and power of Hannah Arendt - "La violencia aparece donde el poder está en peligro pero, confiada a su propio impulso, acaba por hacer desaparecer al poder" (Alianza, 2005), I will approach the impeccable fictionalized chronicle of Selva Almada that delves into the complex mechanisms of the normalization of violence - both real and symbolic - exercised against women. The text focuses on the murder of three teenagers - Maria Luisa, Andrea and Sarita - in the Argentina of the 1980s, but also shows how internalized socially misogynist mental structures are - the patriarchal power in danger derives from violence- and outlines the close links that in the Argentine case have systemic violence against women both with poverty and the rural world and with the previous military dictatorship and state repression of bodies and minds whose imagination also extends to democracy. The author of Ladrilleros puts her finger on the wound and clears with intelligence how patriarchy works and to what extent we can all be accomplices of horror.