“A Ira da Medusa: Resistências feministas na música de Capicua (2025)” [The Wrath of Medusa: Feminist acts of resistance in Capicua’s music] by Lara Piedade Barbosa Gonçalves | Master Thesis

Abstract: “Societies, both current and extinct, operate based on the historical condition of subordination and oppression of the female gender. Patriarchy is a system that manifests itself in various ways and translates into hierarchisation based on gender, which confers superiority on the male gender and inferiority on all other expressions of gender. Women have led resistance, such as in the feminist and counter-cultural movements. This research is therefore dedicated to the feminist resistance built into Capicua’s artistic work. The objectives are to understand the processes of domination and invisibilisation of women, to understand the agency and resistance of women through the arts and artistic creations as current manifestations of artivism, to analyse Capicua’s work and journey as a paradigmatic case of building feminist artivist resistance in Portugal today and, finally, to explore the potential of art and music as a pedagogical tool for raising awareness in society. This study includes 15 of the artist’s songs, chosen on the basis of three criteria: they were exclusively albums or singles released under her own name with general feminist themes and available on Spotify. A semi-directive interview was also conducted with the rapper. Analysing this corpus revealed the polyhedral claims and resistances that Capicua makes central to her work. The conclusion is that Capicua and her art activist trajectory have become a paradigmatic case of feminist resistance in Portugal. The artist’s personal and professional trajectories appear closely interconnected in the (counter)narratives constructed in her music, which denounce various structures of oppression from an intersectional perspective, as well as calling for feminist resistance, mobilisation and organisation, building new collective meanings of women’s struggle. Pedagogical meanings were unveiled through the artist’s construction of counter-narratives and recovery of feminist memory, in a transversal exercise that seeks to amplify the marginalised voices of society.”

 

This master’s thesis, authored by Lara Piedade Barbosa Gonçalves and supervised by Prof. Dr. Paula Guerra, was defended in 2025 as part of the master’s degree in Educational Sciences at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto. A copy of the dissertation is available in Portuguese in the Open Repository of the University of Porto.

 

Photo: ALICE CES (CC-BY 3.0)

ANO

2025

AUTORES

Lara Piedade Barbosa Gonçalves

EDITORES

Prof. Dr. Paula Guerra