Gossip

In the same way that the word “respect” reveals the role of physical force in the network of symbolic exchanges, another word, heard everywhere in the mouth of women, gives us insight as to the female counterpart of male violence: fofoca, or gossip.

People say:

“So-and-so left the neighborhood because of the fofoca.”

“I don't visit the neighbors because I don't want to get mixed up in the local fofoca.”

“My husband lost his job because of some fofoca his colleague spread about him.”

Gossip includes the narratives about the real or imagined behavior of others. It is al­ways seen as negative, designed to harm specific individuals. No one considers himself a gossip fofoqueiro), but everyone agrees, gossip is a constant and all-pervasive presence in the neighborhood.

From the researcher's point of view, gossip has positive functions in this setting: it creates a sort of social history of the group. Thus, the anecdotes about murder, conjugal infidelity, and so on, constitute a sort of historical corpus with which the residents iden­tify. Furthermore, gossip helps define the limits of the group—you don't gossip, after all, about outsiders because they are not submitted to the same norm. To be the object, as well as the perpetrator, of gossip are both ways of being integrated into the group. Handman (1983), in her study of violence and wiliness (ruse) in a Greek village, under­lines the educational aspect of gossip. Adults do not teach their children morality through any sort of didactic lectures. It is rather through gossip that the young pick up nuances about the group's moral principles. Hannerz (1967), in his study of an urban black com­munity in the United States, suggests that gossip may be an important element in the communication system, especially among the illiterate. It is thus that one discovers the new address of a lost cousin, the whereabouts of old friends, places to avoid, and good deals.

Reputation: Gossip as counterbalance to physical force

Certainly, one's reputation has very serious consequences when up against “external agents.” It has great influence on the police reports that decide what to do with a child picked up for vagrancy, or with a teenager on his first arrest—his good reputation may be a deciding factor. Within the vila limits, it also plays a fundamental role. As suggested above, a man's pride depends on public recognition of his courage, virility, and generos­ity; a woman's pride depends on the recognition of her maternal achievements and housekeeping. To besmirch a person's name, referring to one or another of these attrib­utes, strikes at a person's core. It is as though the words that shape his public image had the magic power to wound him physically.

This perspective brings out a female form of power since, although men have the up­per hand in terms of violence, women have the power to make or break a man's reputa­tion. Here, we are not referring to the passive process by which, in certain Mediterranean societies, a woman's virtue is the pivot of her male relatives' honor, but rather to the very active role women play in spreading gossip. Their role is all the more important because, according to masculine dictates, a modest fellow should not toot his own horn. On the contrary, a man is likely to kid about his own defects: his laziness, his wild spending, his irresponsibility—exactly because his wife's (or sister's) role is to contradict him—to af­firm he is a hard worker, a generous husband, a responsible father.

Women are supposed to gossip, not men. A gossipy man is looked down upon. The virile form of criticism is through direct confrontation, and woe to the unfortunate fellow who does not have the brawn to back up his insults.

Whereas a man imposes his will though brute strength, a woman imposes hers by manipulating (or threatening to manipulate) public opinion. Moema, distressed by the fact that her husband was hanging out with the maconheiros, waged a slur campaign against the local gang. Dora, a betrayed wife dared not criticize her husband, but she did everything she could to mobilize public opinion against her rival. Jane, trying to recover her child who long since was living with a foster mother, set in motion rumors that the foster mother was unloving and incompetent. Cica whose husband had blackened her eye for the first time in ten years, made a point of showing her bruises to the whole block. Adao, roughed up by his son, did likewise. It is, however, a delicate balance between the gossip of the meek and the potential clout of the strong.

The gossiping woman must not go beyond permitted limits. She can be pretty sure that what she says will reach her victim's ears. Often it is even within a person's design to thus aim indirect insults of more or less recognized origin at an erstwhile enemy—and, in this respect, the local network of communication is most obliging. But, just to play it safe, it is best to play up the inherent vagueness of gossip. A gossip drops hints and lets the public draw its own conclusions. For example, no one will say “So and so is a thief.” Rather, they will leave a sentence dangling in the middle: “People say that fellow hangs out with those who...,” completing the phrase with a furtive gesture suggesting theft. (Such insinuations, after all, are not necessarily harmful unless they are made around “outsiders” who might call in the police.) One of the gossip's favorite tactics is to dam­age another person's public image by donning him with a nickname.

Whereas reputation is important for a man, it is crucial for a woman. Reputation de­fines the upright citizens of the neighborhood—those who are worthy of being included in the networks of mutual aid and protection. The exclusion from community networks is one of the worst punishments one can inflict on a woman. A cranky old lady who com­plained incessantly about the “bandits,” and who had been more than once to the police with accusations against her neighbors, was branded a witch with the death of several babies to her account. Although feeble and often entirely alone, the neighbors gave her no help; on the contrary, she was the object of daily hassling, theft, and petty violence. Another woman, referred to as “the beast” because of her gossip and lack of sociability, did not benefit from the local information circuits when her husband was arrested for robbery. One of her neighbors explained to me: “I knew that Maria's lawyer would do no good. Everyone knows that lawyer just spends your money and never gets results. But I wasn't going to tell her.” Other neighbors expressed similar sentiments: “I knew that Wednesdays they don't let kids in to visit at the Penal Colony [150 km from the city]. I saw she was going to lose her time and money, but too bad for her. After all the dirt she's spread about me, she doesn't deserve my help.” When Sara, a seventeen-year-old girl, well into her third pregnancy, was stabbed by her live-in companion, one of her neighbors remarked: “She had it coming. She's a tramp, an alcoholic. I've seen her with ten different fellows in the vacant lot out back.” But the real motive for scorn comes at the end of this string of accusations: “Anyhow, she's a thief. She came to grandmother Vera's birthday party and left with the radio.

There exist common moral principles that are not linked to individual personal pride. I already mentioned the inviolability of children and pregnant women. Death is also re­spected. When a woman let her husband be buried as an indigent, without a coffin, eve­ryone was profoundly shocked. Only then did they begin saying that “furthermore” she had cheated on her elderly husband for years. When Salete expelled her husband from the house, everyone deemed her act fully justified: after all, he had committed outrage (desaforo), going out to celebrate carnival the day after his child's death. But even these transgressions against general principles incur no more than temporary disapproval. Hence, the young people who have somehow marred their reputation (the boys with a police record, the girls with sexual promiscuity) are not necessarily considered morally polluted. People will say, “He erred, but at the bottom of his heart, he's a good lad,” or, “She strayed [se despistou], but now she's on the right path [endireitou]C

Besides murder, the only act that seems to provoke general condemnation, serious and durable enough to make people leave the vila, is theft between friends. The profes­sional thieves make a point of not plying their trade in the neighborhood. True, the maconheiros do not exclude their neighbors as potential victims, but they make a distinc­tion between the well-integrated residents and those who are fair game. During my last visit to the vila, I ran into some of the “lads” hot on the track of a friend who had robbed one of the community’s “respectable” matrons at gunpoint. (“And what's more, she had her baby in her lap!”) A thief such as Sara will not necessarily be pursued in the same manner, for to ruin her reputation, thereby excluding her from the networks of support and protection, may be punishment enough.

For the sociable woman (uma pessoa dada, or “who is given,” loosely translated, “who gives of himself), a good reputation represents general protection and discour­agement of potential aggressors.

It is rare that anyone considers a man dado. Men don’t need such qualities. Theoreti­cally, they are strong enough to dispense the need to cultivate the good grace of others. Women take care (eu me cuido) because “the worst thing in the world is to be talked about falada∖.ⁿ The concern about maintaining one’s reputation and avoiding gossip both appear to be typical of the weak—those without physical force.

Gossip among equals

The weak use gossip to manipulate those who might otherwise have the upper hand and thereby assure minimum protection. Used against an equal, however, gossip becomes an instrument of attack—the challenge to a duel in which the stakes are all on self-esteem. Where there is rivalry between near-equals, there is gossip. This rivalry is especially ob­vious between neighbors when one of them is unable to repay some service or borrowed goods. Elisete, for example, complained about the joking insults Dione murmured each time she walked past her house, adding, “Just think! I used to be her best friend, crossing town to pick up milk for her daughters when she was in the pits. And now, this is how she repays me!” Any sort of extra good fortune may set off jealous gossip: if a couple appears to be getting along too well, if a person receives more than her share of visits from the anthropologist! Vera managed to buy a new refrigerator, sofa and television; the woman living next door lets me know that, of course, it must all be stolen goods. The Catholic sister who occasionally visits the area brings Gloria a pile of used clothes for her children; the neighbors remark that Gloria’s last baby was born more than a year af­ter she’d separated from her husband.

Gossip is an equalizer; it is the instrument of those who feel inferior and consider they can only raise their own status by denigrating the status of others. In fact, it is not so much a matter of rising above others, but rather refusing to be lower than they are. By this token, the lower one goes on the socio-economic hierarchy, the more vulnerable people feel. The norms of global society frequently end up thwarting the satisfaction gleaned from the local code of honor. A woman may be extremely dada, with all the per­sonal virtues admired by the community, but it's her neighbor who has the TV. One week a woman will be admired for having a nice little house and a wily husband; the next week, her prestige has gone up in smoke, with the arrest of her husband. One might manage to feed the children by begging or working as a cleaning lady, but in both cases it is at the price of daily humiliations inflicted by the “bourgeois.” It is as though an ap­parent well-being were constantly undermined by the moral criticisms of the dominant class. One afternoon, arriving upon a scene of conjugal discord, I saw this morality poke its way into an ironic exchange of insults. The woman scolded her husband as a “down- at-the heels” indigent (Chinelao); he shot back by calling her a beggar (esmoleira).