Adultas mayores, espacio público y violencia moral: representaciones sociales de la crisis de la "seguridad" en la Argentina desde una perspectiva de género

the victimization surveys implemented by the dirección nacional de política criminal (national direction of criminal policy) in buenos aires shows that women and the elderly exhibit the lowest victimization risk to street crime. ever since, these groups exhibit the higher levels of fear of crime. the goal of this paper is to propose some keys to understand this paradox acknowledged by the victimization surveys. through a qualitative strategy we have decided to focus on the group that registers the higher level of fear of crime: elderly women. assuming that the fear of crime can not be divorced of a more general issue regarding the social representations of public spaces, this approach suggests that the gender hierarchy in public spaces can be seen as an interpretative dimension of the paradox fear of crime / victimization risk in this group.