GÊNERO E DISCURSO JURÍDICO: MULHERES RÉS EM PROCESSOS-CRIMES NA COMARCA DE GUARAPUAVA (1890-1920

Abstract

This research aims to analyze discursive statements about women defendants, present in criminal lawsuits in the District of Guarapuava (1890-1920), from the perspective of Gender. The selected documents are part of the CEDOC/UNICENTRO collection. In the analyzed space-time section, the District of Guarapuava was characterized by being a traditional society, based on manual and extractive work, and, like the other districts in the State, it had a small and precarious police and legal apparatus for the effective control of these populations, in addition to territorial extension and population dispersion. In the Western world, from the gender dichotomy, several discourses have been built that relate violence to masculinity, linking to men things such as physical ability, strength, aggression, transgression and virility. Inversely, in the so-called Classical Law, which emerged in the 18 th century and was based on the rationalization of the punitive system, women were seen by the stigma of maternal docility and, mainly, as incapable or less capable of acting with violence, planning or executing actions considered criminal. However, from the perspective of Positivist Law, which emerged in the 19 th century, women could be more violent and criminal than men, as they had a more vile and primitive nature, prone to crime. Through the criminal lawsuits we seek to analyze the legal discourses that give body and structure to the search for the truths of the facts seen as criminals, and the representations of the feminine that are in the middle of the procedural pieces. These representations are present in the descriptions qualifications of the operators of the law, in the formation of the sentences, in the discursive strategies of the defendants themselves and also of the victims and witnesses.