Sexual abuse in proceedings of gender-based violence in the Brazilian judicial system

Authors

  • Lúcia Gonçalves de Freitas Univsidade Estadual de Goiás
  • Liliana Cabral Bastos Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.35608

Keywords:

language, gender, sexual violence, maria da penha law, narrative, entextualisation, Brazil

Abstract

Based on a feminist approach to law, we analyse dimensions of the performance of the Brazilian judiciary in three judgements of domestic and family violence against women that encompass sexual abuse. We show how gender-based violence is constructed in agreed decisions, on lawsuits under the Maria da Penha law, which is considered a landmark in Brazilian legislation on gender. Using a narrative approach and the concept of entextualisation, the analysis focuses firstly on the judicial acts as legal trajectories and the presentation of the episode of sexual violence that led to the judicial process. A second focus is on constructions of these same episodes in different instances of the judicial acts. We found that agents of the penal system, in applying the Maria da Penha law, reaffirm dominant structures of subjectivity, allowing a pre-established set of values against which the law sought precisely to break. Different judges provide divergent understandings in a single trial and may reveal more or less involvement with the political perspectives of the law. The findings have implications for discussions of women’s rights through criminal law.

Author Biographies

  • Lúcia Gonçalves de Freitas, Univsidade Estadual de Goiás

    Lucia Gonçalves de Freitas received her PhD in linguistics from the University of Brasília (UnB), Brazil. She was a fellow of the PhD Internship Program (CAPES), and was a visiting researcher at the Centre for Advanced Research in English (CARE), University of Birmingham, England. She is currently a professor at the Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Program in Education, Language and Technology at the State University of Goiás (UEG). She is presently involved with critical studies of legal discourse in decisions involving gender justice and violence against women.

  • Liliana Cabral Bastos, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

    Liliana Cabral Bastos received her PhD in linguistics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she is currently associate professor in the Letters Department. She has been a research fellow at Georgetown University, during her doctoral studies, and at Harvard University, as a postdoctoral student. Her research interests include the study of interaction in institutional contexts, identity/ gender construction and narrative analysis. She is presently involved with narrative studies, focusing on the construction of violence, identity/gender, exclusion and stigma in different social movements and urban contexts, such as hospitals, prisons, schools

    and police departments.

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Published

2019-07-31

How to Cite

Freitas, L., & Bastos, L. (2019). Sexual abuse in proceedings of gender-based violence in the Brazilian judicial system. Gender and Language, 13(2), 153-173. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.35608