Abstract

The workshop series from the Gender Studies group will deal with the Woman-Justice-State triangle in its next meeting, based on a discussion about the texts “Cidadania de Gênero Contraditória: Queixas, Crimes e Direitos na Delegacia da Mulher em São Paulo” (in English: "Contradictory Gender Citizenship: Complaints, Crimes and Rights at the Women's Police Station of São Paulo") and “Da Delegacia da Mulher à Lei Maria da Penha: Absorção/Tradução de Demandas Feministas pelo Estado” (in English: "From Women’s Police Stations to the Maria da Penha Law: The State’s Absorption/Translation of Women’s Demand") , by Cecília MacDowell dos Santos. This will consist on a discussion with the author about two texts that, although separated by decade (1999 and 2010), analyse complementary aspects of the same subjects, namely the relationship between the discursive practices of the State and feminist organizations, and the construction of women's citizenship. Both texts focus on the study case of the women's police station of São Paulo and talking with State feminist theories on the Latin-American context. However, the texts differ, while complementing each other, both in what concerns their theoretical and methodological focus. In the first text, the author adopts a post-structuralist approach, inspired in Foucault, in order to critically dialogue with State feminist theories, basing her argument in an ethnographic study about the power relationships which permeate the police discursive practices in setting up certain social categories (gender) and certain rights' subjects (women victim of conjugal violence). In the second text, the author adopts the State post-structuralist feminist theories in order to analyse national public policies and for the past 25 years, from women's police stations to the arrival of the "Maria da Penha" Law. In this case, the main focus is in the issue of "translation" - and, thus, the absorption, recreation, betrayal, silencing - of women's demands by the State at the level of adoption, instead of implementation, laws and public policies.

Articles in discussion:

“Cidadania de Gênero Contraditória: Queixas, Crimes e Direitos na Delegacia da Mulher em São Paulo” e “Da Delegacia da Mulher à Lei Maria da Penha: Absorção/Tradução de Demandas Feministas pelo Estado” , de Cecília MacDowell dos Santos.  

Organization: Gisele Wolkoff and Júlia Garraio (NHUMEP)

Note: The «Gender Workshop series» is a space for discussion around one or two texts on gender which takes place once a month.