Abstract
This article aims to address the discursive formation of the “women abuser” as an object of criminal justice intervention. The methodology used adapts some of Dominique Maingueneau's contributions for discourse analysis. The study confronts distinct discursive fields - feminist and criminological - to understand how, from this interpenetration, the “women abuser” emerges as an object of criminal intervention. Based on the analysis of a case of domestic violence in Recife, the present study explores the debate on rape practiced by acquaintances, denounced in the feminist discursive field since the 1960s and that, when crossing the security and criminal justice system, triggers another discursive field - the punitive criminology - which, individualizing responsibilities, reifies, in the figure of the “women abuser”, the crime and the patriarchal order itself. This figure of “women abuser” ends up being the key that allows the transition from the complaint made by the “victim” into the effective incrimination in very ambiguous circumstances of accusation. Thus, a figure of exceptional character begins to incorporate (embody) and sustain, in that interrelation of different discursive fields, the patriarchal order itself.
Keywords:
violence against women; women abuser; discourse analysis; criminology; feminism