(Un)Motherhood, madness and crime: pathologising courtroom discourses in cases of infanticide in Argentina

• In Event: WCCJ Panel 2 – Mothers, Motherhood and Criminal Justice

Abstract

Historical criminological studies in Argentina have shown that since the twentieth century, there has been a close identification of the crime of infanticide with madness. From ‘puerperal insanity’ – a concept coined by positivist criminology – to ‘post-partum psychosis’ – the contemporary terminology –, present-day criminal sentences continue to reflect the enormous influence of the medical discourse when debating the criminal responsibility of female defendants accused of causing the death of their newborns.
The aim of this work is to determine how medical discourses regarding port-partum psychosis continue to permeate the arguments of legal practitioners – judges, prosecutors, and defence lawyers – in the courtroom and the concrete impacts this has on the outcomes of cases of infanticide. This research argues that these discourses are a disservice to gender equality, as they deny women’s agency by infantilising or pathologising their experiences, and perpetuate harmful gender biases that link the rejection of motherhood with mental health issues.
This is a qualitative study and the method employed is critical discourse analysis of two recent sentences from different jurisdictions in Argentina. This method will allow us to unravel implicit social judgments in court players’ discourses regarding women and motherhood, and to assess their impact on the judicial decision-making process and their outcomes in terms of discrimination against women.

Author

• Belén Mattos Castañeda, Durham University