The legal discourse as a producer of gender subjects: An analysis of trials by jury in Porto Alegre/RS/Brazil

This study aims to understand, through the trials in cases of homicides between men and women, in Porto Alegre/Rio Grande do Sul/Brazil, how do the gender aspects emerge in legal discourse in these judgments.  Which arguments are used by lawyers to say that somebody is guilty or innocent? Which aspects of social life take part in that legal construction. Through a critical theoretical perspective to the law, according to Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Pierre Bourdieu, it is intended to highlight that the administration of justice is not neutral, unlike it reproduces the unequal relations that exist in society.

Through a systematic observation and ethnographies of the judgments it’s possible to realized that there is a adaptation to social gender roles which are largely used in the space of trial and, in addition to express and reify a particular conception of gender relations in society. In the construction on legal discourse about guilty and innocent some victims are more victims than others and, in the other hand, some defendants are better or worst according to the enforcement of gender roles. In these way, some people are more deserving of justice that others, which expresses that there is a unequal access to justice, based on gender aspects.