The Discourse of Violence In first volume of his Histoire de la sexualite, Michel Foucault develops his concept of une mise en discours du sexe (29), created since seventeenth century. He speaks of condemnation and denial of sexuality that cause people to seek it out and discuss/confess it in every detail, while those same negative elements and restrictions play into making of that very (16, 21). In a similar vein, we rightfully abhor violence, and yet we are fascinated by its every detail, as reported and shown in courtroom trials and in media. Once again, condemnation and negative elements, linked with voyeuristic public interest and forms of entertainment, play into making of une mise en discours de la violence. Why are people so fascinated with violence, crime, criminal? What does this attention say about ourselves and about our cultures? Basing her historical research on concept of female criminality in late-nineteenth-century Paris, Ann-Louise Shapiro has brilliantly shown how discourses of crime have become an obsession of society and how crime is a symptom of persistent societal questions, an indicator of cultural anarchy, often celebrated in popular culture (12-15). Karen Halttunen, in her equally stunning study of killer in American imagination, traces development of concept of what she calls otherness (6), monstrous depravity of a criminal or a murderer that appeared in late eighteenth century in United States. Before then, each individual was viewed as potentially sinful and capable of committing a crime. Once this morally monstrous and deviant alien (59) made an appearance, evil was seen as an unnatural perversion (48), as people became fascinated with the horror of (236). And what if this moral alien were a woman? While acknowledging usefulness of Foucault's observations [in Surveiller et punir, for example] that criminal, not crime, has become the object of a new disciplinary apparatus of power/knowledge and his attention on systems of that underpin institutional practices, Shapiro believes that Foucault's failure to consider implications of gender difference assumes a unitary discourse (3) of violence--that is, in contrast to his multilayered of sexuality. The Discourse of Female Violence and Societal Gender Stereotypes Given a pervasive cultural belief in a virgin-whore duality, do most people believe that women cannot be violent or that they cannot be as violent as men? When a woman is violent, however, why are we so interested in and fascinated by her case? What is that we use to talk and write about such criminality? What pushes a woman to violence and against whom? Who is responsible for violence that women do? In a literary vein, writers like Margaret Atwood have created historical novels such as Alias Grace, in which criminal female protagonist is portrayed in nineteenth-century public's mind as a stereotypically evil or insane fiend, a bloodthirsty femme fatale, or a victim of circumstances. And literary critics like Karen McPherson have analyzed fictional guilty women who tell stories in order to attempt to reverse or to rewrite their guilty sentences. A number of feminist theorists, historians, media experts, and legal scholars have also addressed these important questions, as they have tr ied to understand better what constitutes of female violence and how it relates to gender stereotypes in our culture at large. Shapiro believes that we need to look at history of an expanded cast of dangerous women in context of fears of social and gender changes, since perceived Otherness of women has, historically, allowed metaphoric Woman to stand in for a wide and contradictory array of qualities, values, and meaning (4). The of female criminality has thus betrayed anxiety over woman's traditional role in society (Shapiro 12-15)--and indeed continues to do so. …
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Dec 1, 2001
Julia Henderson Gist + 5
Open Access