Da mulher honesta à nomeação do feminicídio: rupturas e permanências no tratamento no feminino à luz da legislação penal brasileira

Abstract

The present work revisits the history of the representation of the feminine on brazilian criminal law by examining all past legal documents concerning the matter - from the portuguese royal ordinations to the 1940’s criminal code. It debates the Legislative’s policies which determined the content of the mentioned norms and influenced the legal thinking, approaching its terminological options (such as the expressions ‘honest woman’ and ‘public woman’) and institutions (comprising policies such as the extinction of criminal liability on sex crimes by virtue of subsequent marriage). From this historical assesment it surmises the ruptures and advancements achieved on the matter of the discipline of gender relations on brazilian criminal law, highlighting thus the continuities and persistent flaws of the legal system. In order to establish its premises it relies on qualitative research based on deductive reasoning and on an analysis of bibliography, legal documents and precedent. Its conclusions evince the persisting need for reformation, not disregarding the significant achievements already obtained, pointing out three main courses of action: legal reformation, structural change and renewal of the legal academic production. In this regard, proposes two points of reformation of the legal system, discusses the need to abandon sexist rethorics often used on criminal trials and evoke the necessity of a feminist legal epistemology as a remedy to the ubiquitous sexism on the legal profession and thinking, specially on the fields of criminal law, stressing, however, that the criminal legal system by itself is not capable of offering integral protection to women when it comes to the social violences they suffer, reason why the formulation of interdisciplinary public policy aiming to face gender-based violence is indispensable.