“Judicialization” of the Private and Violence against Women

Abstract

This article presents some paradoxes present in the Maria da Penha Law, using as theoretical references the recent analyses about the processes of “judicialization” of private life. The law mentioned applies to relations that for many years were considered outside the regulatory space of the State. Its principal objective is to eradicate and punish domestic violence against women. The paradoxes to which we refer appear both in the degree of expansion of the processes of criminalization, as well as in the concrete
application by the State’s legal-judicial system. We indicate problems related to application of the law in a way that reproduces the conservative legal culture present in society and therefore, in the operators of rights. This is exacerbated if the question of violence against women, as well as forms for prevention and punishment, are not understood as a complex cultural issue that is not limited to the “judicialization” of private space.