Abstract

The paper shows, from a critical feminist perspective of law, some of the obstacles to the prosecution of cases of moral violence against women in the criminal justice system of Queretaro. The study was carried out based on ethnography in spaces of justice and feminist ethnography, by observing the complaint processes of women-victims in the Center for Justice for Women in Querétaro, semi-structural interviews with justice operators and, in-depth interviews with women victims of violence, prepared, respectively, during the periods February-April and September-October 2020. It was found that stereotypes about the duty of women and the stereotype that violence against women, predominantly takes the form of physical violence, constitute obstacles to the prosecution in the criminal sphere of moral violence, which character is subtle and manifests itself without leaving physical traces. Consequently, it is proposed that from a critical feminist perspective that observes the law not as an objective and neutral unit but as a producer of gender, it is possible to find that these stereotypes continue to maintain asymmetric power relations between women and men in the patriarchal order.

Keywords moral; violence; criminal law