"Mommy from the other side of the glass". Women and crime in the current Argentine chronicle

Abstract

This paper investigates the ways of narrating different crimes committed by women in the field of Argentine police chronicle of the last decades. In particular, we are interested in establishing a comparison between the narratives that refer to crimes against property or linked to illegal activities (asphalt pirates, drug trafficking, fraud) with another very specific type of crime: homicide. Our starting hypothesis is that these events are thematized differently in the chronicles, as well as their protagonists. The narratives that address the first type of crimes have a high degree of picturesqueness that makes the thieves characters emotionally close. On the contrary, the narratives of the second type present the act as something unintelligible and inappropriate. The homicidal woman acquires the characteristics of the monster and her actions are excluded from what is thinkable. That is, those who commit certain crimes are humanized and those who commit others are dehumanized. In both cases, the chain of signifiers woman-mother-care plays a fundamental role. To work on these differentiated modes of representation, we will take the chronicles Mujeres asesinas [2005] by Marisa Grinstein and Bandidas [2019] by Nahuel Gallotta. Secondarily, we will use passages from the books Mi madre, Yiya Murano [2016] by Martín Murano, Nahir [2018] by Mauro Szeta and Mauro Fulco, and Sangre joven [2009] by Javier Sinay. Of course, it should be clarified that this work focuses on the textual analysis of the chronicles without opening judgment on the events that originate them.