«THE THUG WOMAN DOESN’T EXIST»: A study of gender relations in São Paulo prisons
We understand prison as an institution closely related to the capitalist way of producing and reproducing life. This time, we studied prison and the dynamics and power relations that permeate it with the aim of, in addition to apprehending and analyzing such relations, understanding how they explain and are explained by the current conformation of the sociometabolic order of capital. In this sense, based on discussions developed by theorists of social reproduction, the Theory of Social Reproduction, black and decolonial feminisms, in this work we seek to understand how gender relations, co-constituted by relations of race, class and sexualities, permeate and shape the dynamics of prisons in the state of São Paulo marked by the presence of the prisoner organization Primeiro Comando da Capital. Considering the complexities of conducting research in prison, we chose to collect data and information from different sources. Therefore, we carried out semi-structured interviews with people who had
been released and worked at prisons in São Paulo; observation of the dynamics and power relations present in prison institutions in São Paulo; and documentary analysis of materials produced by the PCC itself. From the analysis of this material, we identified representations of gender that we separated into three axes: representations that start from the idea that “there is no such thing as a female criminal”; who understand women as overly emotional and hysterical, as opposed to an understanding of men as rational and balanced; and who associate masculinity with honor, virility, strength and “being a warrior”. We argue that such gender representations are closely associated with gender constructions forged at the dawn of industrial capitalism and that guide the shaping of the sexual division of labor in the PCC, in which women occupy supporting and subordinate positions and men occupy leading positions. We also verified that the control that the PCC exercises over the bodies and sexuality of people imprisoned in men's prisons is greater than that exercised in women's prisons. While same-sex relationships are accepted in these spaces, in male prisons gay men are only accepted if they “behave”, not being “effeminate”, revealing the effects of the construction of masculinities on those who do not submit to heterosexual normativity. They are associated with women, in terms of passivity and penetration of the boundaries of the body, and are punished with the loss of privileges associated with the male gender. Regarding the sexual division of labor in these contexts, we observe a strong connection between gender and sexuality in its conformation, in which gay men carry out work understood as feminine, such as washing clothes and cleaning cells, and women who have emotional and sexual relationships with other women, they carry out work associated with men, such as maintenance activities. Although a gender order based on conservative values prevails in
prisons, based on a strict dichotomization between male-male/female-female and the more traditional sexual division of labor, due to the sexual segmentation of prisons, the sexual division of labor is rearranged, in order to blur the boundaries of what is conventionally called “sex”, based on sexual denominations, orientations and identities.