Gender, race and class in the social production of madness

Abstract

The present work aims to deal with madness from a critical and intersectional perspective, aiming to evaluate how elements of gender, race and class were significant for the definition of the concept of madness from the hygienist movement of the nineteenth century. The importance of the treatment of this subject is given, firstly, by the fact that gender, race and class are still invisible factors in the understanding of the "crazy", especially in the legal sphere. The relevance of the approach is also manifested by the fact that the pathologization of differences is still alive today. Regarding the proposed objective, the research methodology chosen here is explanatory, aimed at unveiling the reasons why the target of the custodial hospitals does not differ from the one selected by the State to compose their jail. Therefore, we work with the following hypothesis: "belle époque's redevelopment project has left us a policy of segregation of difference, aimed at imprisoning non-majority representatives of gender, race and class, albeit by the justification of care and treatment in hospitals".