Mujeres delincuentes e imaginarios: Criminología, cine y nota roja en México, 1940-1950

Abstract

The political and economic modernization promoted by the governments in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution created opportunities of development for women outside the domestic sphere. The specialization of criminology and the professionalization of the media, linked to an entrenched conservatism, were instrumental in the formation of a notorious fear of this phenomenon, based on the belief that this could result in women developing a laxity of morals and consequently perpetrating criminal acts. The article analyzes the formation of imaginary about the offender woman in a period of boom of film and of the sensationalist press. Presenting criminal women as monstrous and evil, an image not distant from criminological ideas, prolonged existing fears about female crime, but also strengthened the conception of femininity tied to the domestic space. Films, sensationalist press, national newspapers, and criminological articles are studied.