Concubitu Prohibere Vago
Sex and the Idiot Girl, 1846–1913
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12290686 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ralph Sandland (University of Nottingham, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 81-108 |
| Publication date | 2013-03-09 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Feminist Legal Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0966-3622 • E-ISSN: 1572-8455 |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10691-013-9231-3 |
| OpenAlex | W2024053965 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 33 |
This paper interrogates Michel Foucault’s claim, that the spread of psychiatric power originated in concerns around the educatability of idiot children in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, before being applied to adult “defectives”. It is argued that Foucault, although partially correct, fails adequately to consider the extent to which the base concept, of “instinct”, was linked in particular ways to female idiot sexuality. The paper challenges Foucault’s view through an analysis of a series of nineteenth century cases involving the rape of female idiots, arguing that their sexuality was understood in terms of a relation to instinct which manifested in terms of an opposition between dangerousness and vulnerability. It then traces that opposition into the Mental Deficiency Act 1913 where, it is argued, it functioned in a collapsed form—now, the vulnerable were dangerous and the dangerous were vulnerable—and in which form it underpinned a psychiatrised regime for the control of mentally defective women through the control of their sexuality
Criminology · Developmental psychology · Girl · Human sexuality · Idiot · Instinct · Michel foucault · Opposition (politics · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Medical History and Research · Psychology
Disability Rights and Wrongs
Inquiries into human faculty and its development.
Dangerous Discourses of Disability, Subjectivity and Sexuality
The expression of the emotions in man and animals.
The Problem of Mental Deficiency
Discipline and Punish
In the Name of Eugenics
The Anatomy of Madness
From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency
The New Politics of Disablement
Prostitution
Explaining Social Policy
Eugenics and Progressive Thought
The making of the dull, deficient and backward pupil in British elementary education 1870–1914
The Making of the Dull, Deficient and Backward Pupil in British Elementary Education 1870-1914
The rhetoric of Eugenics
Body and Mind
Disabling Sex
Psychiatric Power
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |