Figuras femeninas de la desviación sexual. España, 1850-1920

Abstract

In this paper we analyze different types of female conducts and subjectivities, labelled as abjects and pathological in the cultural context of the Spanish Restoration. Social practices coming from different sites (medicine, law, criminology, literature and pedagogy) shaped the figures of the adulteress, the nymphoman, the lesbian and the transgender as counterparts of the normative female condition. The design of these deviant subjectivities served the purpose of making the straight woman, but, at the same time, it showed the contingency and weakness of gender norms.