| September 19th, 2004 02:18 PM |
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| gorda |
And, another time, she took this singer named "Iggy Pop", and let him borrow Todd Rundgren's clothes! Then, they went out to a restaurant, where they took a picture and it was put up on the wall for everyone to see!
Lady! You are lucky that you weren't living in Latin America! Until recently, in Brazil, it was legal for a husband to kill his wife, if she had been unfaithful!
And, in Mexico, if a husband beats up his wife, and she goes to the police station, the police will tell her to go home and obey her husband!
Now, that is to the extreme and I don't condon domestic violence, but sometimes a "slap across the face" will save the marriage!!!
Ha! Ha!
That or dump the hoe! Her pussy can't be that good . . . |
| September 19th, 2004 02:19 PM |
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| gorda |
Oops!
I thought I was replying to that other thread!
Ha! |
| September 19th, 2004 02:32 PM |
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| J.J.Flash |
quote:
gorda wrote:
[...]
Lady! You are lucky that you weren't living in Latin America! Until recently, in Brazil, it was legal for a husband to kill his wife, if she had been unfaithful!
[...]
Oh really? Prove it fucker! Where your sources are from? Stop posting nonsense BS.... respect is appreciated..... How do you dare to say something like that? Where did you hear such a odd crap comment like that? |
| September 19th, 2004 02:35 PM |
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| J.J.Flash |
And I'm quite certain you are the same person who used to visit this board under the name .... hmmmm forget about that, I can't prove anything.... but after somebody start thinking like me, I tell what I was thinking......
peace and love... |
| September 19th, 2004 02:38 PM |
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| gorda |
I really don't feel like researching it right now! Maybe, later.
But, the Brazil thing, someone from Brazil told me.
And, the Mexico thing happened to someone, I know very well, and would not make up such a thing.
P.S. I don't believe in violence against women. I AM A WOMAN! But, it's hoes like Bebe Buell that ruin it for the rest of us!
I don't think it was wrong of her to be sexally-liberated and to enjoy herself, but to break Todd Rundgren's heart! She should have spoken to him and told him, "Look, I'm a hoe and I want to screw all these mega-stars, so let's break up. You do your thing, I do mine."
[Edited by gorda] |
| September 19th, 2004 02:52 PM |
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| gorda |
HERE IT IS, PROOF:
Go on read for yourself:
This material is reproduced with permission from the copyright holder. Please cite as 11 Wisconsin International Law Journal 531.
THE DEFENSE OF HONOR: IS IT STILL HONORED IN BRAZIL?
LAURA SUE NELSON*
I. INTRODUCTION
Women's movements in Latin America have successfully introduced a feminist point of view into law.1 In the last twenty years, the movement in Brazil, in particular, has made significant strides in furthering the legal protection of women's human rights.2 The efforts of the women's movement in Brazil may come as a surprising contradiction to popular myths about the Latin American woman, who has been treated in academic literature either as a helpless mother following two steps behind her man, or as a "gun-toting guerrillera," with her rifle, as well as a baby, in her arms.3
The women's movement in Brazil has compiled an impressive list of accomplishments which have improved the lives of many women. Domestic violence emerged in the early 1980s as a major public policy issue as a result of feminist efforts.4 In 1983 the Brazilian government integrated [End of Page 531] councils on women into state and federal administrations,5 thereby creating fora in which feminist as well as feminine voices could be heard.6 In 1984, Brazil ratified the United Nation's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW").7 Then, in 1985 and on its own initiative, the women's movement successfully established specialized police stations, Delegacias De Defesa Da Mulher,8 staffed solely by women to aid victims of sex crimes and domestic violence.9 Women's shelters are now appearing in Brazil, although only a few have been opened to date.10 During the drafting of Brazil's 1988 Constitution, eighty percent of the demands made by the women's movement were accepted due to the influence of a nationwide women's rights campaign.11 The Constitution, in pertinent part, guarantees equality before the law and establishes a governmental obligation to prevent violence in the home.12
The most significant legal event to date for the Brazilian women's movement was the March 1991 murder trial and appeal of Joao Lopes.13 In this case, the Superior Tribunal da Justica, Brazil's highest appellate court, rejected the legitima defesada honra, the so-called legitimate defense [End of Page 532] of honor.14 This defense legitimated a husband's15 killing of his allegedly adulterous wife by offering him impunity.16 This potentially portentous decision, however, survived barely five months. On remand, the State Court of Parana ignored the Superior Tribunal's opinion and acquitted the defendant, Joao Lopes, on August 29, 1991.17 Following the lower court's decision, Lopes became ineffective as a tool to promote women's right to basic human rights in Brazil. What does Lopes really mean for feminists whose hard-fought battle opposing violence against women is obviously not yet over? For Brazilian women whose lives are valued less than the "honor" of their husbands and lovers? For the Brazilian legal system itself?
This Comment examines Lopes within the context of the Brazilian women's movement and the history of wife-murder in Brazil. Using Lopes as an illustrative case," this Comment argues that the accomplishments of the women's movement in regard to domestic violence in Brazil, like the effects of the Lopes decision, have been fleeting and illusory. While some real changes in women's rights have taken place, this Comment asserts that these accomplishments have, like the Lopes decision, either had unintended negative consequences or lost their positive impact.
Finally, this Comment considers whether the Brazilian women's movement's pursuit of equality based on a "one-size-fits-all" vision of traditional, individual rights and assimilationist values19 is an effective [End of Page 533] approach to securing women's rights in Brazil. While feminists cannot risk losing sight of traditional rights, they need to do more; they must also challenge the legal framework within which these rights exist. Only by changing the established legal framework in Brazil can the women's movement permanently improve women's legal status. The process of changing the framework should not only involve reinterpreting legal texts in order to create a feminist jurisprudence,20 but also debunking such social myths as the public-private dichotomy which subordinates women in all aspects of the Brazilian culture.21
II. THE DEFENSE OF HONOR: YESTERDAY AND TODAY
The legal context of the defense of honor is a somewhat nebulous area of Brazilian law. The defense can be traced back to the sixteenth century, however, its continuance in modern Brazil debases a system in which it no longer has any legal support. In effect, the defense of honor undermines important Brazilian legal concepts.
A. The Historical Basis of the Defense of Honor
Portuguese colonial law, which was effective prior to Brazil's independence in 1822, allowed a husband who caught his wife in the act of adultery to kill her and her lover.22 After passing in and out of favor and Brazil's penal codes, the "modern" defense of honor was born as an exculpatory strategy.23 Like a crime of passion argument, the defense of honor shifts attention from the killing itself to the question of intent. By recharacterizing the husband's act as an isolated reaction to the wife's [End of Page 534] behavior, attention focuses on the allegedly unfaithful wife, thereby shifting blame for the crime to the victim.24
The defense of honor characterizes the husband as having acted spontaneously in legitimate self-defense against an imminent aggression, although it is an "aggression" against his marital honor rather than his physical being. In essence, the defense of honor equates a wife's adulterous act, or allegedly adulterous act, with a physical act of aggression. As with legitimate self-defense, a successful defense of honor results in acquittal.
The belief that marital honor can be threatened by a wife's adulterous action betrays proprietary attitudes towards women which are deeply rooted in Brazilian culture.25 The perception that women are subordinate to men is the basis for the belief that a wife is a husband's property, and thus that any action by her which does not fall within the prescribed marital norm, especially something as odious as adultery, constitutes an offense against the marital honor of both.
While losing her own honor may be merely unfortunate for a wife, the loss of her husband's honor can be fatal for her. Writing in the 1950s, a Brazilian family law expert described a wife's adultery in relation to a husband's as follows:
When a man violates the conjugal loyalty he does that by futile desire . . . The woman's adultery, on the contrary, affects the family's internal order, compromising the stability of the conjugal life. The woman's adultery is more serious . . . because it hurts . . . the law more deeply. There is the danger of her introducing strange children to her home.26
A successful defense of honor often depends less on showing the husband's lack of intent to kill than on demonstrating the husband's good name and the wife's bad behavior. As quoted in a study prepared for the Brazilian National Council on the Rights of Women:
[T]he jury doesn't evaluate the crime in itself, but instead evaluates the victim and the accused's life, trying to show how adapted each one is to what they imagine should be the correct behavior for a husband and wife . . . The man can always be acquitted if the defense manages to convince the jury that he was a good and honest worker, a dedicated father and [End of Page 535] husband, while the woman was unfaithful and did not fulfill her responsibilities as a housewife and mother. . .27
In many cases, the defense of honor has been successfully invoked in Brazil as though it were the legal equivalent of self-defense,28 yet at no point does the law explicitly equate a threat to a man's honor with the danger posed by an imminent physical attack. Furthermore, a husband's reaction to a present or imminent threat presumes the absence of premeditation, yet the courts have repeatedly upheld the defense of honor in cases where there is strong evidence of a planned murder.29 In addition, while a key aspect of the self defense rule is the moderation of the means employed, these cases fail to question whether the husband's response was truly a moderate one.30
A closer look at the Superior Tribunal's Lopes decision shows that working to change attitudes is necessary in addition to working for procedural and institutional change. The lower court's rebuff of the Superior Tribunal's decision in Lopes highlights the need for the women's movement to continue confronting social prejudice on all fronts.
B. Lopes as a Barometer
After spending two days in search of his wife, Terezinha Ribeiro Lopes, Joao Lopes arrived at a hotel in the southern Brazilian city of Apucarana on August 5, 1988. He believed Terezinha was there with her lover, Jose Gaspar Felix. Joao described the couple to a bellman who then [End of Page 536] took him to the room of two people that fit this description. At the bellman's request, Jose opened the door. Immediately, Joao stabbed Jose repeatedly and fatally in the chest. Terezinha fled naked from the room and Joao followed her out of the hotel. Terezinha reached the doorway of a nearby hospital where her husband found her and stabbed her twice. The wounds were fatal.31
At a subsequent trial, Joao admitted to stabbing both Terezinha and Jose. The defense argued that Joao had acted in legitimate defense of his offended honor in killing them. The all-male jury apparently accepted this argument and unanimously absolved Joao of the double homicide.32 This decision was upheld by the state appellate court in Parana.33
The prosecution appealed the case to the Superior Tribunal of Justice, Brazil's highest court.34 The Tribunal accepted the prosecution's appeal,35 then overturned the lower court's decision on March 11, 1991.36 In remanding the case to the trial court, the Superior Tribunal declared that murder is not a legitimate response to adultery. Moreover, it held that adultery alone does not provide the immediate provocation necessary to assert self-defense. The Superior Tribunal also stated that it is not honor that is being defended in this type of crime, but it is the "self-esteem, vanity and the pride of the Lord who sees his wife as property."37
The Superior Tribunal's decision in Lopes represented a historic moment for many Brazilians. Feminist activists have waged a twenty-year campaign against the defense of honor and the proprietary attitudes towards women on which the defense is based. Women in Brazil, who have been dying at the hands of their husbands and male lovers,38 viewed this decision as an acknowledgement of their status as an effective and important constituency." More importantly, in Lopes the Brazilian judiciary finally [End of Page 537] dared to pointedly question Brazilian machismo,40 thus signalling that women's rights-guaranteed by Brazil's ratification of the CEDAW in 1984 and the 1988 constitutional amendments-might be gaining recognition in the law.
Unfortunately, for Brazilians and women everywhere, the moment was fleeting. Despite the welcomed progress, the State Court of Parana retried the case and a jury acquitted Joao for the double homicide on the same grounds-the legitimate defense of honor.41 As a result, wife-murder is still considered an appropriate response to alleged unfaithfulness. That second decision sanctions a culture of impunity for wife-murder crimes and represents a victory for social prejudice in Brazil. |
| September 19th, 2004 02:54 PM |
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| gorda |
If you want to read the whole article, go to:
http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/Diana/fulltext/nels.htm |
| September 19th, 2004 02:58 PM |
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| gorda |
"The most significant legal event to date for the Brazilian women's movement was the March 1991 murder trial and appeal of Joao Lopes.13 In this case, the Superior Tribunal da Justica, Brazil's highest appellate court, rejected the legitima defesada honra, the so-called legitimate defense."
1991!
That was just what?
Just 13 years ago! |
| September 19th, 2004 03:00 PM |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
>it's hoes like Bebe <
At first, I thought it was a typo. But you have done it several times in various posts so...
It is ho's. It is the ebonic word for wHOre.
A hoe is something you chop soil with.
If you are gonna slag on someone, do it right.
Thank You.
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| September 19th, 2004 03:05 PM |
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| gorda |
Actually . . . I secretly admire her . . . except for the part where she broke poor Todd Rundgren's heart. He was such a nice man, he didn't deserve it.
But, she got it on with all these super-famous people!
Ha! Ha! Ha!
I guess, those were the days before AIDS and Herpes.
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| September 19th, 2004 03:16 PM |
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| LadyJane |
So tell me gorda..how many times have you seen the Stones? What's your favorite album? Favorite boot? Taylor vs Wood?
Tell me something STONES MUSIC related.
LJ. |
| September 19th, 2004 04:11 PM |
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| gypsy |
Yep, saw "hoe" several times myself, SS.
And I agree with LJ, tell us something not groupie-related. Which Stones album is your favorite and why? |
| September 19th, 2004 09:58 PM |
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| Soldatti |
quote:
LadyJane wrote:
Tell me something STONES MUSIC related.
I would like to see it too...  |
| September 19th, 2004 11:10 PM |
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| MP |
oh my gooooooodness....at least this breaks up the boredom of Sunday eve |
| September 20th, 2004 06:31 AM |
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| Zack |
Gorda, you have 45 posts since August 2004. If you notice I have a few more than 200 since November of 2002. Call me crazy, but I think you may be posting too much. You may be starting to irritate the ladies. |
| September 20th, 2004 06:39 AM |
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| Jumacfly |
quote:
gorda wrote:
Lady! You are lucky that you weren't living in Latin America! Until recently, in Brazil, it was legal for a husband to kill his wife, if she had been unfaithful!
give me your husband phone number, i got to ask him something 
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| September 20th, 2004 07:23 AM |
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| egon |
In holland if your wife is unfaithful, you can beat her to death with a gouda cheese.
really, i am NOT making this up.
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| September 20th, 2004 06:13 PM |
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| gustavobala |
i am from brazilian, and a lawyer too...THE DEFENSE OF HONOR, really, is in penal code, but not in use too many long years...
yes, u can't use this defese, but is 100% defeat...
see, Superior Tribunal Justice not accept(since much time ago)
use this argument here is real loose.... |
| September 20th, 2004 07:07 PM |
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| kath |
what do brazilians, the dutch, etc do to husbands who screw around with, oh, let's say their secretaries???
enquiring minds wanna know!!! |
| September 20th, 2004 07:10 PM |
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| Lambchop* |
quote:
Zack wrote:
Gorda, you have 45 posts since August 2004. If you notice I have a few more than 200 since November of 2002. Call me crazy, but I think you may be posting too much. You may be starting to irritate the ladies.
I like Gorda!
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| September 20th, 2004 07:25 PM |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
Yes...I like Gorda as well.
But then again, I liked Raging Goat.
"Fuck liver. Drink coffee."
One of the greatest things I have ever seen posted. |
| September 20th, 2004 07:34 PM |
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| gypsy |
I think they cut their dicks off, kath. If their husbands are rich, they just run them through the fucking cleaners. |
| September 20th, 2004 07:41 PM |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
What do they do in the USA when husbands cheat on their bitch wives with sassy x-ray techs? |
| September 20th, 2004 07:42 PM |
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| Gazza |
>what do brazilians, the dutch, etc do to husbands who screw around with, oh, let's say their secretaries???
enquiring minds wanna know!!!
same as the Americans, Brits and French do. They elect them..
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| September 20th, 2004 07:44 PM |
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| kath |
excellent response, gazza. it's good to know it's not just us....
gypsy...superb idea!!! lorena bobbitt...you rock!!!! |
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