Contribution to Book
A Woman of "Weak Mind": Gender, Race, and Mental Competency in the Reconstruction Era
Freedoms Gained and Lost: Reconstruction and Its Meanings 150 Years Later
(2022)
Abstract
This essay examines how racial and gendered expectations influenced the ways in which courts addressed infanticide across the United States during Reconstruction. While black women’s legal rights undoubtedly expanded during Reconstruction, infanticide cases demonstrate that those expanded rights did not necessarily translate into favorable outcomes in relation to criminal law. Cases of infanticide show that prevailing attitudes about race and gender encouraged the view that biology shaped one’s abilities, sanity, and morality. Although black women successfully exploited those racist and sexist assumptions to reduce jail or death sentences, they did not fare as well in the criminal justice system as white women in similar situations.
Keywords
- Reconstruction,
- infanticide,
- courts,
- insanity,
- gender,
- race,
- incarceration,
- capital punishment
Disciplines
Publication Date
2022
Editor
Adam H. Domby and Simon Lewis
Publisher
Fordham University Press
Series
Reconstructing America
ISBN
9780823298167
Citation Information
Felicity Turner. "A Woman of "Weak Mind": Gender, Race, and Mental Competency in the Reconstruction Era" New YorkFreedoms Gained and Lost: Reconstruction and Its Meanings 150 Years Later (2022) p. 121 - 142 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/felicity-turner/43/