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Andrea Yates and the Criminalization of the Filicidal Maternal Body

The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

Bronwen Lichtenstein

The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

On March 12, 2002, Andrea Yates was found guilty of murder for drowning her five children. Media reports of the Yates trial indicate that she was judged according to the idealization of mothers as self-sacrificial and nurturing. This article uses the theory of the sociology of the body to analyze Yates’s crime in relation to mental illness, gender roles, and embodied motherhood. The authors present a brief history of the crime of filicide and discuss the social factors that contribute to maternal filicide and the mental insanity defense in relation to the Yates trial. The authors conclude that there are no easy answers to the maternal filicide conundrum but that it is certain the Yates trial will bring renewed attention to the embodiment of such women in defining the criminality of their actions

Key Words: Andrea Yates • filicide • criminalization • maternal body

Feminist Criminology, Vol. 1, No. 3, 173-187 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1557085106288863


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