STOLEN TIME, SILENCED LIVES

FEMALE INCARCERATION AND PATRIARCHAL LOGIC IN A TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The article analyzes female incarceration from a critical and transnational perspective, highlighting how the penal system functions as a mechanism of control over women’s time and lives under a patriarchal logic. It adopts the understanding of female time as an existential, social, and symbolic dimension historically shaped by fragmented roles of care, forms of socially invisible labor, and moral expectations. The study argues that imprisonment imposes punishment beyond the mere deprivation of physical liberty, promoting the disruption of affective, identity-based, and community ties, as well as lasting social stigmatization. The research examines the historical invisibility of women in traditional criminological theories and the emergence of feminist criminology as a critical field exposing gender-based discrimination within the penal system.The analysis incorporates a comparative and transnational approach, demonstrating that female incarceration is linked to global dynamics of poverty, migration, drug trafficking, and punitive penal policies. The article concludes that overcoming these inequalities requires an intersectional perspective committed to human rights and women’s dignity.