Document Type

Article

Publication Title

California Law Review Circuit

Abstract

The Panopticon’s shadow looms large in Camille Gear Rich’s Innocence Interrupted: Reconstructing Fatherhood in the Shadow of Child Molestation Law. There, Rich identifies the role that criminal child molestation statutes play in shaping the way that men provide intimate care to children. Specifically, Rich argues that child molestation laws are enforced and interpreted in ways that reinstantiate the traditional gender norms that surround caregiving. Focusing on criminal cases involving male caregivers who provide intimate care to a child (bathing, diapering, toileting, etc.), Rich demonstrates the way in which legal decision makers (judges, social workers, law enforcement officials) often rely on gendered intuitions about caregiving to determine whether the male caregiver’s conduct constitutes a sexual injury within the purview of the child molestation statute. Innocence Interrupted challenges us to fundamentally change our understanding of the interaction between legal regulation, gender norms, and the provision of intimate care. In this brief Response, I take up Rich’s call to action by expanding the scope of her critique of child molestation laws. As the Article’s subtitle suggests, Rich principally addresses child sexual molestation laws’ effects on men. Although she acknowledges that child sexual molestation laws disincentivize male caregiving, further burdening women caregivers, a more robust depiction of the laws’ effects on women are beyond the primary scope of the Article. In this Response, I elaborate Rich’s insights, making clear that while child molestation laws function as a Panopticon for male caregivers, their panoptic force is not limited to men. Child molestation laws cultivate and impose caregiving norms upon women caregivers as well, instilling in them a sense of near-constant surveillance, limiting their autonomy, and facilitating the internalization of gendered norms regarding caregiving and extra-domestic activities like paid work. These caregiving norms transcend law and become embedded in daily life, creating a culture of motherhood in which mothers are rigorously scrutinized and, in turn, rigorously scrutinize themselves and others. I label this phenomenon the “Panopti-mom” and contend that although it is exogenous to law, it is the product of legal norms like those that are the subject of Rich’s intervention.

First Page

165

Volume

4

Publication Date

2013

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