"Disabling" femininities and eugenics: sexuality, disability and citizenship in modern Switzerland
Natalia Gerodetti, University of Lausanne
Abstract
During the first half of the twentieth century, eugenics became an increasingly orthodox approach to regulating sexualities across Europe. Against rapid social change, eugenics was perceived by many as a tool to rationalise the management and reproduction of sexuality. The challenges presented by these changes provided an important focus for state regulation and emerging policies. This paper examines the social and political implications of eugenics in the twentieth century in the making of Swiss Criminal Law by looking at the ways in which perceptions of "mentally deficient" people, particularly "feebleminded" women, were shaped. I consider how constructions of sexuality, gender, and disability and intersected with particular fears and anxieties about nation and degeneracy, thereby giving rise to specific notions of citizenship and belonging to the nation. Demarcating boundaries was crucial to the project of the nation state, not merely in relation to other nations but crucially within the nation. This paper uses an examination of Swiss discourses and practices of eugenic citizenship to place these firmly within a European context.