Law versus common sense and stereotypes: Child support trials in high and low clases in Peru

Resumen

In child support trials, judge discretionality causes arbitrary behavior when the application of law enters into conflict with the social order of domination systems related with gender and social standing. To prove this, we made a comparative study between how complaints filed by high- and low-class women in Lima were processed, through interviews and the review of judicial files. Reduced to an economic perspective and with little development of alimony and child support law, these processes are resolved by judges’ common sense, alongside which gender and class stereotypes are transmitted. These stereotypes define two key aspects: (i) the notion of child support that is attributed to low-class women (subsistence) and high-class women (quality of life, under suspicion) and (ii) the calculation of alimony (non-explicit limits, invisible scales, etc.). Thus, Law moves backward and common sense moves forward, generating the effect that “to such woman, such child support”.