Week 12

Key Questions

• What is abolition feminism? How does it differ from carceral feminism?

• How can sexual and domestic violence be addressed in a non-carceral way? What might an abolitionist agenda to prevent and respond to sexual and domestic violence look like?

Required Materials:

• Judith Levine and Erica Meiners, The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, “Ten Ways to Confront Sexual Harm, End State Violence, and Transform Our Communities”

• Leigh Goodmark, “Beyond Criminalizing Domestic Violence”

• Angela Davis, Gina Dent, Erica Meiners, and Beth Richie, Abolition Feminism Now, "Now"

Supplementary Materials:

• Angela Davis, Gina Dent, Erica Meiners, and Beth Richie, Abolition Feminism Now, “Abolition”

• Angela Davis, Gina Dent, Erica Meiners, and Beth Richie, Abolition Feminism Now, “Feminism”

• INCITE! and Critical Resistance, “Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex”

• Robin Mcduff, Deanne Pernell, and Karen Saunders, “Open Letter to the Anti-Rape Movement”

• Silvia Federici, Feminicide and Global Accumulation: Frontline Struggles to Resist the Violence of Patriarchy and Capitalism, “Globalization, the Accumulation of Capital, and Violence Against Women: An International and Historical Perspective”

• Françoise Vergès, A Feminist Theory of Violence: A Decolonial Perspective, “Neoliberal Violence”

• Judith Levine and Erica Meiners, The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, “Feminists Confront Sexual Harm”

• Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete, “How Gender Structures the Prison System”

• Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom, “Sex, Love, and Violence”

• Leigh Goodmark, Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to Intimate Partner Violence, “An Economic Problem”

• Leigh Goodmark, Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to Intimate Partner Violence, “A Public Health Problem”

• Leigh Goodmark, Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to Intimate Partner Violence, "A Community Problem"

• Leigh Goodmark, "Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: Economic, Public Health, and Community Solutions"

• For Harriet, "What Should Happen to Abusers If We Don't Lock Them Up? with Professor Leigh Goodmark"

• Kristian Williams, “A Look at Feminist Forms of Justice that Don’t Involve the Police"

• Danielle Mackey, "Rape and Reparations in Mexico"

• Alexandra Walling, "I Asked My Rapist for $10,000"

• Beth Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation, "The Matrix: A Black Feminist Response to Male Violence and the State"

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "STOP SV: A Technical Package to Prevent Sexual Violence"

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical Package of Programs, Policies, and Practices"

• Bree Carlton and Emma Russell, Resisting Carceral Violence: Women’s Imprisonment and the Politics of Abolition, “Women Against Prison: Anti-Carceral Feminist Critiques of the Prison”

• Judith Levine and Erica Meiners, The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, “Women Against the Regime”

• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, “Mothers Reclaiming Our Children”

• Ardath Whynacht, Insurgent Love: Abolition and Domestic Homicide, “Settler Colonialism and Intimate Terrorism”

• Ardath Whynacht, Insurgent Love: Abolition and Domestic Homicide, “Occupation, Racial Capitalism and the ‘Familicidal Heart’”

exercise

Abolitionists commonly receive questions about sexual violence and domestic violence (e.g., “what about the rapists?”). Given this week’s material (along with material from previous weeks), how might an abolitionist respond to these questions about sexual and domestic violence?