Week 2
marrying the carceral state
Key Questions
How did various feminists differ in their perspectives on gender violence? What are the ways in which these divergent perspectives influenced feminist approaches to incarceration, policing, and surveillance?
How did carceral feminism become the predominant feminist perspective within the battered women’s movement? What caused this shift?
What were the ideological drivers behind carceral feminists’ belief that arrest was the best way to address domestic violence? What were the racialized and gendered effects of the pro-arrest policies pursued by carceral feminists?
Required Materials:
Aya Gruber, The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration, “The Enemy: From ‘the Man’ to Bad Men”
Aya Gruber, The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration, “The Battle Plan: Arrest Is Best”
Supplementary Materials:
Beth Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation, “How We Won the Mainstream but Lost the Movement”
Beth Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation, “Black Women, Male Violence, and the Buildup of a Prison Nation”
Kristin Bumiller, In an Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated the Feminist Movement Against Sexual Violence, “The Sexual Violence Agenda: Feminists and the State”