Week 3
creating the perfect victim
Key Questions
How did carceral feminists utilize particular victimhood narratives? How was this represented through a burgeoning victims’ rights movement?
What sort of legislation and changes were wrought through the weaponization of victimhood? How did the racialized, gendered, aged, and classed nature of the victimhood narrative influence legislative changes?
What effect did carceral feminists have on defining sexual violence and consent?
Required Materials:
Aya Gruber, The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration, “The Weapon: Ideal Victims”
Aya Gruber, The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration, “The New Front: Date Rape”
Supplementary Materials:
Judith Levine and Erica Meiners, The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, “Protecting (White) Innocence”
Judith Levine and Erica Meiners, The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, “Punishment and ‘Management’: The Sex Offender Registry”
Lorna Bracewell, Why We Lost the Sex Wars: Sexual Freedom in the #MeToo Era, “‘Pornography Is the Theory. Rape Is the Practice.’: The Antipornography Feminist Critique of Liberalism”
Lorna Bracewell, Why We Lost the Sex Wars: Sexual Freedom in the #MeToo Era, “Free Speech, Criminal Acts: Liberal Appropriations of Antipornography Feminism”
Kristin Bumiller, In an Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated the Feminist Movement Against Sexual Violence, “Expressive Justice: The Symbolic Function of the Gang Rape Trial”
exercise
The “sex offender” is often one of the most reviled archetypes of harm-doers, particularly those who are convicted of sexually abusing children. Look through generationFIVE’s Ending Child Sexual Abuse: A Transformative Justice Handbook. What contributes to the abuse of children? How is the carceral system incapable of responding to sexual violence (or even directly harmful)? Write down or discuss what a non-carceral response to child sexual abuse might look like.