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Gender & Sexuality Portfolio Post Four: Connection to Pop Culture

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Gender & Sexuality Portfolio Post 4: Connection to Pop Culture

               For my last tumblr post I will be exploring how women’s incarceration has been portrayed within pop culture, as well as look at ways in which this public representation of my topic navigates the binary. When researching potential artifacts I could analyze, I looked on netflix as well as google. Most of my searches on google for depictions of women’s incarceration within pop culture led me back to a variety of think pieces on Orange is the New Black (which was honestly expected). Through Netflix, the representations of women’s incarceration I found were the show Wentworth (which explores the story of a woman who is on trial for attempted murder of her husband), Orange is the New Black, and then a comedy special done by Mo’Nique (which was filmed inside a women’s prison, and catered to her audience of incarcerated women). Predictably enough, I ended up choosing Orange is the New Black for my artifact. OITNB is about a woman named Piper who is sentenced to time in a women’s prison for drug crimes she was involved in in her past. The show tells the story of Piper’s experiences in prison, and also looks into the narratives and backstories of the other women within the prison. I chose OITNB because it is probably the most well known/most frequently watched depiction of women’s incarceration in pop culture. Since there are so few representations of women’s incarceration in pop culture, I think that watching OITNB is probably one of the only times people take time to think about women in prison. Because of these reasons I thought it would be interesting to look at the messages this show is sending out. After watching and analyzing an episode, I came to the conclusion that Orange is the New Black revises the binary.

               In Gender Stories Chapter 5, the authors describe how gender stories which revise the binary may not completely shatter the binary, but they do challenge or modify what the binary typically looks like. One way of revising the binary which I saw through OITNB, is expansion. Gender Stories chapter 5 describes expansion as suggesting that “there are multiple ways of being a man and a woman” and expanding “the prescriptions of the binary” (Gender Stories, 124). The episode of OITNB I watched took place on Valentines Day, and throughout the episode different inmates explained what love means to them as well as their thoughts about the holiday. I thought this was a perfect example of how the show revises the binary through expansion, because the women expressed a vast variety of narratives. One of the characters, Maria Ruiz, displayed a love of Valentines day, and gushed about how her husband used to get her flowers. Another character, Flaca, expressed how she missed her boyfriend and wished he owned a vehicle other than a vespa so that he could come visit her. Not all of the characters had such a stereotypical or happy view of Valentines Day though. When Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” is asked who is going to be her Valentine, she responds “This year I’m loving someone who deserves my love--me.” The main character Piper reflects back on how she’s messed up both of her relationships with her fiance Larry and her ex-girlfriend Alex, stating that she “doesn’t have a home anymore.” And Gloria vocally expresses her dislike of the holiday, saying “Please, Valentines day was designed to make people feel like shit if they’re not part of some perfect couple.” Typically, the binary attempts to paint women as love crazed and dependent on men, so Valentines Day is a holiday which attempts to capitalize off of these rigid boxes the binary creates for us. The women on OITNB revise and expand this binary by showing that there is not one single way to act or think if you are a woman. As we saw, some of the women expressed a comfort and a love for the idea of Valentines Day, as well as an appreciation for the men in their lives. And at the same time, other characters expressed a strong dislike of the holiday and what it stands for, and others displayed that romantic love is not something strictly reserved for heterosexual couples. By showing a variety of narratives and showing different nuanced ways women are navigating love, Orange is the New Black revises the binary.

               Another example of a way in which OITNB revises the binary through expansion is the show’s portrayals of different sexualities and gender identities. The show has a variety of gay and lesbian characters, a variety of cishet characters, one visible bisexual character, and one trans character. I consider this to be an example of revision and expansion because it displays LGBTQ representation in many of the main characters, but the show still reminds us that cishet individuals are considered the norm within our society. I saw this specifically through Poussey’s character and her backstory which was featured in this episode. Poussey (my favorite character) defies heteronormative binary expectations through her identity as a gay woman, and she also wears her hair very short defying typical feminine ideals of beauty. In her backstory, we see flashbacks to Poussey (or P, which she is sometimes called) living in Germany since her dad is stationed there for the military. She is dating a girl whose dad is the general in charge of the military base. Through P’s interactions with her girlfriend you can tell that they care about each other a lot, and their relationship is not tokenized, it is treated like any heterosexual relationship would be treated on screen. However the show does draw attention to the ways in which our society treats same-sex relationships as outside of the norm, and it does this through andobjectifying comment from one of their peers who jokingly says he wants to watch P and her girlfriend have sex. The relationship continues to go strong until Poussey’s girlfriend’s homophobic dad (the general) walks in on them naked in bed together, and gets Poussey’s dad stationed elsewhere so she has to move. The backstory includes some heartbreaking scenes of P and her girlfriend having to deal with the realities of being separated due to a parent who is unwilling to accept their own child’s identity, but ends on a little bit of a higher note where P’s dad gives her verbal validation of her own sexuality. Poussey’s story revises the binary by showing that existing as a gay woman and outside of the heterosexual default is valid and normal, but her story also acknowledges the ways in which individuals in the LGBTQ community may be treated due to the current binary system in place.

                  In Gender Stories chapter 5, the authors describe how another way of revising the binary is through critique. The text describes how when pop culture critiques the binary, it is “questioning its utility, appropriateness, and consequences.” (Gender Stories, 121). Through this visible questioning, viewers are challenged to think deeper about the ways in which binaries exist within our society. One way OITNB critiques the binary, is through critiquing the binary notion that women who are incarcerated are not worthy of being seen for their full humanity. This disregard for the humanity of women who are incarcerated contributes to public assumptions that these women are incapable of compassion or are “unfit” mothers. OITNB pushes back against this binary way of thinking about women as “good” or “bad”, and more specifically pushes back against a binary idea that incarcerated women lack humanity. Through this show we see are shown strong female friendships, through characters such as Poussey and Taystee or Flaca and Maritza, full of love, support, and empowerment. We see a mother daughter relationship between Daya and Aleida that is complicated (as many mother-daughter relationships are) but full of love. Each character’s backstory shows the emotion and nuance behind each women’s individual narratives. The show even points out this tendency we have to not see incarcerated women as full individuals, and we see this coming from one of the guards who makes a comment after listening in to the inmate’s phones conversations, saying “it’s so interesting--all these lives---it’s like reading Dickens.” This comment shows the awareness the show has of this ridiculous assumption many people like the guard have that these women don’t have lives of their own. The comparison of people’s lives to reading fiction portrays a tendency to trivialize the stories of these women as well. By watching an episode with the intent to analyze it, I realized that OITNB definitely attempts to revise and critique the binary by arguing for the humanity of incarcerated women. But I think that the fact that a tv show even has to argue for the humanity of these women shows that it does not have the power to fully rewrite the binary, but at least it attempts to fight against it.

                 Watching Orange is the New Black while thinking about the existence of the binary ended up being a very interesting and different experience. In the episode I watched, I saw ways the show revised the binary by showing a variety of women’s ideas about love, representations of LGBTQ characters as well as cishet characters, and through displaying the full humanity of these women. When thinking about OITNB in specific relation to my topic of women’s incarceration, I definitely have some mixed feelings about the show. There are some existing critiques of the show as using the basis of the Prison Industrial Complex for entertainment, and I would have to agree that these critiques. Especially after doing all of my research on women’s incarceration and learning more about the horrors women are subjected to through the Prison Industrial Complex, I do think that using this as a basis of entertainment is harmful and problematic. But on the flip side, OITNB portrays incarcerated women in  a much more positive and nuanced way than many other media sources do. So I honestly am torn between how I feel about this show on a moral level, but I think that’s okay, and contrary to the binary many things aren’t just black and white. I think that analyzing this show through the lens of the binary reminded me again that these women aren’t just statistics, and stressed the importance of really thinking about the many different narratives every woman who is incarcerated has.

References

Foss, S., Domenico, M., & Foss, K. (2013). Gender Stories: Negotiating identity in a binary world. Waveland Press.

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Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post Three: Connection to Current Events (link to article)

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Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post Three: Connection to Current Events

In the midst of Trump’s crusades against abortion, it is crucial that we acknowledge the effects that his words and actions have on the women who are most marginalized within our communities. The article I chose to analyze for this post is an article in the New York Times called “Trump Tells Anti-Abortion Marchers ‘We Are With You All the Way’ and Shows It”, by Jeremy Peters. This article discusses how Trump is attempting to put in place measures that will make it easier for states to decrease funding for Planned Parenthood clinics, and how he has also expanded religious freedom protections that will allow health care providers to deny women abortion care. Peters highlights the ways in which these attempted policy changes also come with rhetoric to match: this past Monday was declared “National Sanctity of Human Life Day”, and Pence has also made the statement that “Life is Winning”, implying that women who have abortions do not value life. This article reminded me of my topic on women’s incarceration because it brings up notions of how society continues to perpetuate impossible standards of womanhood and motherhood, and made me think deeper about who faces the harshest backlash from these ideals.

In one of the articles we read for class, “Abortion Stigma: A Reconceptualization of Constituents, Causes, and Consequences”, the authors point out that one of the reasons why abortion is so heavily stigmatized is because it goes against the socially constructed idea of what it means to be a woman. The authors also talk a about how two of the main tenets of womanhood that are held up are nurturing motherhood and sexual purity, therefore getting an abortion goes against what is thought of as being a “good woman” (Norris, Bessett, Steinberg, Kavanaugh, De Zordo, Becker, S51). Analyzing these two articles together made me think about the existing discourse surrounding mothers who are incarcerated. Women who are incarcerated with kids are held up as examples of what a mother should not be. They are portrayed as being selfish, and lacking the ability to nurture and care for their kids. And if a woman in prison is a mother and has had an abortion as well? That shame and stigma is compounded, not to mention that women in prison lack access to adequate reproductive health care so restrictions on abortion care may make receiving adequate help even more difficult. The stigmas surrounding being a woman who is incarcerated and a woman who has had an abortion overlap and interact due to the ways in which they are rooted in societal ideals of what it means to be a woman. This idea that there is only one way to be a woman is harmful, and we can see this through the ways in which we strip women of their womanhood if they don’t fit into our box of what a “good” woman looks like. It is time we stop perpetuating impossible standards of womanhood, and it is time we stop punishing women for existing outside the margins of what we deem as acceptable.  

                                                  References

Norris, A., Bessett, D., Steinberg, J., Kavanaugh, M., De Zordo, S., & Becker, D. (2011). Abortion Stigma: A Reconceptualization of Constituents, Causes and Consequences. Women's Health Issues,S49-S54.

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Gender & Sexuality Portfolio Post Two: Connection to Course Concepts

Introduction

         In class we have had the opportunity to explore concepts such as the social construction of gender, agency, privilege, oppression, and intersectionality. These are important concepts to think about in an academic setting, but they are also applicable to our everyday lives since they are constantly at play in our social worlds. These topics were useful to analyze my special topic of women's incarceration with as well, and allowed me to look at different areas such as partner violence and state violence, strategies women create for their release, sexual assault, exploitative work programs, and experiences of trans women. Looking at my topic through the lens of these concepts really made me think about who society places value on, as well as whose voices does mainstream feminism prioritize.

1). Social Construction of Gender

         Gender is socially constructed. The social construction of gender refers to ways in which society assigns meaning to gender, and the ways in which a binary system of man or woman, masculine or feminine, has been created. In Gender Stories, Sonja Foss, Mary Domenico, and Karen Foss describe how our interpretations of gender are influenced by cultural norms that change throughout time and place. Gender Stories also describes this socially constructed binary system as acting as a matrix, functioning to make it seem as though these gender distinctions are natural, when in reality they only exist because society has created them. The social construction of gender has perpetuated gendered stereotypes, strict binary ideals, and certain standards to which people are expected to adhere to.

         The social construction of gender is very relevant to think about when examining issues of incarceration, and on a more specific level, women's incarceration. Prisons and jails are gender segregated spaces and they separate inmates up according to their current genitalia, creating a space that puts a focus on biological sex as a means for categorizing gender and ignoring gender's socially constructed nature. There are also many other relevant connections between women's incarceration and this specific concept. In Threshold Concepts, the authors discuss how violent masculinity has become normalized, and how this functions as a form of social control over women. An article I read by Corinne Mason and Shoshana Magnet also looked into violence against women, and makes connections to how surveillance technology both enables violence against women and also leads to the criminalization of women of color as well. The authors highlight parallels between violence against women perpetrated by men and violence against women perpetrated by the state. One striking example which this article used, discussed how in some cases women will call law enforcement on their abusers, only to be arrested themselves for some minor crime. The social construction of masculinity functions to control women through abusive relationships as well as violence committed by the state.  

            It is also interesting to look at the social construction of gender by exploring ways in which incarcerated women's humanities are perceived. In Threshold Concepts the authors reference how there are many implicit and explicit messages present in society which portray what is thought of as a "proper" role for a woman to inhabit (Launius & Hassel, 2015). Women are viewed as being delicate, gentle, nurturing, etc. While this is the public picture painted of women, common discourse surrounding incarcerated women is that they are bad mothers, violent, dangerous, etc. Incarcerated women are publicly portrayed as being the opposite of what a "woman" should be, and this is used as an excuse to not feel guilty about disregarding their humanity. Incarceration is already an incredibly dehumanizing experience, and on top of this women have to deal with being stripped of their womanhood as well.  

2. Agency

        Agency is the ability that an individual has to be able to make their own choices and assert their own free will. Agency can be an incredibly powerful thing, and can motivate groups to organize and make change at a broader level. Individuals may also create change in their personal lives through asserting their own agency. It is important to note though that while everyone has agency, there may be different barriers existing in the paths of marginalized communities that may hinder their abilities to activate their agency in certain situations. Gender Stories further describes agency as believing that you can create change within your life, and this idea that people have some type of control over their own lives. Gender Stories also describes different strategies for enacting agency such as reframing, influencing others, and doing things yourself.

      Incarcerated women find many ways in which to assert their agency, despite many obstacles in their way. An article that I found by Claire Snell-Rood, Michelle Staton-Tindall, and Grant Victor looks at a few ways incarcerated women practice agency through strategies involving their relationships and re-entry. The authors looked at a sample of women from rural Appalachian Kentucky, which has high rates of prescription drug abuse and poverty. Many of the women within their sample battled substance abuse, and this study looked at ways in which they strategized how to stay clean, and the role that certain relationships they have on the outside may affect this either negatively or positively. The women asserted agency by analyzing their relationships, as well as their own knowledge of their own personal drug habits, and creating plans for how to stay clean once they get out of prison. Some themes the study found were the women's focus on preparing themselves for potentially unsupportive relationships on the outside, the importance of critically analyzing how certain relationships have played a role in their past drug usage, and using positive relationships to motivate them to stay clean. While staying clean is by no means easy, these women in the sample asserted their own agency to create a plan to take on the challenges that face them upon re-entry. There are also many other ways in which incarcerated women practice agency, which I would like to potentially look into in the future for this project.

3. Privilege:

         Privilege can be defined as various advantages and benefits that are given to dominant groups simply for being the default. There are different types of privilege, so it is possible for one aspect of a person's identity to benefit from privilege while another aspect faces oppression. Privilege is upheld by institutions, practices, and policies, as well as societal ideologies and individual actions. As Threshold Concepts points out, privilege and oppression go hand and hand. Conversations of justice often tend to focus solely on oppression, but is important to also look at the ways in which a system of privilege has afforded some people certain advantages all throughout their lives, and how this affects the ways in which they perceive the world. Threshold Concepts also references this idea of the "mythical norm", and this mythical norm is a white, straight, thin, young, Christian, financially stable, male; in other words, this mythical norm is the ultimate model of a privileged individual (Launius & Hassel, 2015). Acknowledging one's privilege can at times make people feel uncomfortable, but it is important to recognize our position within systems of power so that we can actively work towards equity for all.

         Privilege is an interesting topic to think about in terms of the experiences of women who are incarcerated, and thinking about this topic from this particular viewpoint can uncover some interesting issues beneath the surface. One article that made me think about privilege in particular in connection to women's incarceration, was an article by Rachel Leah. Leah covers a wide variety of topics within her article: she looks at experiences of mothers who are incarcerated, the disproportionate ways in which incarceration affects women of color, health disparities, the extremely problematic cash bail system, crimes of poverty, and a few other issues. But what really stuck with me from this article, was a statistic that Leah started off her article with. The article starts off by stating that 86% of women who have been in jail have experienced sexual assault sometime in their life. 86 percent. This vast majority of a number knocked me off my feet. Most women who are coming in contact with the prison industrial complex are survivors of sexual trauma, and yet they are criminalized and subjected to even more trauma through what we refer to as the "justice" system. This statistic from Leah's article made me really think about privilege, and mainstream feminist discourse. Thinking about this article through this lens brought up a lot of questions for me. Why are the voices of these women left out of many feminist conversations? Why don't we talk about this more? What women are we more likely to believe, uplift, and listen too? Who do we as a society value, and who do we view as disposable? The Me Too movement has brought much attention to the issue of sexual assault and harassment, and conversations about this issue have been happening in much more public spaces. Yet when looking at this movement, it is also important to analyze the role of privilege in whose voices are more likely to be heard when it comes to experiences of sexual assault. Incarcerated women have experienced assault at much higher levels than the rest of the population as a whole, yet it took upper class white women speaking out for this movement to really catch ground. And even now that this movement has received more public attention, it seems as though the stories of incarcerated women are still not being heard in many spaces. When thinking about the experiences of incarcerated women, it is important to remember that not everybody has the privilege of being heard, and this needs to change.

4. Oppression:  

           Oppression is the ways in which structures and cultural ideals function to create a system of domination in which certain groups of people are valued less than others. Due to this devaluation, oppressed communities may be subject to inequities on a broader structural level, as well as discrimination on an individual level. I think that oppression is a hard term to describe, because it is so broad reaching, and can apply to so many different areas and disguise itself in many different forms. It is important to note that there are many different types of oppression, and that these various types are many times interactive with each other. Institutional racism, institutional sexism, homophobia, and classism are some main areas of oppression that come to mind, but there are many more that exist as well. Threshold concepts looks at how oppression places barriers in the paths of groups who are oppressed, and functions as a way to limit the mobility of a group. Threshold concepts also looks into the ways in which oppression functions through ideologies, and how oppressive ideologies "other" marginalized groups who don't fit into the mythical norm (Launius & Hassel, 2015).  

          The concept of oppression relates back to my topic of women's incarceration, because the prison industrial complex serves as a form of social control, and the women within the criminal justice system are subject to its oppressive and dehumanizing practices. In connection to multiple modes of oppression, Robynn Cox wrote an article on the effects of mass incarceration in the lives of black women. Cox explains how women of color are disproportionately targeted by the criminal justice system, and backs this statement up with the data of how black women are about 3 times as likely as white women to be incarcerated. This article also explores how incarcerated women are more likely to be the primary caretakers of their children, and due to the fact that women's prisons tend to be more geographically isolated this can lead to emotional isolation from limited visiting time with their family. Cox examines what she calls the "triple burden" of being black, a woman, and a criminal; and the ways in which this affects these women's lives once they are released from prison in terms of struggles getting hired and negative societal perceptions. Looking at the experiences of black women who have been incarcerated displays various ways in which an oppressive prison system, an oppressive white supremacist society, and an oppressive patriarchal society all are at work in othering this group of individuals.

       Another article which I read that illustrates oppression within the context of women's incarceration, was an article by Jaime Lowe about incarcerated women who are fighting wildfires in California. This article broke my heart about 17 times before I finished reading it, it was incredibly powerful and emotional. Lowe focused in on the narrative of Shawna Jones, a woman who was serving a three-year sentence, and died at age 22 with less than 2 months to go on her sentence fighting wildfires in California as part of a prison work program. The article then widened its scope a little bit more and looked at this specific work program and its implications. Inmates are paid up to a dollar an hour while fighting fires, which is more than other job programs within the prison. While inmates have the choice to pick this job, this is still a form of exploitation due to the fact that they are having to make this choice either to risk their lives in order to receive better treatment than what they are subject to in prison, as well as wanting to feel a little bit of freedom. Lowe also explores how overcrowding has become an issue within California prisons, yet the California attorney general did not want to shrink the inmate population because he wanted to continue using cheap labor to fight California's harsh wildfires. As if this was not unjust enough, once these workers are released from prison, if they want to become firefighters and use their skills that they have learned, they can't because the Los Angeles County Fire Department does not hire felons. Shawna's story matters, as do the stories of the rest of these women putting their lives on the line to save others, and for next to no money. Incarceration takes lives. These work programs are examples of systematic exploitation and oppression of inmates, and then when accounting for the fact that incarceration disproportionately affects women of color the web of oppression gets deeper and deeper.  

5. Intersectionality:  

        Intersectionality looks at the ways in which layered identities face overlapping oppressions. For example, a straight white woman will not experience the world in the same ways in which a queer black woman does, even though they are both women. And going along with this, a queer black woman does not experience her queerness, blackness, or woman-ness in separate dimensions, but rather experiences all parts of her identity as a whole. Another key element to examine when thinking about intersectionality, is the ways in which institutions function as a means for oppressing certain layered identities. In Threshold Concepts, Launius and Hassel refer to this as interlocking systems of privilege and oppression, and draw attention to experiences people have on a micro level as well as a more macro/structural level.  Threshold concepts also pushes back against a hegemonic feminism that is white washed, and stresses the importance of using an intersectional lens when engaging in feminist work.

       When looking at the topic of women's incarceration, it is absolutely essential to use an intersectional form of analysis. Due to the fact that the prison industrial complex is a societal system, it has the power to oppress and dominate, just as other societal structures do. And as is the case for society as a whole, within the prison system there are certain identities that are subject to higher rates of marginalization. Intersectionality is very applicable to many different elements of the issue of women's incarceration, so for the purpose of this paper I will specifically examine intersectionality through the experiences of trans women of color who are incarcerated.

         An article by Sari Reisner, Zinzi Bailey, and Jae Sevelius researched a sample of transgender women, and analyzed this sample in terms of race, incarceration, victimization, and health disparities. They found that trans women of color are more likely to be incarcerated than trans women who are white, and they also found that this intersection of race, class, gender, and incarceration for trans women led to a higher risk for health disparities. The authors also found that transgender women may not receive the specific medical treatments they need (such as hormones) while incarcerated. Another crucial element to note of the unique experiences of trans women who are incarcerated, is that if they have not gone through gender reassignment surgery, they will most likely be placed in a male prison facility. The researchers described how in order to protect them from other prisoners, trans women will many times be placed in Ad-Seg, but this leaves them vulnerable to abuse from prison staff. Intersectionality is crucial to think about when thinking about these women's experiences. Trans women who are incarcerated face unique obstacles within the prison industrial complex that cis women do not have to worry about. Also, within the population of trans women who are incarcerated, it is lower class trans women of color who are hit the hardest. When thinking from an intersectional viewpoint, it is important to acknowledge the ways in which systems and policies stigmatize different identities, and leave marginalized communities with these layered stigmatized identities most vulnerable.

Conclusion

         When navigating everyday life, it is important to keep in mind concepts such as the social construction of gender, agency, privilege, oppression, and intersectionality. In terms of my special topic, these concepts are highly applicable to the experiences of women who are incarcerated, and it would be irresponsible to look at this issue without using these modes of analysis. Using these concepts to explore women's incarceration brought up questions and critiques for certain forms of feminism that seem to forget the diversity that exists within the broader community of women. Solidarity should not just be reserved for women who are deemed "respectable", and it should not be withheld from entire groups of women just because they are not white, cis, straight, and middle class. Conversations surrounding feminism cannot continue to forget and exclude so many. If our feminism does not uplift all women, then who is it for? What is the point?

References

Cox, R. (2012). The impact of mass incarceration on the lives of african american women - sociological abstracts - ProQuest. Review of Black Political Economy, 39(2), 203-2012.  

Foss, S., Domenico, M., & Foss, K. (2013). Gender Stories: Negotiating identity in a binary world. Waveland Press.

Launius, C., & Hassel, H. (2015). Threshold Concepts in Women's and Gender Studies: ways of seeing, thinking, and knowing. Routledge.

Leah, R. (2017). 86 percent of women in jail are sexual-violence survivors. Retrieved from https://www.salon.com/2017/11/11/86-percent-of-women-in-jail-are-sexual-violence-survivors/

Lowe, J. (2017). The incarcerated women who fight california’s wildfires. The New York Times Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/magazine/the-incarcerated-women-who-fight-californias-wildfires.html

Mason, C., & Magnet, S. (2012). Surveillance studies and violence against women - sociological abstracts - ProQuest. Surveillance & Society, 10(2), 105-118.  

Reisner, S., Bailey, Z., & Sevelius, J. (2014). Racial/ethnic disparities in history of incarceration, experiences of victimization, and associated health indicators among transgender women in the U.S. - sociological abstracts - ProQuest. Women & Health, 54(8), 750-767.  

Snell-Rood, C., Staton-Tindall, M., & Victor, G. (2016). Incarcerated women's relationship-based strategies to avoid drug use after community re-entry - sociological abstracts - ProQuest. Women & Health, 56(7), 843-858.  

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Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post One: Introduction to Special Interest Topic

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Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post One: Introduction to Special Interest Topic

             The prison system within the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world, and the reach of the system touches many people's lives even after they have been released from prison. As a country we pride ourselves as being champions of "freedom", yet can we truly make these claims to freedom with a clean conscious when we lock millions of people away in cages? Not only is the U.S prison industrial complex the largest prison system, it is also incredibly inhumane. Recently the punitive ways of our criminal justice system have received more attention thanks to the work of fierce activists, yet within these conversations about the injustices of the justice system women are often left out. Women who are incarcerated have to deal with the stresses of an inhumane system, as well as other challenges that are unique due to their position as women within the system. In today's society, women are being incarcerated at increasingly higher rates, and many women are incarcerated for minor drug crimes. A vast majority of women who are incarcerated have been sexually or physically abused prior to their incarceration, and have to work through the symptoms of trauma in their lives while locked away. The experiences of women who are incarcerated are also unique in terms of reproductive health, mental health needs due to previous gendered experiences, and barriers to employment and success existing specifically for women outside of prison upon release. Due to the fact that we live in a patriarchal society, the prison system is also based off of patriarchal practices, and it is irresponsible to leave the voices of incarcerated women out of conversations surrounding justice.

             For my special topic, I have chosen to focus on the experiences of women who are incarcerated. I picked this topic for a few reasons, but one reason is that as a career path I would like to advocate for the rights of people who are incarcerated. The more I learn about the criminal justice system, the angrier I get. I thought that this project would be a really good opportunity to look at incarceration specifically through a lens of how women experience it. Incarceration is already such a dehumanizing experience, and then going a step further, when a woman is incarcerated it seems as though we snatch away her claims to womanhood. Public discourse demonizes women in prison as being bad mothers, paints them as being deviant and too sexual, and not worthy of respect or empathy. Another driving factor behind why I chose this topic was that women who are incarcerated are so often forgotten about. I've done research about the prison system for some of my sociology classes, but most of the literature which I found focused mainly on men. I wanted to find out, if we listen to the voices of women who have been in prison, what would they have to say? What does justice look like to them? And in what ways do their experiences differ from those of men? Also, since experiences within prison are definitely not one size fits all experiences, I thought that this topic would have huge connections to concepts in this class, especially from an intersectional standpoint. I think an overall reason why I chose this as my topic is because the experiences of incarcerated women matter, and even if it's just through a term project I wanted to give their stories more space.  

             I searched the term "women's incarceration", and received 37 results for the past 5 years. The topics covered a wide range within this area of study, but some common areas a majority of the results focused on were mental health, trauma, sexual assault, reproductive health, experiences after prison, and ways in which gendered disparities exist within the system. I chose ten articles overall: two of which looked at disparities within the commutation process for women, one which focused on barriers that exist within society for women who have just been released from prison, one which focused on how women who have just been released conceptualize success, three articles which focus on topics of mental health, trauma, and histories of sexual assault for women who are incarcerated, two articles that focus on lack of access to adequate reproductive health services, and the last article looked at social relationships women maintain through foodways in prison. Every single one of these articles was written by women, with the exception of two male authors who co-wrote one article, and two articles which were put out by law reviews. This is interesting to note in terms of thinking about who is interested in researching this topic, as well as who's hands are these women's stories in. There were two common themes in methodology that I found within these articles. One form of methodology was interviewing women who were either currently or previously incarcerated. This method proved to be especially impactful, and the voices of the women themselves really shone through in articles that used this form of research. Another methodology that was present was exploring the issues at a broader level, and then providing specific statistics. This was helpful because it provided useful background information on some of the common issues faced by incarcerated women, and also had the specific statistics to bring home the point of how prevalent the problem is. Thinking about the general information of these studies such as the topics, methodology, and authors is useful before moving forward and summarizing the literature because it gives us a backdrop to situate the results within.  

            The literature provided a window into many of the issues that women who are incarcerated face, and one of these areas was the issue of trauma and mental health. An article by Carol Jacobson took a unique approach to this issue by exploring the commutation process as women experience it. In Jacobson's study she sought to find out disparities for women within this specific process. Jacobson's research found that women are less likely to be up for commutation, and that when they do go through this process they are subject to bullying from the AAG in which they have to relive their past traumas and histories of abuse, and most likely will have their character discredited by an AAG who will most likely be a white male. Three of the other pieces of literature that I found also highlighted topics of trauma, abuse, and mental health, and extended the research of Jacobson's article even further and in new directions. These articles first aimed to explore incarcerated women's experiences with interpersonal violence more in depth in an attempt to better understand the different nuances and forces at work in survivors' lives. Two of these three studies pointed out that anywhere from 70-98% of incarcerated women have been exposed to some type of interpersonal violence, whether it be physical abuse, sexual assault, partner violence, etc. This area of the literature also aimed to explore ways in which these traumas affect the women's mental health, and what their needs were within prison. Women who were interviewed suggested that they need more adequate treatment that addresses childhood abuse and/or domestic violence, and also mentioned that receiving care that was more personalized to their own specific needs would be helpful. Another area that the literature on women's incarceration covered, was the topic of reproductive health needs. Two of the articles I looked at examined the inadequate reproductive health services within prisons, and brought up the fact that since many correctional policies were created at a time when women's incarceration was rare, these policies fail to address reproductive needs that are unique to women. These pieces of literature examined detrimental practices such as strapping down pregnant women in restraints, and also highlighted other disparities of reproductive justice such as a lack of postpartum services within prisons, lack of access to adequate birth control, inadequate abortion services, and the list goes on. The articles also pointed out the practices of separating new mothers from their children, and limiting contact with outside family. Both of these articles highlighted the harmful effects of the neglect of women's reproductive health, and serve as a call for more specific policies that address women's needs within prison. One article that was unique to the literature I found in my research, was a study done by Amy Smoyer, which focused on social relationships of women in prison. Smoyer was interested in women's social relationships within prison since positive and meaningful connections can positively impact one's mental well-being. Smoyer explored women's social networks by examining foodways such as cooking and commissary, and found that foodways can serve as sites of connection and bonding, but can also be a solitary act if preferred. The last two articles I looked at explored women's experiences after being released from prison. One of the articles by Gretchen Heidemann, Julie Cederbaum, and Sidney Martinez looked at the ways in which women think of success after being released from prison. The authors found that the women they interviewed defined success in five ways: having their own place, being able to help family and others, living free from criminal justice surveillance, persevering through hardship, and being able to live a "normal life". The other study on life outside of prison was done by Susila Gurusami, and focused on barriers to black women who were previously incarcerated in the labor market. Gurusami's findings touched on the fact that the system of capitalism is racialized and gendered, as well as unkind to people with a felony on their record, making it three times as hard for formerly incarcerated black women to get a job upon release. Gurusami also found that many of the jobs that were willing to hire someone with a history of incarceration also tended to be very labor intensive, and these jobs were simply not an option for some women. While there is not much literature done on this topic of women's incarceration yet, the research that exists is strong and covers a range of topics. Overall, every single study had a common call for future studies in this area, and this call was to simply do more research on the specific needs of women who have been incarcerated; whether it be on mental health, reproductive health, past abuse, life after prison, just put the time and effort into researching the stories of these women.

             The issue of mass incarceration is a very pressing one, and it is crucial that we don't leave women out of the conversation. The prison system was created using men as the default model of people being incarcerated, therefore needs that are specific to women are not addressed through policy or practice. As the literature points out, a majority of incarcerated women have been subject to various forms of trauma in their lives, and most prisons do not have adequate mental health services to assist these women in their healing process. There are also disparities within reproductive health services provided to women in prison, adding on just another stressor into their lives. The literature also informs us of how women who have been incarcerated are also subject to unique barriers in society once they are released from prison. The voices of women are often overlooked in many spaces within our society, and this holds true for the voices of incarcerated women. The stakes are high and people's lives are on the line, it is essential that we start listening. Moving forward, I would like to learn more about the ways in which intersectionality plays a role in these women's experiences, as well as explore how respectability politics plays into the treatment they receive and how they are perceived.

References

Asberg, K., & Renk, K. (2015). Safer in jail? A comparison of victimization history and psychological adjustment between previously homeless and non-homeless incarcerated women. Feminist Criminology, 10(2), 165-187. doi:10.1177/1557085114537870

Correctional facilities. (2013). Georgetown Journal of Gender & the Law, 14(2), 339-361.

Gurusami, S. (2017). Working for redemption: Formerly incarcerated black women and punishment in the labor market. Gender & Society, 31(4), 433-456. doi:10.1177/0891243217716114

Heidemann, G., Cederbaum, J. A., & Martinez, S. (2016). Beyond recidivism: How formerly incarcerated women define success. Affilia: Journal of Women & Social Work, 31(1), 24-40. doi:10.1177/0886109915581702

Jacobsen, C., & Lempert, L. B. (2013). Institutional disparities: Considerations of gender in the commutation process for incarcerated women.Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 39(1), 265-289.

Kotlar, B., Kornrich, R., Deneen, M., Kenner, C., Theis, L., von Esenwein, S., & Webb-Girard, A. (2015). Meeting incarcerated women's needs for pregnancy-related and postpartum services: Challenges and opportunities. Perspectives on Sexual & Reproductive Health, 47(4), 221-225. doi:10.1363/47e3315

Lynch, S. M., Fritch, A., & Heath, N. M. (2012). Looking beneath the surface: The nature of incarcerated women’s experiences of interpersonal violence, treatment needs, and mental health. Feminist Criminology, 7(4), 381-400. doi:10.1177/1557085112439224

Smoyer, A. B. (2015). Feeding relationships: Foodways and social networks in a women’s prison. Affilia: Journal of Women & Social Work, 30(1), 26-39. doi:10.1177/0886109914537490

Sufrin, C., Kolbi-Molinas, A., & Roth, R. (2015). Reproductive justice, health disparities and incarcerated women in the united states.Perspectives on Sexual & Reproductive Health, 47(4), 213-219. doi:10.1363/47e3115

Walsh, K., Gonsalves, V. M., Scalora, M. J., King, S., & Hardyman, P. L. (2012). Child maltreatment histories among female inmates reporting inmate on inmate sexual victimization in prison: The mediating role of emotion dysregulation. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27(3), 492-512. doi:10.1177/0886260511421670