Computers function by utilizing a binary code of ones and zeroes, and, while working with a binary such as that works well for computers, it is less applicable for other aspects of life; however, the effort to place identities into black and white binary boxes is still pressed upon people in most societies. The prison system, particularly the prison system in the United States, relies heavily upon different binaries of sexual orientation, gender, and even race in order to operate; for this reason, prison systems become a prime example of state violence against marginalized gender and sexual orientation through the methods in which these institutions police gender and sexual orientation. In an attempt to handle this problem, feminist and queer
Following this proof about how gender, sexual orientation, and other binaries are imposed within prisons, the same authors will be analyzed in order to shine a light on how feminist and queer scholars and activists are addressing these dilemmas. Initially, when a person thinks about prison, it is more likely that they will think about men committing crimes rather than women, and this is a result of the fact that the prison system has long been shaped as a way of punishing and gaining penitence from men (Davis, 65). In her article, “How Gender Structures the Prison System”, Angela Davis writes, “Although men constitute the vast majority of prisoners in the world, important aspects of the operation of state punishment are missed if it
A selection from this essay reads, “women's penitentiaries…intended to save women's souls by constraining their sexuality, conduct, and activities to those appropriate to gendered roles…regulation of sexualities and gender expressions deemed deviant has thus always been a central feature of imprisonment.” (Mogul, Ritchie, and Whitlock 94) This portion of the reading discusses the subject matter of the previous paragraph, which is that women’s prison’s policed and enforced gender regulations, but it goes on to relate this to the ways in which this set of ideologies also punishes minority sexual orientations in the institution (Mogul, Ritchie, Whitlock 94). The reason that these sexualities are deemed “deviant” is due to the fact that they exist with a binary where heterosexuality is deemed as the norm and everything else is deemed as abnormal, and, therefore, something that needs to be corrected (Mogul, Ritchie, Whitlock 95). In an attempt to transform a sexuality and gender identity to fit into the side of the created binary the individuals in charge of the prison deems as acceptable or fitting, they enlist methods of gender role training, medical punishment, and even sexual violent
Along with ethos and small touch of logos, the author Roxane Gay uses a strength appeal of pathos to persuade her audience onto her argument. “White people will never know the dangers of being black in America, systemic, unequal opportunity, racial profiling, and the constant threat of police violence. Men will never know the dangers of being a woman in America, harassment, sexual violence, legislated bodies. Heterosexuals will never know what it means to experience homophobia.” (Gay). In this paragraph, the author is identify the inequality between racial barriers, genders and sexual orientation which an emotionally involved topic to bring up. How people are treated differently how the way they look, where they come from. Woman would
The next big show that everyone seems to be talking about nowadays is “Orange is the new black.” A show that is centered on what citizens think a day in the life in a women’s prison is. But in all reality a women’s prison isn’t something to joke around about. Prison is defined as a correctional facility designed for confinement that is primarily ran by the state. Women serve their sentences in women’s prisons where men serve theirs in men’s prisons. According to Ashley Dugger an online introduction to criminal justice professor there is about 4,500 prisons in the United States alone. Of those 4,500 only 170 of them are solely women’s prisons.
Regina Kunzel is an historian of gender and sexuality in the 20th-century U.S . whose research focuses on the twined histories of difference and normalcy, the regulatory force of carceral institutions, and relationships between expert discourses and the self-representations of historical subjects. Kunzel’s most recent book, Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality (University of Chicago Press, 2008), examines the social and sexual world made by prisoners over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and tracks its meaning for the formation of modern sexuality. Criminal Intimacy was awarded the American Historical Association’s John Boswell Prize, the Modern Language Association’s Alan Bray Memorial
With matted hair and a battered body, the creature looked at the heartless man outside the cage. Through the dark shadows you could only see a pair of eyes, but those eyes said it all. The stream of tears being fought off, the glazed look of sheer suffering and despair screamed from the center of her soul, but no one cared. In this day in age I am ashamed to think that this is someone's reality, that this is an accurate description of a human being inside a Canadian women's prison . Exposing the truth behind these walls reveals a chauvinistic, corrupt process that serves no greater purpose. The most detrimental aspect of all is society's refusal to admit the seriousness of the situation and take responsibility for what has happened.
Today, especially with the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality, it is easy to believe that the fight for queer rights is something of the past, something that America as a whole moved beyond because we have achieved these rights. For example, the conclusion to Stonewall Uprising creates a sort of historical separation that allows anyone and everyone to believe that the United States and all the people within it have moved past homophobia, transphobia, and queerphobia. However, this is absolutely not a reality for many queer and trans people today, especially poor and/or incarcerated queer and trans people of color. The conclusion to Sarah Lamble’s “Retelling Racialized Violence, Remaking White Innocence” brings to light the issues affecting
The TV show, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, often addresses criminal deviance such as rape and murder. In the episode, “Scorched Earth,” an African immigrant maid becomes a rape victim of a rich, Italian prime minister named Distascio (Wolf). This episode highlights how status can affect perception of certain deviant behaviors. Additionally, it addresses contemporary America’s values toward types of deviant acts, and sanctions that go along with them.
In prisons, being masculine is highly essential and anyone who shows signs of weakness or softness, such as being feminine, is either mistreated or falls at the lowest level of being respected. Prisons are filled of activities for pure masculine to flourish such as: weight lifting, both playing and watching sports. Sports and fitness activities work to help men express themselves while also allowing their time due in prison to be bearable. In everything men do, the primary objective is to be bad, show toughness and establish an entitlement of sheer bruteness. It has deeply evoked practices of manhood such as being a bad ass, raping or beating others up, that it contradicts itself. The men placed there were arrested for doing such crimes and inside the prisons, they are forced to practice these social expressions. The culture of being hard and tough prevails and stays with them after their time has been payed
It would be misguided to discuss queer prison abolitionist movements without first thoroughly examining the place of the prison system in the neoliberal imperial project of enemy production (both inside and outside the boundaries of the state). The contemporaneous production of exterior and interior enemies (terrorists and criminals respectively), movement toward and legislation for ostensible (and, importantly, homonormative) queer “equality,” the criminalization of radical activism through increased surveillance, torture, disappearance, and imprisonment, and the exponential growth in the transnationally funded prison system is symptomatic of what, in the article “Intimate Investments,” Anna M. Agathangelou, M. Daniel Bassichis, and Tamara L. Spira deem the “imperial project(s) of promise and nonpromise” (Agathangelou, Bassichis, and Spira 120). Agathangelou, Bassichis, and Spira argue that, inherently a part of empire’s promises to some groups of safety and inclusion in global capitalism is a process of othering by which other groups are constructed as “enemy others,” and by which yet other groups are rendered “‘other Others’ whose life and death do not even merit mention or attention” (123). At the heart of this process lies the imperialist drive to establish and protect the new world order via what M. Jacqui Alexander deems the process of “incorporation and quarantining” (Alexander qtd. in Agathangelou, Bassichis, and Spira 127). This process serves the imperialist ends of militarization by constructing “enemies” which must be contained and/or killed; it also provides a backdrop against which newly legitimized homonormative queer identities can be conceptualized. In other words, by creating classes of racially sexualized...
Erin G., 2010, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women: The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. vi, 202, Vol. 8(2)175.
Programs in prisons that are tailored to women’s unparalleled needs would benefit society in the grand scheme of things. On an individual level it could break the cycle of abuse, victimization, and self-loathing. It is essential that the double damage done to female offenders be repaired because they deserve an unbiased chance at a good life. After all, they could represent your mother, aunt, sister, niece, wife and girlfriend. In her book, A woman doing life: Notes from a prison for women, Erin George did a fine job in depicting the life of women during the time they were incarcerated. She also included a light reflection of what life was like before prison and what life could be like after prison. This book included vivid passages of how women went about their daily routines in prison. It also provided enlightening details on the stark contrast between jail and prison. More importantly, this text was not only written from Erin George’s own observations and experiences, she included the perspectives of her fellow prison mates and even stories from correctional officers. The purpose of this text came across as a way to provide readers with completely detailed phenomenological accounts of prison life for women. These stories were described in such a descriptive fashion that a reader could easily picture the incidences that occurred. The depth of the book included information about debunking myths and stereotypes of female offenders, the lack of prisoner’s rights and the impossibility of parole, along with many other insightful observations. Overall, her intention came across as a genuine means to provide readers with a holistic portrayal of the world of women in prison.
Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, grandparents, pimps, prostitutes, straight people, gay people, lesbian people, Europeans, Asians, Indians, and Africans all have once thing in common: they are products of sexuality. Sexuality is the most common activity in the world, yet is considered taboo and “out of the norm” in modern society. Throughout history, people have been harassed, discriminated against, and shunned for their “sexuality”. One person who knows this all too well is activist and author, Angela Davis. From her experiences, Davis has analyzed the weakness of global society in order to propose intellectual theories on how to change the perspective of sexuality. This research paper will explore the discussions of Angela Davis to prove her determination to combat inequality in gender roles, sexuality, and sexual identity through feminism. I will give a brief biography of Davis in order for the readers to better understand her background, but the primary focus of this paper is the prison industry and its effect on female sexuality.
Correctional officers and gender have been an issue throughout prisons and jails since the start of having female correctional officers after the civil rights act of 1964. The role of a correctional officer was kept to the same gender prior to the civil rights act and was frowned upon if challenged. Female officers worked at female correctional facilities and male officers worked at male correctional facilities, after the civil rights act of 1964 the challenge was set forth to change correctional facilities gender ‘profiling” for the rest of time. The position at which one can take on this subject is set at personal opinion, throughout this essay it will touch on both sides of the spectrum and will set a final position after all sides have been touch upon. Correctional officers and gender: should gender matter or will the profiling of gender cease to exist?
To punish someone, in criminology, is to intentionally condemn the breaking of criminal law through penal regulation (Hudson 2002). From the death penalty at one end of the spectrum, to fines at the other end, punishment is synonymous with prisons. It is often the most desired form of justice but it is also the most contradictory form of punishment. This contradiction can be examined when exploring race, class and gender within prisons. Scholars have explored the history of the prisons by reviewing the rises and falls of prison numbers and tracing the changing purpose of prisons throughout
An analysis of freedom would be incomplete if it failed to scrutinize the laws of a society that are meant to enhance and promote freedom and equality. Such analyses were undertaken by Catharine MacKinnon (Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination) and Michael Warner (The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life). Their works highlight the patterns of dominance over certain groups (namely women and homosexuals) exercised within the legal structures of society presiding over everything from the military to jobs and marriage. Both authors challenge their readers to think in a way that defies convention, and perhaps become equipped to help make the world a better, freer place.
It suggests that it is meaningless to talk in general about 'women' or any other group, as identities consist of so many elements that to assume that people can be seen collectively on the basis of one shared characteristic is wrong. Indeed, it proposes that we deliberately challenge all notions of fixed identity, in varied and non-predictable ways. Moreover, Queer theory is a rapidly growing field in the critical theory tradition. Often examining the intersection of capitalism, gender, heterosexism and the state, queer theory is constantly seeking to break down norms and question the status quo. It is in the realm of male homoeroticism that we may see the potentially reactionary and/or misogynist implications of queer texts and queer reception: non-straightness does not necessarily embrace liberation. Perhaps the most prominent examples of this are the straight male-oriented genres such as gangster films, the Western, action films, and buddy films, which position male homoeroticism as a means to create and defend a “world of men” and buttress “hard” masculinity against the softening effects of domesticity and heterosexual commitment. There may be readers, including those who have not encountered such ideas before, who are dismayed to find in the pages of a socialist publication a word which they had previously taken to be a gross homophobic insult. For most,