let's NOT start calling DV "intimate terrorism", please

really disturbed by the recent feminist articles (by Hadley Freeman, and in particular the one by Janey Stephenson) which point out that many people who kill lots of other people are also violent to their intimate partners. sure. so are many cops. so are many politicians. extending the definition of terrorism is carceral feminism. can we not.

being accountable to complicated histories

i was so excited to read this:

"Rape has a history.  Histories, actually.  One of the patterns of a more local history can be seen and felt in the ways some instances of rape have the effect of mobilizing, even galvanizing people in ways that other acts of violence do not.  I am not just speaking of feminists.  If my dashboard is any indication, folks in my orbit have expended exponentially more outrage on the recent Julian Assange rape case, and the left’s response to it, than, for example, the human rights abuses that have spurred the prisoner-organized and coordinated strike that’s been going on in Georgia.

[...] 

“If we get rid of prisons,” they’ll say, “what are we going to do with all the rapists and murderers?”  When I hear this, I think that feminist descriptions of rape culture have actually not accounted for the ways in which the idea of rape—is tied up not only with a culture that punishes women for attempting to tell the truth, but with a culture that punishes, full stop.  That punishes populations that include women, but also include people who are gendered differently.  I think about how much we rely on the law, and ultimately, on the penal system, to define what it means to be safe.  To the extent that we experience the incapacitation of the rapist—the locking of those convicted of rape—as if it were justice, overlooking conveniently the persistent evidence that more prisoners do not mean fewer instances of sexual violence.

I think about the idea of prison rape, and how rarely I see this invoked in descriptions of rape culture. I recall the “dropping the soap” joke made by a women’s studies professor in a classroom, and the uncomfortable receding of laughter once it was recognized that I  wasn’t participating in it.  I think about the degree to which indifference to prison rape is also an essential part of popular culture, and how rarely I hear this in feminist outrage toward rape culture.  About how the condition of “prisoner” has an underrecognized resonance with the condition of “woman” to the extent to which becoming a prisoner is, to some extent, not only to become rapeable but to be seen by many as deserving of it.  Rape culture tells you that you shoulda thought about that before you committed the crime.  Crime as submission, before the fact, to rape culture.

I think about how rarely I see the myth of the black male rapist referenced in discussions of rape culture, and I think, at the same time, about witch hunts.  I think about the systematic rape of black women categorized as the master’s use of his property.  Rape culture as the protection and promotion of the sancticity of white womanhood—all of which, I suspect, did nothing to decrease the instances of rape against even those women whom it enshrined as ideal.

I wonder if the victims of prison rape are not victim enough for the feminism I see on my dashboard.  I wonder if a black body swinging from a tree will be seen as the victim, or victim enough of rape culture for that kind of feminism.  I wonder these things because I want to see a movement that doesn’t isolate rape from other kinds of violence, or as a violence experienced by an amorphous and undifferentiated category of “women.”  Because, I suppose, I want to be part of a feminism that understands that certain uses of the idea of rape culture can actually strengthen patriarchy, and that being accountable to complicated histories is not to participate in apologism.  So I have to wonder if it isn’t more than a coincidence that the feminists I am reading are not organizing in support of the strikers.  I have to wonder at the sense of risk I feel in writing that I don’t think that extending the reach of an already problematic criminal justice system is a solution.  I question the flinch I feel in saying that I think it lets this  state, one so deeply and fundamentally complicit with rape culture, off the hook.  I question my reservation in saying that I want to recognize our reliance on this very state to protect some of us from violence and to enact justice as a tragedy.  In saying that I think that rape culture is actually part of a culture that relies on incarceration to solve problems.  This really has so little to do with Julian Assange."

written by low end theory. (via mai'a) there is more amazingess at the start and end so again - please read the whole thing.

i, just...

this is so upsetting. i can be tough when it comes to hearing about domestic violence(!) but reading this makes me cry.

"Woman jailed for retracting rape claims is refused appeal." from the Guardian.

she reported being raped by her husband. then, under pressure from him she retracted this. and so now she is being jailed for 'perverting the course of justice'. and since she is now in jail, her children have been put in the care of her abusive husband. against whom no charges have been upheld by the CPS, despite abuse having taken place in front of one of the children.

i am absolutely speechless. what should we do about this?

and i was struggling, one post ago, to articulate why the prison industrial complex is A Bad Thing. jesus.

finding ways not to call the police

i'm so impressed by this. beautifully written, compassionate and thoughtful article, with homework! and a resource list too. ohhh, good work.

"...As we paced in the cold night, we moved through our questions, anger and frustration. We thought about how everyone we know—even in a community that mostly wants a world without prisons—has had different experiences with harm and violence, different experiences with police, and, most likely, has a different “threshold” at which they can imagine not calling the police..."

i'm trying to surround myself with prison abolition info at the moment, because it's still a politics that doesn't come automatically to me. i still find it hard to care what becomes of someone who has benefited from abusing. and all repeat abusers benefit. i want to see real sanctions against abuse. and prison is a sanction. but but but. at the very least i remind myself that sending abusers to jail is pretty shit for more vulnerable people there. i remember a couple of years back being taken aback when i learned about queer opposition to hate crimes legislation (e.g. here and here). but it didn't take me long to get that sending racists and homophobes to jail is not very cool for the people of colour and gays already there.

and. regardless of that it's not the answer to racism and homophobia and abuse, either. i do know. but as i say it doesn't always come naturally to me yet. and that's why i love this article for its articulation of why those of us with enough privilege still buy into the idea that the police can be a force for protection:

"...When I think of the moments in which I could possibly imagine calling the police, I think of people I love, and of things I hope they never experience. Why do we feel afraid? Sometimes we feel afraid because we have experienced harm, because we have experienced trauma. Sometimes we also feel afraid because we have bought into aspects of racism, classism, and media-perpetuated images of danger. Sometimes it’s the complex combination of all these things—imagination, memory, and prejudice..."

so the writer of this has thought through real, practical ways in which we can all challenge ourselves on when we might involve the police, and whether we can push that threshold back. and how we can be more prepared for having to make that decision in a crisis.

genius. essential reading.

god i'm so naive

the women in the group this week - almost all of whom are on probation and doing 'unpaid work' / 'community service', and many of whom have been in prison - were talking about how prison is too soft, and how prisoners should be made to do more work for free as proposed by the coalition government. this... surprised me.

women in prison

"Taking the most hurt people out of society and punishing them in order to teach them how to live within society is, at best, futile. Whatever else a prisoner knows, she knows everything there is to know about punishment because that is exactly what she has grown up with. Whether it is childhood sexual abuse, indifference, neglect; punishment is most familiar to her."

Chris Tchaikovsky - Former prisoner and founder of Women in Prison

two women

so. this morning at group. among the women.

one is an 'overstayer', ie she came to the uk on a visa which has now expired. she spends her life in fear of a knock on the door. her husband knows full well he has ultimate control - he doesn't even have to beat her, not necessary - he simply doesn't give her food, or money. when she is forced to ask - then he beats her. social services don't have to help her, only her children. so he provides adequate stuff for the children. social services, when asked to pay for accommodation for mum and children, refuse, and offer either to remove the children or fly mum with or without her children, to her country of origin. this woman can't tear herself away from that horrible programme on sky, UK Border Force or whatever it's called, the programme all about the knocks on the doors and how brutally effective our immigration system can be.

another woman is a UK citizen, and originally from another country. her ex-partner beat her badly, she pressed charges and he is now in jail for a couple of months. this woman doesn't feel confident enough to make phonecalls, and she asks me to call the Border Agency Reporting Centre to find out what will happen to him when he finishes his sentence. she wants to report that he is in the country illegally, and she has tried to do so before, during the months of court hearings when she received threats from him that he would kill her and her family. the border agency tell me to call the jail. the jail need to see my letterhead. i am glad to give up for the day, feeling queasy in this advocacy role. the border agency man suggests that there is no reason why he would be intercepted by immigration on his release from jail; a failed asylum seeker would be removed, but this man has no legal status; he will be treated like any other person at the end of their sentence, the jail and immigration are not connected. this woman feels suicidal at the idea of her ex-partner being released and coming straight round to her house as he's always said he would.