Girls Just Wanna Have Fun-damental Rights*
*Unless you’re in prison, a woman of color, or a woman of color in prison
The Women’s March back in January was already problematic enough, with the fact that it was not representative of women who were not white. There may have been the intended goals of protecting reproductive rights, trans rights, etc., yet there is a glaring absence in advocacy for women prisoners and their rights. Even on the “Mission and Vision” page for the official Women’s March Website there is not mention of reform or advocacy for women prisoners.
Why not?
As Angela Davis points out, “deviant men have been constructed as criminal, deviant women have been constructed as insane”, leading to the distorted dichotomy where women who violate the law must be out of their minds. By not allowing women to be labeled as criminals, there is an empty space as to how to address their issues when placed into prison. In addition, by labeling prisons as places of “moral restoration”, only in the case of men could regain their morals, women placed in prisons were not seen as capable of redeeming themselves(Davis 3). Then “reform” movements called for women to be allowed to be “rehabilitated” just like the men were, which resulted in the idea of implementing programs that domesticated women (Davis 9). Angela Davis mentions in both “Public Punishment and Private Violence: Reflections on the Hidden Punishment of Women” and “How Gender Structures the Prison System” that this call for domestication benefited white women more, as it just perpetuated minority women into low end cleaning jobs once they got out of prison, compared to white women becoming “perfect housewives”. It is obvious that the so called feminist agenda has not benefited women in prison, but especially not women of color in prison. The lack of inclusion is further exemplified in the hit Netflix series, Orange is the New Black.
Orange is the New Black fails to stimulate a modern women’s movement for women in prison.
The Netflix series, when it first aired, was constantly praised for how revolutionary it was and the inclusion and diversity it celebrated.
I will admit that when it first aired I too was swept up in the fact that Black women and Latin women were so heavily featured in the series and that they were given story lines that added depth to their characters. The series seemed innovative and edgy when the series was first released in 2013.
The show then introduced the relationship between a prisoner, Daya, and guard, Bennett. One first has to recognize that as a prisoner Daya has virtually no rights and as a result cannot consent to a relationship. Bennett holds a position of power over her and therefore they can never be equal, no matter how “cute” the moments between them may appear. Just because Bennett never coerces or uses violence to get Daya to engage in a relationship with him, sexual or not, does not make him unlike the perpetrators in real life. When 15% of women in prisons are sexually assaulted, shows like Orange is the New Black fail to accurately portray how brutalized women in prison really are. The romanticization of such a relationship holds back any possible reform for women prisoners, indicating that maybe life in prison is not actually as bad as people think it is. How are the women who actually are in prison supposed to have their voices heard when popular media is trying to drown out their cries?
Is it possible for feminists to include women prisoner’s in their fights?
In the case of media, in this case television shows, the fight for women prisoners begins in including more diversity in the writing rooms. Orange is the New Black has been praised for having over half of a female writing staff, but when all but one of those females is white, the ideal reformation of a women is allowed into the narrative. Whether the show runners want to acknowledge or not, they owe a responsibility to being brutally honest about the dangers women in prisons constantly face, while not demonizing women of color as done in the latest season when Piper, a white women, had guards crack down and frisk Latina women, for supposedly stealing her panty business. Their story lines can’t romanticize life in prison, choosing only to reflect what they want to see or what they think the public wants to see.
In terms of the real world, in order for women prisoners to have their rights involved in future feminist agendas, it is up for them to be recognized as fellow women. There needs to be recognition of the exploitation women face from the first day they step into prisons, when being subjected to searches that amount to sexual assault. The culture of allowing people with privilege (Brock Turner) or positions of authority to abuse those condemned to having their rights taken away must stop. While it may seem impossible their has to be recognition from white women, Black women, Latin women, Asian women, etc. of what women in prison face and that asking for women to be treated the same as men in prison is not the place to start. The perpetuation of violence in the culture of mainstream society must be stopped. It all goes back, at least for me, to the idea that violence is allowed in situations. Violence has to be condemned in order for reform to begin in women’s prisons.
