Damned If I Do, Damned If I, Don’t Men In Higher Authority Abuse Their Power
Violence Against Women is Institutionalized
Orange is the New Black created by Jenji Kohan follows Piper Chapman, a happily engaged New Yorker who is sent to a women’s federal prison for transporting a suitcase full of drug money across international borders. Episodes often feature flashbacks of various inmates and prison guards pasts. These flashbacks typically explain how the inmate came to be in prison or develop the character’s backstory. The show plays close attention to how corruption, drug smuggling, funding cuts, overcrowding and guard brutality affect the prisoners’ health and well being and the prisoner’s basic ability to fulfill its fundamental responsibilities and ethical obligations as a federal corrections institution.
In season 3 when Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett is raped in the Litchfield van by prison guard Charlie Coates, I had to turn away, especially as she comes to terms with her rape and the many rapes she’d endured prior to being institutionalized. In one scene Pennsatucky and the officer go for another one of their donut runs, Coates returned to the prison late and was suspended. He blamed Pennsatucky for the punishment and decided to punish her back. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Coates repeatedly asked, as he threw her in the back of the prison van, a single tear streaming down her face. The camera held on Pennsatucky’s face as Coates confessed his feelings mid-assault: “I love you, Doggett. I love you.” The prison system and the show Orange is the New Black shows that in prison the male guards have the power and control over women prisoners and they abuse that power when they sexually assault them. Angela Davis demonstrates how violence against women is institutionalized through the prison system in her quote. “Although guard on prisoner sexual abuse is not sanctioned as such, the widespread leniency with which offending officers are treated, suggests that for women, prison is a space in which the threat of sexualized violence that looms in the larger society is effectively sanctioned as a routine aspect of the landscape of punishment behind walls”. This confirms how the prison as an institution is punishing women through 1) taking away their freedom, and 2) through sexual abuse. Violence against women comes in many forms sexual, and physical abuse. This violence is perpetuated, fostered and tolerated by institutional practices and social norms.
The prison system and legal system are examples of how violence against women is institutionalized. One story that is the perfect example of this is what happened to Marissa Alexander. CBS) — Last Friday, Jacksonville mother Marissa Alexander was sentenced by a Florida judge to 20 years in prison for firing what she says was a “warning shot” into the wall after a physical altercation with her husband, Rico Gray. How, they ask, could a 31-year-old woman in a relationship with a man who had a history of domestic violence, and whose actions did not result in any physical injury, be sentenced to two decades in prison while George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Martin, is out on bail? “The Florida criminal justice system has sent two clear messages today,” Rep. Brown said in a statement on May 11. “One is that if women who are victims of domestic violence try to protect themselves, the “Stand Your Ground Law” will not apply to them…The second message is that if you are black, the system will treat you differently.” According to a sworn deposition taken in November 2010, Gray, 36, said that on August 1, 2010, he and Alexander began fighting after he found text messages to Alexander’s first husband on her phone. Gray began calling her names, saying “If I can’t have you, nobody going to have you,” and blocking her from exiting the bathroom. Alexander pushed past Gray and went into the garage where she got her gun from her car’s glove compartment.
Marissa like many women is being punished for fighting for her life while the legal system is sending out a message to women and girls that it is okay for men to physically abuse them because they will either get away with it and or you will be punished for speaking up against it. Institutions like the legal system that punishes the very victims that dare to speak up and fight about the horrific violence they have experienced are then supporting violence against women. While the legal system punishes them for it through prison, the prison system still punishes them for it by having the violence continue but this time in a different form through sexual abuse. Davis states, “As the level of repression in women’s prisons increases, and, paradoxically, as the influence of domestic prison regimes recedes, sexual abuse which, like domestic violence is yet another dimension of the privatized punishment of women has become an institutionalized component of punishment behind prison walls” (13).
Angela Davis states how violence against women is being institutionalized through the legal and prison system and being put behind bars for defending themselves is punishing women. Orange is the New Black show opens peoples eyes to the violence that happens to women behind bars and in their everyday life it shows that the prison institution punishes women and lets the male guards abuse their power of authority through sexual abuse. Violence against women is about liberty, dignity, and justice. It impacts women all over the world and needs to be stopped because women should be treated like human beings with rights to protect themselves just like anyone else. When an estimated one of every 3 women in the world will be beaten, raped, or otherwise abused during her lifetime, the safety of all women and the stability of their families, and communities are put at risk. When you have institutions that support this violence it makes it harder for women to stop this violence when women are being punished as oppose to their perpetrator.
