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The Critique of Carceral Feminism
Gruber, Aya
Gruber, Aya
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Abstract
Few scholarly arguments incense self-identified feminists—especially prominent ones—as much as the claim that feminism contributed to the racist, inhumane, and overbroad American penal system. Over the years, scholars from outside and within feminism have offered various historical, philosophical, and genealogical analyses of the feminist movement’s relationship to mass incarceration. These writings assert that powerful feminist ideologies and groups contributed materially to the growth
of the criminal punishment system and served as powerful legitimators of penal authority in the last several decades. Critics of “carceral feminism” argue that feminists collaborated with the carceral state, often unintentionally, by among other things cementing raced and gendered narratives of crime victimhood, giving bipartisan credence to policing and prosecution programs, reinforcing the notion that the criminal system “works,” and bolstering the neoliberal precept that violence stems from individual choices rather than structural conditions.