Writer and activist Angela Davis who helped coin the term Abolition Feminism.

Abolition Feminism is a branch of feminism that calls for the elimination of the prison industrial complex. Abolitionist Feminist thinkers promote the idea of prison abolition, and embrace an anti-racism and anti-capitalist feminism[1]. Abolition Feminism is in opposition to carceral feminism.[1][2][3][4] Abolitionist Feminist reject carceral solutions to gender-based violence and propose models of transformative and restorative justice.[1][2]

Terminology

Abolition Feminism is defined as a "dialectic, a relationality, and a form of interruption: an insistence that abolitionist theories and practices are most compelling when they are also feminist, and conversely, a feminism that is also abolitionist is the most inclusive and persuasive version of feminism for these times.”[2] In order to achieve the goals of prison and police abolitionists, abolitionist feminist argue "we must also build movements demanding that society be reshaped with the goal of eliminating gender and sexual violence and their enable of racist and heteropatriarchal structures."[2]

Abolition Feminist use the term to recognize that "abolition is unthinkable without feminism and our feminism is unimaginable without abolition."[2]

For Abolition Feminist, abolition is not just understood as the abolition of police, prisons, and the child welfare system[5]. Instead, it is a political reimaging of what society ought to look like. Feminist thinkers on this topic see abolition "as a tradition, a philosophy, and a theory of change, moves away from a myopic focus on the distinct institution of the prison toward a more expansive version of the social, political, and economic processes that defined the process within which the imprisonment became viewed as the legitimate hand of justice.”[2] Abolitionist Feminist view crime as a fluid concept that is socially constructed as opposed to a natural phenomenon.[6]

Theorists

Organizations

References

  1. 1 2 3 "For Angela Davis and Gina Dent, Abolition Is the Only Way". Harper's BAZAAR. 2022-01-14. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Davis, Angela Y.; Dent, Gina; Meiners, Erica R.; Richie, Beth E. (2022). Abolition, feminism, now. The abolitionist papers series. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books. ISBN 978-1-64259-258-0.
  3. ↑ "Abolition. Feminism. Now. - International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine". internationalviewpoint.org. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
  4. ↑ Whalley, Elizabeth; Hackett, Colleen (2017-10-02). "Carceral feminisms: the abolitionist project and undoing dominant feminisms". Contemporary Justice Review. 20 (4): 456–473. doi:10.1080/10282580.2017.1383762. ISSN 1028-2580.
  5. ↑ Michalsen, Venezia (2019-06-11). "Abolitionist Feminism as Prisons Close: Fighting the Racist and Misogynist Surveillance "Child Welfare" System". The Prison Journal. 99 (4): 504–511. doi:10.1177/0032885519852091. ISSN 0032-8855.
  6. ↑ Richie, Beth E.; Martensen, Kayla M. (2019-12-27). "Resisting Carcerality, Embracing Abolition: Implications for Feminist Social Work Practice". Affilia. 35 (1): 12–16. doi:10.1177/0886109919897576. ISSN 0886-1099.
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