From Private Violence To Mass Incarceration Analysis

Growing up in a small town in Northern California, feminism wasn 't a term frequently used. When it was used by mostly elders, I could hear the disgust and disdain in their voice when they spit out “feminism”. At the time I did not have a clue what feminism was. Since I was a child, my mother was the breadwinner; therefore she supported my family financially. However, my father is very strict on the roles women and men play in my household. I was always taught to do the cooking and cleaning because it was what girls did. While on the other hand, my brother was raised to play sports and be tough like a man. From what I have experienced, social, political, and economical power has been in the hands of men. Within my home structure the person …show more content…
Crenshaw’s article, “From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally About Women, Race, and Social Control” she discusses the issue of mass incarceration of women of color, and the under protection of women under the law. She further explains, how women of color have their rights taken away because of stereotypes; women become vulnerable to punishment and constant surveillance. Crenshaw stated, “intersectionality also points to the relationships between established hierarchies that structure the relative vulnerabilities of subjects to the public and private exercises of social power” (Crenshaw, 2012, 1426). By stating this, Crenshaw is concluding that race, gender, and social class intersect to make unjust hierarchies for women and especially women of color. Women are impacted not only for being female but also because of race and their social status. They are targeted with stereotypes based on their race and their poverty. Women of color, like Latinas and Black women, are more likely to be incarcerated than a white woman because women of color are typically stereotyped as violently aggressive. Crenshaw also includes that people believe boys who are raised in a single mother household may suffer consequences because they have no male figure in the household. This goes to show that society believes women are not capable of raising a “real man” on their own without the influence of a …show more content…
In addition, all women are characterized into one group and assumed to suffer from the same inequalities. Throughout her article she cites western feminists and explains why their views are incorrect. Mohanty explains, “in other words, only in so far as ‘Woman/Women’ and ‘the East’ are defined as others or as peripheral that (western) Man/Humanism can represent him/itself as the center.” (Mohanty, 1984, 352) Mohanty explains that if women and the third world countries continue to be set aside and classified as the “others”, men will always have control and be the center of power. She also states, the “others” are not monolithic and cannot be categorized into one group because they are not vulnerable to the equal stereotypes and inequalities. For example, a middle class woman would not have the same disadvantages and stereotypes as a low-income woman. The middle class woman will be stereotyped for being a woman but not because of her wealth while the low-income woman in addition will be stereotyped because of her poverty. Mohanty goes on to further explain that the periphery and its bounds define what the center will be; therefore she is addressing the power structure between and the western and the third world countries. Although first world countries state their power because of