Dismantling the Master’s House: Gender Violence and Systemic Oppression
Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash
Photo par Nadine Shaabana sur Unsplash
Eisha Khan
(FR) Cet article explore le taux en hausse de la violence basée sur le genre envers les femmes noires, autochtones et de couleur. Il vise spécifiquement à analyser les solutions courantes qui luttent contre la violence basée sur le genre, telle que l'incarcération, une solution qui ne s’attaque pas à la racine du problème. Cet article utilise une optique historique pour démontrer l’échec des politiques d'incarcération et souligner l’importance d’abolir les systèmes oppressifs afin d’aider les femmes et les victimes marginalisées.
Audre Lorde famously said, “The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.” This paper will argue how increasing gender based violence of Black, Indigenous, and women of colour (BIWOC) can not be addressed without dismantling institutional violence. It will primarily refer to Andrea Smith’s, Anti Colonial Responses to Gender Violence as well as Nurture, Pleasure and Read and Resist! by Felicity Adams and Fabienne Emmerich, to shift gender violence from an individual to a collective issue. The perception of gender-based violence as an individual issue results in the misconception that state systems can help tackle BIWOC problems. Understanding the historical role of institutions in perpetuating gender and state violence on marginalized communities will reveal the need for more productive solutions. By placing victims and marginalized women at the forefront and centering sovereignty from oppressive organizations, gender-based violence can be better addressed as a systemic issue.
Traditional solutions for tackling gender violent crimes fail due to their focus on reinforcement over reform. The idea of carceral feminism, which can be defined as a reliance on increased policing and imprisonment to resolve gendered violence, is commonly adopted as an effective solution. Smith notes that “for many years, activists in the rape crisis and domestic violence movements have promoted strengthening the criminal justice system as the primary means to reduce sexual and domestic violence.” However, this[1] causes governments and individuals to focus on “the expansion of existing individualized carceral responses that fail to address the root causes of harm.”[2] Carceral feminism fails because it requires working within the existing framework of society, though Smith argues that “there is a contradiction… in relying upon the state to solve problems it is responsible for creating.”[3] Gender violence enforces the systems that oppresses women in the first place—it is the master’s tool. This means that carceral responses cause even more harm to marginalised communities—in fact, they are responsible for much of their oppression. This is why “native people are per capita the most arrested, most incarcerated, and most victimized by police brutality of any ethnic group in the country.”[4] To look towards these institutions to protect, when they have a history of the exact opposite is pointless.
Another issue with carceral feminism is its focus on individuals over culture. Smith notes that “reliance on the criminal justice system to address gender violence would make sense if there were a few crazed men who we could lock up.”[5] In reality, there is a much larger issue resulting in increasing gender violence among marginalized populations. Due to this mindset, current perceptions of combating gender violence focus on the banishment of individuals rather than tackling the roots of gender violence in our society, as the prison system is ultimately not able to deal with violent culture. Therefore, understanding gender violence as an inherent aspect of our society allows us to better understand the root of the problem.
The arguments above fall within the concept of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), a complex system that is created by government and private corporations for their self-interests. In the context of PIC, ideas such as policing, imprisonment, the legal system, and courts are just a few examples that further perpetuate the subjugation of certain populations so that people in power and companies can profit from their exploitation. These systems are the master’s house, and it is responsible for our individual and collective positionality. An example of this subjugation is how “prisons serve to disguise the economic hardships of these communities because prisoners are not included in unemployment statistics.”[6] The subjugation through the PIC works as a tool to promote racial capitalism, where race serves as a tool for naturalizing the inequalities produced by capitalism.
Embedded into this framework is gender and colonial violence, which historically has led to the position Indigenous women face today. For BIWOC, this manifests in a lack of acknowledgement and general ignorance of gender-based violence. This is most apparent in the handling, or lack thereof, of missing Indigenous women in Canada. This growing crisis among the community lies directly at the fault of a broken policing and justice system. Therefore, any demands for increased collaboration with criminal law, whether through higher sentencing or surveillance, is useless because the carceral system purposefully ignores them. This is exemplified through research that “violence against women on reservations is substantially underreported” and “comprehensive data on violence against women under tribal jurisdiction do not exist as no federal or Indian agency nor organization systematically collects this information.”[7] It is important to understand that state violence in the form of criminal justice system cannot provide true safety for women. By looking at the impact of PIC among these communities, it is evident that incarceration will not aid in their justice—it never did to begin with.
So, if carceral feminism is counterintuitive to achieving justice, what is a better alternative? In other words, what tools can dismantle the master’s house? Both articles suggest the use of abolition feminism as a more productive solution for BIPOC communities. Abolition feminism is best defined by Adams and Angela Davis as a “complex, anti-colonial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist revolutionary approach to change” which addresses the “root causes of violence through revaluing care.”[8] Smith largely aims to break away from PIC and put gender-based violence victims at the centre of community organizations. She voices her support of “the antirape movement that builds sustainable communities on a foundation of safety, support, self-determination, and accountability.”[9] Adams has a similar end goal, but focuses on the concept of reinforcing, “nurture, healing and pleasure as foundational to imagining an alternative future.”[10] The words used in these works are meant to shift from punishment towards something more restorative. In the context of BIWOC, this means removing oneself from sexist/racist systems and looking at other methods to reduce gender-based violence. If this is enforced, then new institutions could overpower the prison industrial complex. A good case study to support this is The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a legislation that expands the criminal justice system to address domestic and sexual violence in the United States. The 2013 reauthorization “paved the way for tribal governments to have greater jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Indians and enhanced sovereignty.” [11] Through political and cultural sovereignty among Indigenous populations, more Indigenous related concerns can be addressed. This was especially important as “criminal jurisdiction in Indian country is divided among federal, tribal, and state governments,” a manifestation of colonial impediments on Indigenous societies.[12] One thing to note is that an argument could be made that this is a possible example of carceral feminism and collaboration with governments. However, this is not necessarily true. It is more so an example of the importance of detaching from oppressive systems, such as government jurisdictions and restoring sovereignty of peoples to create better results. Perhaps it is not a complete separation from the government, but it operates as a stepping block towards actual abolitionist change. These are just some of the potential tools one can use to dismantle the house, or potentially build a new one.
Overall, the root of gender-based violence among BIWOC is often misunderstood which leads to ineffective solutions. To build community support and create new frameworks, old foundations have to be dismantled or at the very least, recognized as the main issue. By acknowledging this, we move one step closer to creating fruitful, large-scale changes that support victims as a community rather than as individual cases.