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FEMINISTS AGAINST MASS INCARCERATION |
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On an autumn of activism and a rally next Saturday / by Nicole Sullivan | |||||
It was a warm June afternoon in 2012. I was nervously sitting on the Boston Common while close to 45 women waited around me. When it seemed liked no one else was coming, I asked the crowd to gather in a circle and handed out an agenda. In the next two hours, we discussed patriarchy, violence, and its intersections with white supremacy. Most importantly, we asked ourselves, “why does the women's movement keep failing at these intersections, and how can we move forward?” From this informal discussion, Boston Feminists for Liberation (BFL) was born.
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Slutwalks began popping up all over the globe, but at the same time, so did criticisms. These criticsms came from unexpected voices. Instead of men telling us to get back in the kitchen, we had hundreds of women stating one thing very clearly: “You do not speak for us.” From the Open Letter from Black Women to Slutwalk Organizers to countless blog posts, it became clear that Slutwalk missed the mark by far. Sexual violence is not just an issue of backwards cultural belief, it is a tool and weapon used by various institutions on our society- especially by white supremacy and colonialism. Without that structural analysis, Slutwalk was effectively useless in creating meaningful systemic changes in women’s lives.
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Boston Feminists For Liberation’s October 2012 March Against Rape Culture and Gender Inequality. Photo by Chase Carter.
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Basically, the theoretical and practical frameworks for a revolutionary feminism had long been laid. All we had to do was listen. As BFL started to organize, we prioritized educating ourselves on the historical failures of feminism and seeking out ways to work in coalition on the issues feminism have yet to step up on. Through that framework, BFL began organizing the December 7th event, Break Out! March Against Mass Incaceration. This march hopes to begin to force this issue into mainstream feminist discourse while drawing attention to the growing movement against prisons. True to our radical roots, the march is designed to point a finger at the very institutions that are manufacturing the violence created by mass incarceration while ending in a musical celebration of strength and struggle at the Break Out! after-party.
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The second campaign is one that could facilitate an ideological shift in feminist organizing. In Massachusetts, it is completely legal to shackle incarcerated women while they are giving birth. The Prison Birth Project, based out in Western Massachusetts, has been working on passing a bill to outlaw this practice for the past ten years. However, this bill has long been ignored by mainstream reproductive rights groups. Reproductive justice and bodily autonomy for all women has been long overlooked in favor of a reproductive choice framework that really only serves the middle class. While white middle class women were fighting for birth control, poor, black and disabled women were fighting not to be sterilized. This is now being changed as lobbying powerhouse, NARAL has committed to working on the bill as well as Boston Feminists for Liberation.
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