Review of Abolition. Feminism. Now

Abstract

Review of Abolition. Feminism. Now Barbara Ransby (bio) Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie's Abolition. Feminism. Now., Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2022 Written by four of the sharpest and most respected scholar activists around, Abolition. Feminism. Now. gives us a powerful genealogy of the feminist roots of the twenty-first-century abolitionist movement and its urgent call to action. Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica Meiners, and Beth E. Richie have the cumulative experience that covers a great swath of contemporary radical movements. The amalgam of that work, over many decades, deeply embedded in the work of many organizations, collectives, campaigns, and networks, has led all four coauthors to the place of "abolition feminism." In this book, they trace their collective journey and acknowledge all the "co-conspirators" they have embraced and worked with along the way. "Abolition feminism," the book reminds us, is both a "mode of analysis and a political practice." It insists that an end to state or interpersonal violence cannot occur without a larger feminist politics of justice, and conversely, feminists cannot rely upon oppressive carceral institutions to make women, LGBTQ, and especially trans folks, safe or free. The three major sections of the book address three questions implicit in its title: Why abolition? Why feminism? Why now? Abolition of prisons and the apparatuses of the prison industrial complex is what the new anti–state violence movement calls for. Why abolition? This book insists that reforms alone cannot end the harm caused by policing and prisons. Making nicer, kinder prisons and nicer, kinder police just has not worked. Reform after reform has failed, and even the more robust reforms have been co-opted. The very logic and purpose of the "punishment industry," as Angela Davis calls it, is to harm, coerce, violate, and diminish those with whom it comes into contact. Moreover, the system doesn't do much to heal or help the survivors and victims of harm either. The only real solution, Abolition. Feminism. Now. argues, is [End Page 227] the dismantling of prisons and the building of alternative mechanisms to ensure safety and accountability. The "building" aspect of abolition is underscored by the authors. They are not ignoring the importance of safety, but rather demanding that we think beyond guns and cages for ways to realize it. Holding up Black Youth Project 100's "Building Black Futures" campaign, and its corollary demand, "Invest/Divest," abolitionists have consistently foregrounded the need to allocate more resources for health care, affordable housing, quality public education, and jobs as critical ingredients for crime and violence prevention. They quote Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who insists abolition has never been only about "absence" but also about "presence" of critical resources and alternatives. Violence prevention is better than violent punishment, for everyone involved, and a plethora of restorative and transformative justice programs point to repair and healing as more ethical responses to "crime" than jails and prisons. In the case of poor and working-class women and femmes of color, often police intervention results in those women and femmes being further traumatized, jailed, or killed, even when they are the ones initially reaching out for help. The cases of Marissa Alexander, CeCe McDonald, Eisha Love, and Chicago's Bettie Jones are only a few examples. Why feminism? The introduction traces the roots of abolitionist politics to a number of feminist thinkers and feminist-led organizations from Critical Resistance (CR) to INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence. CR was formed in California in the early 2000s in response to the growing and insatiable prison industry in the state and nation. A feminist politics was there from the beginning, insisting on a holistic approach: inclusion of incarcerated women and the families of incarcerated men and women, and a feminist analysis of violence as systemic and not simply an amalgam of individual cases. The Color of Violence conferences hosted by INCITE built upon this feminist praxis. They insisted that violence against women and femmes was not simply a domestic issue but had to be understood in the context of state violence, settler colonial violence, and violence caused by wars and occupations, as well as economic violence. Their perspective, as...