Healthcare in Prison

The topic of healthcare seemed to strike a nerve more than almost anything else we've talked about with the women at ICIW.  It seemed they would've been able to talk for hours about the horrendous and inhumane conditions of the facility's healthcare system.  The women were talking over each other to share stories about the poor treatment they or someone they know has received.

The articles about healthcare tell the same story.  It is disturbing, though not entirely shocking, that prisoners are made to wait unreasonable amounts of time to get treatment and that their requests for care are often reviewed by non-medical personnel.  The study that found one in four prison physicians had been disciplined by licensing boards, while the general rate is one in 40, is also appalling.  And the shackling of women while giving birth also gets me every time...this is 2010 for godsake!

These disturbing practices and sub-par treatment standards imply, not so subtly, that incarcerated individuals are not as deserving of healthcare as those who are free.  This is so unfortunate because people who are incarcerated are often the people who need healthcare the most.  They suffer disproportionately from mental illness and substance abuse, and many women in prison have been physically or sexually abused at some point in their lives.  I don't understand how the justice system can expect these people to gain the self respect to turn their lives around if they aren't able to receive the basic medical care all people deserve.  During the healthcare reform debates of the past couple years, the country became outraged that so many Americans lack adequate healthcare, yet no one seems to care about the suffering of our country's enormous incarcerated population.  I don't think the purpose of prisons is to suffer under inhumane conditions until you finally die.  If the goal of our justice system is rehabilitation of some form, it has to provide people basic human dignity and the rights we all deserve, of which healthcare is one.

Mothers in Prison

Lana Marlow's study "Mothers in Prison, Women's Autobiography, and Activism" was compelling in that it gave voice to a group of people whose stories aren't often heard.  I've read about mothers in prison before, but Marlow's account was the first I've read that discussed the issue from the women's perspective rather than in terms of statistics and generalizations.  It is also interesting how societal gender inequalities are manifested in the system of incarceration.  While most children whose fathers go to prison end up living with their mothers, when mothers go to prison far fewer fathers take up the burden of childcare.  Many mothers are sent to prison for drug-related crimes.  The images of the "crack mother" and "crack baby" are easily used to justify harsher sentences for women who are mothers.  This is one of the many ways motherhood is used to punish women.  Women who are mothers are held to a higher standard of behavior by society because their actions are expected to affect the lives of their children.  While I certainly believe it is wrong for a mother to put her children in danger because of her involvement with drugs or other criminal activity, I do not believe the mothers of these children should be held to a harsher standard than their fathers or women who are not mothers.

The fact that 80% of women in prison are mothers of young children is a shocking statistic.  I can't imagine the guilt and sadness that would come with not being able to watch your children grow up and be a part of their lives because of a mistake you made.  If I were an incarcerated mother I honestly don't know if I would prefer to have my child live with me in prison for as long as possible or have him/her grow up on the outside in a more "normal" environment.  In my research, I found that the age at which children are removed from their incarcerated mothers varies from country to country.  In most countries, children can no longer live full-time in prison with their mothers after the age of 18 months to 2 years.  However, in some countries, such as Argentina and Canada, children can stay with their incarcerated mothers until the age of 4 (International Corrections and Prisons Association).  There are also some programs (I read about one in Illinois) that allow a limited number of women who meet certain qualifications to keep their children with them in prison.  Because of the increase in the number of women and mothers in prison, there are many new programs that attempt to keep incarcerated mothers connected with their children during their time in prison.  The Florida Department of Corrections instituted a pilot program in 2000 called Reading Family Ties, in which children and their mothers can "video chat" so that they can spend time together without the children entering the prison, which can be a traumatizing experience (TIME).  While the programs I read about were all very interesting, it is worth noting that fewer programs like this seem to exist to help fathers in prison maintain contact with their children.  Yet again we see the gender inequalities in parenting...

Welfare to Workfare

Deborah Little's chapter in Socializing Care reinforced for me the fact that our society places very little value on caring work.  I found Tronto's phases of care useful in that they allow us to see how some types of care ("caring about" and "taking care of") are more valued than others (the actual "care-giving").  When my grandma was in a nursing home near the end of her life, my mom and her siblings, all white, middle class professionals, certainly cared about her and took care of her by making the arrangements and paying for the nursing home, but those that actually gave my grandmother care on a daily basis held a less privileged place in society.  Nearly all of them were women, many were women of color, and they made relatively little money for the labor they performed.  I thought this chapter did a good job of explaining how caring work, especially caring for children, is pushed down the hierarchy of privilege so that women often end up caring for others in their paid employment while other, even less privileged, people care for their children while they're at work.

It is interesting that the agency Little studies used the feminist argument that women are trapped by domestic care-giving to push them into the workforce, thereby putting them in a difficult situation that is decidedly un-feminist.  I think this apparent contradiction proves that the balance of care-giving versus income-earning is one that each woman and family must be able to decide for themselves.  It is impossible for the state or some other outside entity to determine what is right for every family.

This chapter made me wonder who workfare really helps.  Men appear to benefit, since women take on the public sphere jobs they once held without accepting any additional responsibility in the private sphere.  The state also seems to benefit by pushing the burden of societal care onto the backs of women rather than "socializing care."  Regardless, it is certainly not the women who benefit, as they have to manage both paid labor and their unpaid domestic responsibilities and are viewed as selfish if they fail to do either.

Also wanted to share this link on the prison to poverty cycle with ya'll: http://www.slate.com/id/2270328/.  Excited for Friday!!

American Electra

I really enjoyed this article, and it gave me a LOT to think about! I first started thinking about what I've learned about feminism from my own mother.  She does not consider herself a feminist and when I decided to major in Women's Studies, she told me feminism was just a phase that young women go through but I'd eventually come to my senses and realize the world just is the way it is.  This experience was kind of the opposite of many of the anecdotes discussed in the article because I have ended up teaching my mom a lot about the history of feminism and trying to convince her it's important rather than vice versa.

The conflicts discussed in this article reminded me much more of my experience with the League of Women Voters.  One of my mentors asked me to join the board because they were looking to get more young women involved with the organization, but I often feel as if they don't really want me there.  The board meetings are held in the middle of the afternoon on weekdays, which makes it hard for women who are students, who work full time, or who have to care for family members to participate.  The older women on the board like to tell me and the other younger members about the things the League accomplished in their day, but they don't seem interested in what we have to offer.  It was a big struggle to even get them to email out the monthly newsletter rather than mailing out paper copies.  I think we need to strive for greater understanding of what we each have to offer rather than bickering about the way things should be done.  The best experiences I've had working with older women have been when we're able to learn from each other. 

Diversity Dialogue

I thought the Diversity Dialogue Circle was a great experience.  It was informal and unstructured enough that I felt comfortable opening up and didn't feel put on the spot, yet it was structured enough to generate a productive discussion.  It seems that this type of conversation would vary drastically depending on who is participating.  Though our life experiences are clearly all different, our backgrounds as white, college-educated women are all relatively similar.  I think doing the Diversity Dialogue Circle at the prison will be a completely different experience, since there will be more diversity in the responses.  This may make me less comfortable than our first circle because worrying about offending people or saying the wrong thing will be more of a concern in the back of my mind.

My favorite part of the Diversity Dialogue Circle was how it got us to think about our own unique life experiences and how those experiences have impacted how we think about ourselves and others.  While I understand that socialization plays a big role in determining our outlook on life, I didn't realize how many both subtle and explicit messages we get about who and what is good or bad and how we should be in the world.  I think sharing the messages we've each received throughout our lives helped me piece together some of the social constructions that have always seemed really abstract.

I also liked the part of the discussion in which we talked about stereotypes of ourselves and others.  This wasn't the first time I'd been asked to list stereotypes of other groups of people, but I think it was the first time I'd had the tables turned and been asked to name stereotypes of myself.  Doing both exercises helped me see that the divisions that exist between people aren't the result of individual hatred or bigotry but are symptoms of larger problems with the way we are trained to treat those who are different than us.

10 Years

While I'd like to live the fast life of working on political campaigns in my twenties, by the time I'm 31 I think I'll have grown tired of this stressful lifestyle.  I would really like to work for a non-profit or PAC like EMILY's List that focuses on getting more women in elected office.  This would combine my love of political campaigns with my desire to achieve gender equity in the political sphere.  Eventually, I'd like to run for office myself (not sure which office yet!), but I don't know if I'll be ready for this by the time I'm 31.  However, running for office is a hefty task that will take a lot of preparation and learning, so I hope to be involved with boards, commissions, and committees that will help me become well-versed in a variety of policy issues.

I think my GWSS undergraduate work will be very helpful in achieving these goals.  Not only do I feel pretty confident discussing women's issues and women's low political participation from a policy standpoint, but GWSS has also instilled in me a world view that I think will make me a good leader one day.  My courses have taught me to consider many aspects of individuals rather than taking them at face value or making a judgment based upon a single characteristic like socioeconomic background, sexuality, or level of education.  I think this social sensitivity I have learned from GWSS will help me connect better with the people I hope to represent.  GWSS has also helped me understand how problems at the systemic and societal levels affect individuals (the personal is political!).  Focusing on faults of the system and providing social supports to fix them rather than blaming individuals for their hardships is a key tenant of the political party I identify with (I'm sure none of you can guess which one that is... :)), so I'm glad that GWSS has taught me to think in this way.

I know I have a long way to go before I'm ready to run for office or even work for a women's political organization.  I definitely need to learn more about running campaigns as well as policy, but I also need more practical, hands-on experience.  While I've learned about issues of privilege and oppression in the classroom, seeing them play out in real life is a different kind of educational experience.  Even though I have a long way to go, I'm SO glad I majored in GWSS because it has set me on the right path!

Justice

Most of what I've learned about justice in my women's studies classes has been about social justice and reproductive justice.  Both of these theories focus on examining an individual's intersectional identity within the broader context of social and historical realities in order to determine what is just or unjust.  This has taught me to look beyond the simple facts of a situation in considering what is just.  I have learned to consider larger social problems and historical inequalities that contributed to the creation of a particular situation.  For instance, in the case of a woman of color who is imprisoned for drug charges, rather than just looking at the crime and if she is guilty under the law, I would consider how her gender may have played role in her choice to get involved in the drug industry (Was she helping her husband or boyfriend?  Did she need money to care for her family?).  I would also consider her race and the historical racial inequalities in this country that have led certain races to disproportionately live in poverty and the racial inequalities in the legal system that affected this woman's arrest, conviction, and incarceration.

In my mind, justice is the distribution of a fair and equitable outcome to all parties involved in a situation.  What is just will vary with the circumstances because it depends on many factors.  In addition to the simple facts of the situation, the identities and personal circumstances of the individuals involved and the broader social and historical context must be considered.  I struggle to come up with a normative definition of what is just because I'm not sure there is one.  What seems just to one party might seem unjust to another.  However, from what I have read in Socializing Care I think that restorative justice is a good approach because it seeks to repair all the harm in a situation.  I like this approach because it acknowledges that the "victim" of a crime is not the only one harmed when a crime occurs.  The person committing the crime may feel remorse, pain, or confusion and is likely dealing with other personal problems on top of that.  The families and friends of both the victim and the offender are affected as well.  A restorative justice approach seeks to do what is best for all of these parties involved, rather than operating within the confines of a criminal justice formula that stipulates what the punishment should be and expects all to feel better once that outcome is obtained.

In other news, I thought our first visit to the prison was really interesting.  I was surprised at how friendly the women were and how eager some of them were to share their stories with us.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of being confined to a place for a matter of years and the mindset and outlook on life this would inflict on me.  What surprised me most was how much more freedom the women in GP had than I was expecting.  I was shocked that many of the women we saw were walking around, hanging out, and working without guards (visibly) around.  I guess I was expecting that it would all be more like the women in the segregated and self-inflicted harm units where they weren't allowed to leave their cells without a guard.  That would be such a depressing existence, so I was glad to see that many of the women could walk around with relative freedom.  I'm curious to learn more about the kinds of bonds that form among the women at ICIW.  I wonder if they divide themselves based on how long they've been there, where in the prison they stay, their personal interests/personalities, or what.  I never felt scared or exceptionally uncomfortable while we were there, and I'm looking forward to our next visit.

Role of Prisons...and more

Growing up, I was always told that prisons exist to keep bad people out of society and to deter them from re-offending or from committing a crime in the first place.  It seems that some prisons focus more on rehabilitating individuals, while others only try to keep them locked up.  The more I learn about the prison industrial complex and the people in prison from my women's studies classes, the more ridiculous and ineffective these goals seem. 

If the purpose of the prison system is to remove those who have committed crimes from society, it does that.  But what larger purpose does that serve?  The prison system doesn't do much to help those who are locked up and it doesn't address the systemic problems that lead people to commit crimes in the first place.  From the stories I have read about incarcerated individuals and how they got there, it seems that many people who end up in prison have had lives filled with a lot of struggle and pain, and I don't think the prison system does a good job of addressing, or even acknowledging, the complicated and difficult lives that those within it have had.  For instance, the articles we read about invasive searches point out that many of the women who are subject to these cavity searches are survivors of past physical and sexual abuse.  Sure, the prisons are trying to make sure the women and their visitors are safe, but by seeing these women as prisoners rather than as people with unique histories and experiences, they fail to understand why an invasive cavity search might be a particularly traumatizing experience for certain women.

While prisons may succeed at keeping "dangerous" individuals locked up, they don't address the larger societal problems, such as poverty, drugs, deficient mental health care, and a general lack of social supports, that lead many individuals to commit crimes in the first place.

I am looking forward to our first visit to ICIW because it will be a different kind of learning experience than what I have learned about prisons and their effects on women from academia and the media.  However, since all of what I know about prisons and prison life comes from these outside sources, I am a little worried about the stereotypes and judgments I hold.  I also think that the inherent power dynamic between us as outsiders (non-prisoners, college students, privileged individuals) and the women at ICIW will be a challenge.  I don't want them to feel like we are coming in from the outside to "study" them for our own benefit, but I can see how it would be easy for this type of skewed dynamic to develop.  I hope that a more reciprocal relationship can form, where we can talk about issues from our different perspectives and learn from each other.

Reflections on Caring

In my mind, to care means to focus on the interests of others instead of your own.  To care about someone is to, at times, base your behavior on their needs and wants instead of your own.  Nel Noddings talks about becoming "engrossed" in the other and notes that caring involves being present, reactive, and responsive to others.  These words resonated with me because one of my biggest irritations is when someone is talking to me without really being "present" in the conversation.  The reason this bothers me is because I feel like they don't care about what I'm saying.

An ethic of care is the use this caring mindset as a guide for one's life.  It involves approaching people and situations with a consideration of their realities rather than only considering our own realities.

I think I and many others in our society operate in a mindset where we predominantly consider our own reality and experiences.  This causes us to make snap judgments about others, their choices, their moralities, and how they came to be in the situations they are currently in.  For instance, when we see a woman at the library who has five really loud, annoying children with her, we may wonder what nerve she has to bring them to a place where people are trying to study, or why doesn't she hire a babysitter, or why she had to have so many kids in the first place.  If we adopted an ethic of caring, however, we would try to put ourselves in her shoes.  We would consider the social, financial, and practical circumstances that may have led her to bring her children with her to the library that day and would realize that she might feel embarrassed, annoyed, and uncomfortable to be in that situation.

I hope to go into a career in politics, and in the political world it is very important to adopt an ethic of care and develop the skill of putting yourself in someone else's shoes.  Many people who engage in the political sphere, whether by attending a big speech or rally or simply by writing to an elected official, do so because they are upset about something.  As a politician, it is important to consider the realities of your constituents and try to understand what leads them to think and act the way they do.  This is a struggle for elected officials, since they represent so many different people with drastically different backgrounds and points of view.  Even if you ultimately disagree, I think what people value in a leader is his or her capacity for understanding and being able to express disagreements in the context of that mutual understanding.  I think politicians who are called "phonies" and are accused of being in politics only for personal gain are the ones that lack an ethic of care.