Walled Women

As I was reading “Offending Women” I started to draw some similarities and differences from the article we read for Jody’s class, “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities” by Eve Tuck. Both the Need-based system and Desire based system claimed to do similar things in the way in which it reframes the way we approach women offenders. Both claim to align themselves with the marginalized in their ability to attend to their needs/desires. However, the Alliance’s institution itself seemed more to be a situation that was filled with implicit codes of dependency, disguised under the rhetoric of a needs/desire based system. They maintained power and interdependency between the women and the institution by claiming to know and attend to the “girl’s real needs.” Unlike a desire-based system, they did not bother to ask what the mothers needed. Furthermore, the implications of desire and need have more subtle but significant distinctions.  A desire does not necessarily have to be a need; a need is something deemed more necessary for living. The word need itself is limited; whereas desire can account for possibilities and hope. Need implies one only requires the bare minimum to survive, while desire leaves much more room for more abstract needs as well- such as happiness or mental stability. While I realize this may sound idealistic, I think both kinds of needs and desires are necessary.

Today was an emotionally intense Silence class.  It's been a few hours since class ended, but my mind is still racing, and processing.  But its 6:45 and that means my post for Barb's class is already late.  I was planning on writing a post about how the language of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (technically last week’s reading, though I believe we’re discussing tomorrow) reading bothered me and was damage centered, but I couldn't even focus enough to pull quotes out and explain, and it seemed disingenuous to post just for the sake of posting.  But now I’m struggling with whether it’s better to not post if I’m just writing to get my checkmark or whatever, or whether it’s unfair to Barb that I am not committing enough time to her class because I feel so emotionally all over the place from another class. Should I be able to compartmentalize? Is it because the nature of the 360 that I feel I can even post these thoughts and not actually respond to the assignment? I don’t really know, looking forward to the 360 lunch tomorrow, hoping I’ll be more centered by the class time.

One of the biggest issues I have with the dependency discourse is that it disproportionately effects women both in and out of prison.  As we can see in Offending Women and its description of the Alliance program, the dependency discourse seemed to dominate both how the institution itself formulated their political and istitutional needs  as well as  how the program constructed their goals. It makes me wonder how much of what we want and need for incarcerated women is already pre-determined by the way in which we label and categorize them before they become incarcerated. It is not a mystery that most incarcerated people are of poverty stricken backgrounds and that they are usually non-white. But, as the numbers have shown, it is also true that poor women of color are getting incarcerated at higher rates than any other population. I think that in order to understand incarceration of poor women of color and thus, how education within the walls of the institutions affect them, we must also understand how they are seen in greater society. This brings me to the issue of Welfare. Many poor women of color are on welfare before they even become incarcerated. The term welfare in it of itself assumes that there is, in a heirarchical sense, a give and take relationship between those on welfare and those distributing it. It makes women out to look like leeches.

Before I'd even finished reading Offending Women, I was already caught up in thinking how I would have done it better (now I’m potentially falling into this trap of damage-based thinking…). Alliance, as Haney made clear, was riddled with problems. Something I found particularly interesting, however, was the way in which Alliance's shortcomings did more to promote independence within the young women than the actual program did. Their initiative to ban together and instigate change within the institution demonstrates just the type of self-dependency that Alliance aims for, but for all the wrong reasons. It's ironic, then, that the groups butted heads so much just because the avenues through which these women displayed their independence were misaligned with the expectations of Alliance. I was also saddened by the women's whole-hearted confidence in the ability for welfare to be able to provide for them once they got out. I think this dependence speaks again to the need for structure that was demonstrated when the women fought against the constant schedule changes they encountered in the facility. Not necessarily a sign of laziness in my opinion, depending on welfare as a steady constant presence for these women would much less stressful than trying to find an employer who will take them in despite the inevitable black mark of a felony. It almost makes sense that Welfare Queens (to borrow from couldn'tthinkofanoriginalname and Chandrea) are born from these young women. However, especially after the presentation last night, I see the value of programs like YASP.

I had a hard time reading Offending Women, not because of the level of it's cohesiveness or vocabulary, but because of how angry it made me. The examples Haney gave of the treatment women faced at Alliance made me question how they could be justified in continuing thier program. Though I'm sure living in a house with few restrictions was far more comfortable than living in a prison, the verbal and mental abuse the women faced was uncalled for and unjustified in my opinion. 

Here. 

I came away from reading the first three chapters of "Offending Women" diametrically opposed to Alliance as a program--with all the unfair, hypocritical, awful practices that were described, I was astounded that Haney was able to remain (relatively) calm and objective about the whole thing as an observer. Frankly, among the young women imprisoned (and I do use the word "imprisoned" intentionally here) by the directors who called these captives "their girls" and presumed to speak of rescuing them, I'm surprised that they were so restrained, that only Maria escaped (so far as Haney reports, if my memory serves). I found Rachel Brennan in particular to be teaching in a way that seemed, after our class discussions of the past few weeks, misguided and even malicious. She taught by and enforced codes that her students were unfamiliar with, that did not fit in with what they wanted in the classroom (being able to keep their children with them, for instance). Her "I know best" attitude and penchant for changing classroom expectations and plans just because she could was infuriating! Her self-congratulatory, smug attitude was counterproductive to listening to her students or improving her techniques, as she was sure that she was teaching her students the value of performing a given task for a monetary reward through her ridiculous, patronizing "Brennan Bucks" program.

Sorry for the rant. I could go on about my frustration with this program, but I'd really like to hear what others have to say, both here on Serendip and in class on Friday. 

I watched this movie almost 3 years ago when I first visited Guatemala, and it shook me to my core. I know our classes are already really intense and heavy, but I just requested this from Magill at Haverford and if folks want to watch it with me I'd love to have a movie night (maybe this weekend?). As I remember it gives a really good background of the Guatemalan Civil War and why it happened, which I think would be helpful for us to be aware of in our discussions of Rigoberta Menchú.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/discoveringdominga/

...over the relationship between those murals and poverty,
prodded by this graph, which shows a direct correlation between
poverty and the Baltimore City mural program:
http://geocommons.com/maps/166122