Vikki Law: Resisting Gender Violence Without Cops or Prisons

Resisting Gender Violence Without Cops or Prisons
--An interview with author Victoria Law
By Angola 3 News

Activist and journalist Victoria Law is the author of "Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women" (PM Press, 2009). Law has previously been interviewed by Angola 3 News on two separate occasions. Our first interview focused on the torture of women prisoners in the US. The second interview looked at how the women's liberation movements of the 1970s advocated for the decriminalization of women's self defense. Taking this critique of the US criminal "justice" system one step further, Law presented a prison abolitionist critique of the how the mainstream women's movement, then and now, has embraced the same "justice" system as a vehicle for combating violence against women.

While citing the important work of INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence, Law argues that "today, abuse is treated as an individual pathology rather than a broader social issue rooted in centuries of patriarchy and misogyny. Viewing abuse as an individual problem has meant that the solution becomes intervening in and punishing individual abusers without looking at the overall conditions that allow abuse to go unchallenged and also allows the state to begin to co-opt concerns about gendered violence."

Furthermore, "the threat of imprisonment does not deter abuse; it simply drives it further underground. Remember that there are many forms of abuse and violence, and not all are illegal. It also sets up a false dichotomy in which the survivor has to choose between personal safety and criminalizing and/or imprisoning a loved one. Arrest and imprisonment does not reduce, let alone prevent, violence. Building structures and networks to address the lack of options and resources available to women is more effective. Challenging patriarchy and male supremacy is a much more effective solution, although it is not one that funders and the state want to see," says Law.

In our new video interview, Law builds upon her earlier prison abolitionist critique by discussing practical alternatives for effectively confronting gender violence without using the prison system. She cites many success stories where women, not wanting to work with the police, instead collectively organized in an autonomous fashion. Law stresses that at the foundation of these anti-violence projects is the idea that gender violence needs to be a seen as a community issue, as opposed to simply being a problem for the individual to deal with.

One group spotlighted, Sistah II Sistah/Hermana a Hermana, in New York City, was formed to confront both interpersonal violence and state violence. They formed discussion groups where experiences are shared and the women collectively decide what tactics and strategies to employ. In one instance, they confronted an ex-boyfriend, who was stalking a member of the group, by going to his workplace, where they demanded he stop and successfully enlisted the support of his employer and co-workers.

Self-defense advocacy and training is another tactic employed by many of the groups cited by Law. For example, in the 1970s, two feminist martial artists founded Brooklyn Women's Martial Arts (BWMA), later renamed the Center for Anti-Violence Education in the 1980s. Along with teaching practical self defense techniques at sliding-scale classes, Law emphasizes that the Center also focused on the larger picture of how violence "holds different types of oppressions together," resulting in a complex situation for poor women of color.

Our interview is being released in conjunction with the Unite to End Violence Against Women campaign first initiated in 1991 by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. This campaign began 16 days of action on November 25, the International Day Against Violence Against Women, and will conclude on December 10, International Human Rights Day. We will be releasing two more segments of our video interview with Law during the 16 days of action. So, stay tuned to learn more about how Chinese sisterhood societies dealt with gender violence, as well as an update on new stories of women prisoners' resistance that have happened since the first edition of "Resistance Behind Bars" was released in 2009 (a second edition is scheduled to be released next year).

As far back as, you know, 17th century England,

there was a law that said that

a man could beat his wife with a stick

so long as it wasn't thicker than his thumb (i.e. "rule of thumb")

you know, and we still have that idea today.

So when we talk about things like Cell 16 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_16]

Brooklyn Women's Martial Arts,

and other forms of feminist self defense,

we shouldn't look at it as just a physical self defense,

but also this growing recognition that

that there are all sorts of ways that violence impacts women's lives.

We need to make sure that people who might be abusive and violent

know that every eye in the community is on them.

Prisons and policing often protect those in power

and do very little to nothing to those who, for those who don't have any power.

So, they might decide that they don't necessarily need to act or intervene in some cases.

Andrea Smith, one of the co-founders of Incite,

actually talked about one very public incident in which

a woman who was in a housing project in a city

called the police because of a domestic violence incident with her partner.

And when the police arrived, they decided, they looked around the projects

and decided that,

no, this woman actually didn't qualify for their protection,

they didn't want to enter the public housing area

to try to ascertain what was going on

and possibly arrest the person who had abused her.

And she got incensed, and asked for their badge number,

and they decided that they were going to further brutalize her

by beating her and arresting her and taking her in

on some bogus charge

because she had demanded that they offer her

the same protection that they would

a white middle class woman living in an affluent suburban neighbourhood.

We've also seen that, um, especially in communities where the police

are not seen as protectors,

like low income communities of colour,

or poor neighbourhoods,

that for a woman to call the police

and invite them into the neighbourhood

often ostracizes her from the rest of the community.

So the community will see her as

calling the police in to further terrorize the community.

And so whatever support she might have gotten from her friends and her neighbours

and her co-workers and everybody else in the neighbourhood disappears

when she calls the police in.

So all these factors put women more at risk

when they call in the police.

And, again, it doesn't necessarily mean that the abuse is going to stop,

because either the police showing up and arresting the person

right then and there,

and taking him out of commission for 24 hours,

or, the police arresting the person and then pressuring the woman to file charges

and often holding threats of perhaps removing her children,

or doing something else over her head,

communities haven't been able to develop,

or haven't developed other means to solve,

you know, interpersonal violence or abuse,

so therefore, if the only solution seems to be to call in this, to call in the police,

and the police can use this then as a way to say well

we have to be in these "higher crime, higher violence communities" to prevent violence,

without actually addressing all the other ways that violence can take place,

without it necessarily being like one person physically hurting another person.

I don't want to pinpoint one as THE root cause,

but some of the root causes are

this idea that women are the property of men,

So as far back as 17th century England, there was a law that said

that a man could beat his wife with a stick,

so long as it wasn't thicker that his thumb (i.e. "rule of thumb")

You know, and we still have that idea today,

that women are somehow the property of the men that they are in relationships with,

whether it be their fathers, or their husbands, or their boyfriends, or sons.

There's this idea that it is OK to

to exert power by any means necesary,

whether it be like physical abuse, or emotional abuse, or mental abuse,

or controlling someone economically.

In East Harlem, In New York,

which is a primarily black and brown, poor community,

in New York City,

um, residents formed what they called, um,

what do they call them...

Neighbourhood Watches,

where they would actually go to the apartment

of somebody who was involved in a domestically violent situation,

either because the woman asked them to,

or because a neighbour called in a complaint,

and they actually went to the apartment,

and they physically moved themselves in to the apartment for a while.

And obviously they couldn't live in this apartment forever,

but they would be there for a few days,

and the abusive partner would know

that he couldn't do anything while they were there,

and even after they moved out,

he knew that they could come back

and that basically the community had taken it upon itself

to say that we won't stand for this kind of violence,

and this kind of abuse any more.

In the mid- 1990's there was a group called

Sista to Sista,

s-i-s-t-a, not s-i-s-t-e-r

which is a group of predominantly black and brown women,

in the Bushwick area (north Brooklyn),

and they recognized that they had to address

interpersonal violence and state violence,

so one of the things that they did was

they started the sister circles,

understanding that they couldn't necessarily rely on

the police to help them,

especially when police were coming into this community, their communities,

and murdering people.

So, two young women of colour

were murdered around 2000 by the police,

and there was like no, you know, like huge state outcry, there was no big shake-up

about the fact that the police had murdered two young women.

But they also recognized that there was a lot of interpersonal violence that was going on

that needed to be addressed as well.

So they started forming what they called the sister circles,

in which they actually talked to each other,

and they devised ways in which they could address abuse

without relying on policing and prisons.

And one example that was given was

one of the women came to the sister circles and said

my ex boyfriend has been stalking me, you know,

he's been psychologically intimidating me,

and I'm getting worried that this is going to keep escalating until he becomes

physically violent with me.

And they talked with her, and they devised a plan,

and, I'm going to like shorten the version, because I'm sure a lot of planning went on,

it wasn't like they just like automatically had this instinct.

And what they did was,

they went and confronted him at the barber shop where he worked,

in front of all his co-workers,

and said look, this is what you're doing to this woman,

you need to stop.

And what happened was,

that the men in the barber shop that worked with him said

hey, that's really messed up, you need to stop,

and his boss even said if I hear about this again,

you're fired.

You know, like you are not going to be harassing this woman any more.

And this is the kind of thing that they were doing,

because they couldn't rely on the police

to keep them safe.

Cell 16 was a women's liberation group,

it actually, it was formed in the late 1960's,

and I think maybe by the early 1970's had disbanded.

But during their time they were based in the Boston area of Massachusetts.

They did several things.

They did patrols of areas in which working class women were

getting out of factory shifts late at night.

So they understood that women who didn't have resources to say, like,

have someone come pick them up, or didn't have their own cars,

were vulnerable to violence when they were getting off their factory shifts late at night,

and walking to the public transportation.

So what they would do, is they would patrol

in pairs, or you know, in groups,

and they would offer to walk women to where they were going.

So whether it be walking them to the train station

and making sure they safely got into the train station,

or walking them to their houses,

to make sure, again, like the sisterhood societies, that they were safe

from external threats, relying on this idea that there's safety in numbers.

And they would watch out for suspicious behaviour,

you know,

and it's not the same "suspicious behaviour"

that the government tells you to, like, look for today.

But you know, like, hey, there's this man that seems to be standing there,

you know, for absolutely no, you know, no purpose, like,

what are his intentions?

Is he going to assault somebody?

Or is he waiting for his girlfriend or his wife to get off of work?

You know, but actually putting

potential assailants on notice too,

that there were people involved in, you know, like watching out for everyone's safety.

They also were one of the first women's groups to offer self defense classes for women

with a feminist slant.

Sot they actually said, you know,

women have the right to be safe and secure in their own bodies,

and they need to have the skill set and the tools

to be able to defend themselves physically,

if they are attacked,

and so they offered free Taekwondo classes to women

so that women could learn to defend themselves,

and they weren't always needing to rely on somebody else to do so.

In 1974, 1975, going on this same premise that women have the right to be safe

and secure in their own bodies,

two feminist martial arts activists

Nadia Telsey and Annie Ellman started Battered Women's, oh, sorry,

Brooklyn Women's Martial Arts, um, in Brooklyn New York,

and they basically started the first dojo specifically for women,

in which they wanted women to be able to train and learn how to defend themselves.

They made it sliding-scale, so that if a woman couldn't afford to pay for classes,

she didn't have to, or if she could only afford to pay a little bit she could,

and women who could afford to pay more, did.

And they also offered childcare at all of their classes,

understanding that they didn't want women with children to say

well, I can't take these classes because I don't have a safe place to put my child

or my children,

you know, and also understanding that when women become mothers,

they're just as vulnerable, if not more vulnerable to violence,

because you know they don't necessarily have all the

access and resources and mobility that, you know, single women might.

So, and, this is, their dojos continued on to this day,

in the 1980's they re-named themselves The Center for Anti-Violence Education,

recognizing that it's not just women who face violence.

Um, so they actually started doing trainings for, um, transgender people,

they started doing trainings for, after 9/11, they started doing trainings for

groups that were specifically working with South Asian populations

that were more vulnerable to the racist backlash post 9/11,

and like, how to like, deal with safety and security

not just from the physical aspect,

but also tactics like de-escalation, knowing what to look for, like

trying to get a situation away from a dangerous place,

without actually having to use your fists.

They also recognized that

violence is one of the things that held all these different types of oppression together,

so they weren't just focussing on violence against women,

and white-washing this idea of women,

but they were understanding that

women with the least amount of resources were the most vulnerable to violence.

So, like, women of colour would be vulnerable

not only to interpersonal violence,

but were more vulnerable to state violence as well.

You know, and violence from the police;

and weren't necessarily in a position to be able to call the police.

Poor women were less likely to be able to get away

because they were poor and they didn't have the resources and opportunities to do so.

And so they did a lot of work around also educating people around the fact that

there are all these different oppressions that intersect,

and you can see violence as one of the glues that holds together all these oppressions.