About the Instructor
From: J. Thomas and B. Zaitzow (eds). 2003. Gender and Social Control in Women's
Prisons. Denver: Lynne Reinner.
CHAPTER 10: Conclusion: Moving Forward
(Jim Thomas / NIU)
How did I bring you here? Was it out of habit that you began where
I must leave or did you, and why did you, reach here by way of what
went before? I would understand both. Of course, there is no real
end here, nor any real beginning, just a going on (O'Neill, 1972: 264).
We have returned to the first act in our drama of prison culture, to the point of
moving forward. We have argued that sex-role stereotypes in prison not only provide a
gendered mechanism of control, but also contribute to a debilitating prison culture that
risks inhibiting prisoners' social development while simultaneously attempting to
facilitate it. Males and females do not experience prisons in the same way, and not all
constraints and punishments targeted for one are equally effective or appropriate for the
other, especially if one carceral goal is to provide prisoners with experiences beneficial
for social harmony and personal growth.
Although much remains unsaid, undone, and unaddressed, if successful, we have raised
issues that will provoke methodological, conceptual, theoretical, and policy dialogue
about prisons, gender, and social control. The contributors to this volume examined the
gendered existence of control in women's prisons as a lens through which to view broader
gendered reality. Although not all contributors have used the same terms or have written
within the same intellectual perspective, they collectively have illustrated shared themes
on which to pursue analysis of gender as a subtle, yet powerful, means of control.
Theoretical Musings
There is no shortage of theoretical and conceptual tools to help us understand prison
culture and how prisoners experience it. Nor is there a shortage of theories of gender
and power. However, relatively few prison studies attempt to systematically develop the
theoretical implications of gendered control in prisons. Although theoretical synthesis
lies outside the scope of this volume, the empirical works here nevertheless suggest
several broader theoretical approaches.
We organized these studies within an existential framework as a way to view prison
culture from an absurdist paradigm of power, freedom, control, and broader social
domination. The intent was to encourage a reflexive way of looking at and thinking about
prisoner culture by shifting our gaze to the lived conditions and experiences of prisoners
as shaped by gender. This also provided a way to combine issues of social action, social
constraint, and resistance in oppressive environments that suggest linkages to other
theoretical approaches, as well. For example, Foucault's studies of gender-as-power
centers on the modes of objectification by which people turn themselves into subjects,
especially of sexuality (Foucault, 1982: 208). Power, for Foucault, is more than a
relationship between people. It is also a way in which certain actions modify other
actions and people (Foucault, 1982: 219). Prison power functions not so much to create
prisoner automatons, but to discipline individuals to cultural conformity:
The chief function of the disciplinary power is to "train,"
rather than to select and to levy; or, no doubt, to train in
order to levy and select all the more. It does not link forces
together in order to reduce them; it seeks to bind them together
in such a way as to multiply and use them. Instead of bending all
its subjects into a single uniform mass, it separates, analyzes,
differentiates, carries its procedures of decomposition to the
point of necessary and sufficient single units. It "trains" the
moving, confused, useless multitudes of bodies and forces into a
multiplicity of individual elements -- small, separate cells,
organic autonomies, genetic identities and continuities, combinary
segments. Discipline "makes" individuals; it is the specific
technique of a power that regards individuals both as objects and
as instruments of its exercise (Foucault, 1979: 170).
Foucault's (1982: 208) emphasis on gender-based modes of objectification illustrates
the process by which people turn themselves into controlled subjects as part of the
ideologically-formatted process of identity creation and maintenance. In prisons, for
example, discipline is imposed by the techniques of the "total institution" (Goffman,
1961) that routinize every aspect of daily existence, identify, categorize and record the
prisoners' physical, emotional, medical, biographical, and psychological characteristics,
and constantly monitor the prisoners' activity. In this way, gender becomes a
self-sustaining control mechanism.
GENDER FOR WHAT? There is another, less visible, and somewhat pernicious mechanism
of discipline and control enforced by the overt asymmetrical power imbalances between and
among the keepers and kept on both sides of prison walls, one that we have not explored
here: The heterosexual ideology that underlies gendered power. Therefore, following
Ingraham's (1994) provocative question, we might ask, "Gender for what?" Heterosexual
expectations and gender identity provide the obvious framework for how we interact with
each other and form the subtle, deep structures of power, social control, and domination.
One way this occurs is through the reinforcement of "heterogendering," which refers to the
ways in which the processes and images of heterosexuality become institutionalized in ways
that reinforce prisoners' identities such that they partially become their own control
agents. The presumed naturalness of heterosexuality creates a set of fundamental images
and courses of action that reinforce existing forms of social domination, especially in
prisons. Because of its presummed invariance and immutability, heterogendering becomes an
integral part of prisoners' identity. As an internalized and valued attribute, it thus
becomes transformed into an ideological control mechanism, as Lutze and Murphy (1999)
illustrated in their study of male boot camps. Heterogendered social existence and the
ultra-masculine cultural forms required to create and sustain in both men's and women's
prisons reflect a complex processes of competing forces that contribute to the
dysfunctional deleterious prison environment.
This produces an ironic consequence in which ultra-masculine traits of aggression,
coercion, violence, and other predatory forms of power contribute to the survival and
adaptation to prison life, reinforcing the gender-based victimization women experienced on
the streets. For example, as on the streets, degradation games, verbal confrontations,
and physical assaults commonly center on feminizing the target through sex-related slurs
and challenges to sexuality. Whether male or female, calling a prisoner "Bitch!" in the
shower generally reflects a challenge to "honor" that must be rectified, usually with
violence; the epithet of "punk" reflects sexual degradation in both men's and women's
prisons; and even such a seemingly simple (and silly) guard command as "OK, girls, let's
riot" as a signal for men to begin marching back to their cellhouse from dinner typifies
they way that heterogendered statuses pervade the language and imagery of prison culture.
Drawing from Foucault (1979: 23), heterogender can be seen as a control technique
that possesses its own specificity in conjunction with other ways of exercising power in
prisons. Knowledge, in this case "ideological knowledge" of appropriate sexual and gender
norms, constitutes a form of power over the body that translates into a mechanism of
institutionalized, yet subtle, domination. This leads to Bem's (1998) insightful
theoretical prescription:
...in order to interrupt the social reproduction of male power,
we need to dismantle not only androcentrism and biological
essentialism but also gender polarization and compulsary
heterosexuality (Bem, 1998: ix).
REENTER PIRANDELLO. Pirandello (1922; 1998) suggests how framing conventional
research within an absurdist existential perspective draws attention to the uneasy
tensions between freedom and constraint, hope, despair, and action. We have attempted to
balance these tensions by suggesting ways to rethink gender as a subtle, yet powerful tool
of social control. The essays here imply that, by thinking about and then acting upon our
social world, we are able to change our subjective interpretations and objective
conditions. This offers hope for overcoming the ideational and structural obstacles that
restrict perception and discussion of control by exploring the alternative meanings
underlying the gendered nature of women's (and men's) prison experiences. The
contributors challenge us to reflect on conceptual and existential alternatives by
offering interpretative frameworks for examining the cultural experiences of both men and
women.
Our narratives of prison life become an allegory for other forms of social existence
in which the potential to act is obstructed and social actors remain powerless relative to
their potential to engage and transcend their circumstances. As does Pirandello, the
contributors here tweak the audience by bluring the boundaries between reality and the
surrealism that underlies it. Who is the author that turns us into gendered subjects? Or
do we, the subjects, author ourselves? Like Pirandello, the authors here illustrate the
terror, kindness, despair, lonelyness, brutality, resistance, confusion, ambiguity, and
even acceptance of everyday life. They emphasize the difficulty of sorting out necessary
gender games from those that are unnecessary. They illustrate how the products of our
research productions, like characters in the dramas in which we live and about whom we
write, may take on an independence of their own. Each allows us to confront the dilemma
of Smith's (1987) "Everyday World as Problematic" and the authorship of our existence,
even in highly constrained cultures.
Sadly, texts contain silences, and silences can convey subtextual messages as
meaningful as those overtly spoken. Although the contributors here are emphatic in their
commitment both to prison and social reform, they have offered relatively few explicit
suggestions for action. This, in part, was a conscious decision to avoid the prescriptive
platitudes for action that are more appropriate for a separate volume. But, it was also in
part the result of frustration, even dispair, in our uphill struggles to reform prisons
over the years. Watterson (1996) nicely describes this dilemma:
More than twenty-three years ago I was talking with a group
of women in the kitchen of Ohio's state prison for women at Marysville,
when a prisoner started shouting from across the room, "Why are you
talking to her? What good's it gonna do? She ain't gonna do nothing!"
She leaned on her mop, angry and unconvinced when the women I was
talking to hollered back that I was writing a book that would "tell it
like it is."
"Well, even if she does write it like it is, people ain't gonna do
nothing about it," she said. "They'll just say, 'Ain't that a shame,'
and nothing will change. Twenty years from now it'll still be the same.
We'll still be here. And it'll be just the same" (Watterson, 1996: xiii).
Most of the authors in our volume have experienced similar conversations in prisons.
As a consequence, while we wish to share our insights as prison researchers dedicated to
reforming the prison system and reducing injustice, we have no illusions about the
difficulties of reform.
Connell (1987: 17) observed that "personal life and collective social arrangements
are linked in a fundamental and constitutive way." His point was that theoretical
integration of each are necessary in the process of understanding our collective and
individual social existence and transforming that understanding into practice. The authors
here reinforce this by arguing that we cannot understand the gendered influences of prison
control and punishment without placing it in the context of patriarchy and
ultramasculinity both in male prisons and the broader culture:
In other words, we need to sever all the culturally constructed connections that
currently exist in our society and between what sex a person is and virtually
every other aspect of human existence, including modes of dress, social roles,
and even ways of expressing emotion and experiencing sexual desire (Bem, 1998:
ix).
What Next?
At a recent convention of the American Correctional Association, a featured speaker
described the benefits of an impressive type of a particular prison program on prisoners.
The audience was impressed. At the conclusion of her presentation, a member of the
audience asked, "But, did you talk to any prisoners?" The speaker acknowledged that she
had not. Despite the well-meaning intents of the speaker, the prisoners became invisible,
the meaning of the programs for them dissolved in an acidic vat of official discourse and
administrative statistics. This is one example of how practioners, the public, and even
scholars tend to view prisons and prisoners' culture and their experiences in it from the
perceptions and perspective of others. The prisoners were silenced, perpetuating the
symbolic violence created by a distorted lens.
In the past 20 years, prisoner demographics have changed, prison culture has changed,
gender roles have changed, and prison policies have changed. What are the processes
underlying these changes and what impact have the changes had on prisoners? Have gender
games in prison been modified as a result of changes in gender culture in the outside
world? How can an understanding of gendered prison culture contribute to reforms not only
in prison, but in post-release adjustment processes as well?
One answer supplied by the contributors here: Talk to prisoners! By bridging the gap
between insiders and outsiders, and by refocusing our theoretical lenses, we can heed
Bosworth's (1999: 68-69) call to unite theory, data, and practice, thus presenting a
richer depiction of what occurs behind prison walls as well as on the other side.
Especially by understanding prisoners' narratives as part of the wider social context of
the matrix of domination of gender, class, and race, the interlocking processes that shape
the prison experience as part of a larger totality of individual and social existence
becomes clearer. Allowing prisoners to tell their story is more than simply reproducing
their narratives. It also allows the researcher to generate dialog, engage in critique not
only of the narratives, but also of the broader gender and other ideological
frames--including our own--in which they are embedded.
In the outside world, the "lens of gender" creates a male-centered set of images in
which men's experiences are taken as axiomatic and superimposed on women as an organizing
principle that forges a cultural connection between sex and other aspects of human
existence (Bem, 1992: 2). As in the outside world, this translates into prison policies
in which special needs of men are considered axiomatic, and women's special needs are
either treated as special cases or left unmet (Bem, 1992: 183). As a consequence,
treating male and female prisoners identically has not resolved gender disparity, and in
some ways has increased it. This requires a closer look at how women's unique pre-prison,
prison, and post-prison experiences should become part of policy formation.
But, this raises a another point. If gender matters, where lies the line between
recognizing gender differences in prison policies without reproducing prison experiences
based on a gender hierarchy in which male needs are the paradigm for prison
administration? The question is a bit misleading, because while redirecting attention to
the inappropriateness of the crime-control male model as the standard for women, it
ironically redirects attention away from challenging the this model as inappropriate for
men as well. Confronting patriarchy, of course, is part of the solution, as we recall
Sabo, Kupers and London's (2001) depiction of how deeply prisons embody the extreme
hierarchical, predatory, and oppressive cultural games by which men create and preserve
power over both women and other males. This returns us to the need to examine the subtle
power of all heterogendered institutions as a dominant factor in the process of gender
oppression in general and dysfunctional gender control in prisons in particular. To
repeat the appeal by Sabo, Kupers and London (2001), expanding studies of men in prison
can supplement feminist theory by including a critical analysis of males and masculinity
in perpetuating gender domination of women in prison.
Of course, altering the fundamental structural and institutional arrangements that
create and support patriarchy and other forms of unnecessary social domination requires
radical social change of the kind that occurs slowly. Hence, working for long-term
changes, even if successful, will have little immediate impact on prison culture,
prisoners, or prison policy. A more modest solution lies in radical challenges to the
excesses of the intensely punitive model that characterizes corrections in the United
States (Beckett and Sasson, 2000; Welch, 1999). Translating prisoners narratives into
calls for specific prison programs and policies, or broader legislative and related
changes requires working with outside groups. This we can do on a daily basis through
activism, teaching, speaking, and working in small ways to create incremental changes.
This, however, resurrects the old debate among political activists: Is it better to
engage in incremental reform, as liberals prefer, or is it better to invest energies in
challenging the fundamental social conditions that breed injustice? The contributions
here suggest that both are possible. At the incremental level, working with individual
prisoners or prisoner and family groups, challenging prison policies, and involvement with
prison reform agencies are a few ways to bring about minimalist reform. The authors here
strongly advocate the view that prison reformers can focus on programs that help the
individual while also contributing to altering the prisoner culture and environment. They
acknowledge the dialectical relationship between the unique deprivational environmental of
prisons and the broader socio-cultural framework imported into the institution in shaping
prisoner culture and behavior. They also recognize that we cannot alter the fundamental
gendered nature of control in prisons while ignoring the gendered social imbalances in the
broader society. This means that prison programs that emphasize vocational or therapetic
training, or even life skills, are in themselves unlikely to change the gendered prison
culture. But, the authors also recognize that reducing the dysfunctional constraints of
the prison environment by implementing prison programs that stress individual self-help,
independence, and life skills could be effective in the short term by facilitating
adaptation to prison culture and post-release adjustment. This requires raising broader
issues by aligning with outside special interests groups, engaging in public dialog and
critique, and challenging gender imbalances at every opportunity. While these alone won't
lead to dramatic shifts in the patriarchal power structure, they nonetheless can
incrementally help individual offenders while simultaneously providing small tiles in the
broader mosaic on which more fundamental changes are eventually built.
Many of us have been challenged by ideological purists who dismiss such
incrementalist reform as a dangerous strategy that ultimately reproduces those very social
constraints that we oppose. In the purists' view, only radical social changes can change
gender oppression and prison policy. Anything else, they argue, is liberal reformism that
does nothing but reproduce social oppression while producing the illusion that "something
is being done." We are left with the question, then, of whether what we do is futile not
only because of the difficulties of social change, but also because it subverts our own
goals by reproducing oppression.
Faced with similar debates four decades ago, Gorz (1968) distinguished between
"reformist reforms" and "non-reformist reforms." Reformist reforms, he argued, are those
that subordinate their objectives to the interests of the dominant power. "Reformism
rejects those objectives and demands--however deep the need for them--which are
incompatible with the preservation of the system" (Gorz, 1967: 7). A non-reformist
reform, by contrast, is a reform that challenges fundamental beliefs, institutions, and
structures, and is "conceived not in terms of what is possible within the framework of a
given system and administration, but in view of what should be made possible in terms of
human needs and demands" (Gorz, 1968: 7).
The authors in this volume are guided not by "what is," but by "what could be." Our
goal, seemingly simple, has been to continue to move forward in our research with women in
prison and to share our insights in a public forum in which discussion and the sharing of
ideas ignites new possibilities for change through "non-reformist reforms." The intent is
to move beyond being mere witnesses who give testimony to being active participants in the
process of social change. We invite our readers to do the same in connecting prison
existence for men and women with the broader gendered processes that shape it in order to
take the next step of contributing to changes to our shared Pirandellian prisons.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beckett, Katherine, and Theodore Sasson. 2000. The Politics of Injustice: Crime and
Punishment in America. Pine Forge Press: London.
Bem, Sandra Lipsitz. 1992. The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual
Inequality. New Haven: Yale University Press.
_____. 1998. An Unconventional Family. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bosworth, Mary. 1999. Engendering Resistance: Agency and Power in Women's Prisons.
London: Ashgate Press.
Bourdieau, Pierre. 1986. "The Forms of Capital." Pp. 241-258 in J.G. Richardson (ed.).
Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood
Press.
Connell, R.W. 1987. Gender and Power: Society, the Person, and Sexual Politics. Stanford
(Calif.): Stanford University Press.
Dalley, Lanete P. 2002. "Policy Implications Relating to Inmate Mothers and their
Children: Will the Past be the Prologue?" The Prison Journal, 82(June): 234-268.
Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage
Books.
_____. 1982. "Afteword: The Subject and Power." Pp. 208-226 in H. L. Dreyfus and P.
Rabinow (eds.): Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and
other Inmates. New York: Anchor.
Gorz, Andre. 1968. Strategy for Labor: A Radical Proposal. Boston: Beacon Press.
Ingraham, Chrys. 1994. "The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of
Gender." Sociological Theory, 12(July): 203-219.
Lutze, Faith E. and David W. Murphy. 1999. "Ultramasculine Prison Environments and
Inmates' Adjustment: It's Time to Move beyond the 'Boys will be Boys' Paradigm."
Justice Quarterly, 16(December): 709-733.
O'Neill, John. 1972. Sociology as a Skin Trade: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology.
London: Heinemann.
Pirandello, Luigi. 1922. Three Plays: Six Characters in Search of an Author - "Henry IV."
- Right You Are! (If You Think So). New York: E.P. Dutton & Company.
_____. 1998. Pirandello: Plays. Evanston (Ill.): Northwestern University Press.
Sabo, Don, Terry A. Kupers, and Willie London. 2001. Prison Masculinities. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press.
Smith, Dorothy E. 1987. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston:
Northeastern University Press.
Watterson, Kathryn (1996). Women in Prison: Inside the Concrete Womb. Boston, MA:
Northeastern University Press.
Welch, Michael. 1999. Punishment in America: Social Control and the Ironies of
Imprisonment. Sage: London.
About the Instructor
Page maintained by: Jim Thomas - jthomas@sun.soci.niu.edu