Spring Break
The Daily OrangeActivist discusses social injustices, multiple meanings of feminism
By Kim Johnson
Posted: 10/20/09, 4:11 AM EST Section: News
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Smith was there to attend a lecture given by civil rights activist and Syracuse University visiting professor Angela Davis Monday night. And she was shocked to hear the story about the pregnant women.
"That's something people just don't think about," said Smith, an information studies graduate student, also one of Davis' students.
Davis spoke on how feminism is viewed in today's society and how injustices like the imprisonment of pregnant women still occur.
Davis told a story about a woman in prison who was unable to give birth properly because her feet were shackled together. The prison officer that brought the woman to the hospital left without taking the shackles off.
Even though both male and female prisoners are shackled, Davis feels that prisons disregard gender - with potentially lethal consequences.
"You hear the stories she describes, and you're a little shocked by what's really going on," Smith said.
Six states, including New York, currently enforce a law that forbids the feet of women from being shackled during any stage of pregnancy. But Davis said that since only a few states enforce the shackle law, the problem is far from solved.
With her speech, Davis said she aimed expand people's concepts of feminism. She stressed how feminism relates to other studies, such as race and gender.
Davis expressed her concern about the textbook definition of feminism based solely on the male and female genders. Feminism encompasses more than just women, Davis said.
"It involves so much more than gender equality," Davis said. "It involves a consciousness of capitalism, of racism and colonialism, and more sexualities than we can begin to imagine and more genders than we can name."
"Even today, we speak as if the category 'women' exists in some pure form in social reality," Davis said.
Gokhan Savas, a third-year sociology graduate student, said he agreed with Davis' acknowledgment of a misguided scope of feminism.
"We should understand all these relations when looking at the intersection of race, class, and gender," Savas said. "pu
"Today's mainstream feminism is based on white women," Savas said. "They ignore the oppression of women of color, of those that are non-white. It is very important to understand the distinction."
Carrie Elliot, a Syracuse native with a master's degree in gender and cultural studies, was familiar with much of Davis' work from her class but came into the event not knowing what to expect.
"I had no idea what direction she was going to take," Elliot said. "When people mention (the word) 'feminism,' a million things come to mind."
Elliot was particularly taken by Davis' discussion of rape and feminism.
Davis' philosophy is that catching and prosecuting a rapist isn't a victory for feminism. Victory is preventing a rape from happening again.
Davis said she encourages her followers to question establishments and institutions, like prisons and marriage, in an effort to rid our society of their ties to the 'state,' one that she said was founded on a racist, patriarchal platform.
Kjohns07@syr.edu
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