From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally About Women, Race, and Social Control

The structural and political dimensions of gender violence and mass incarceration are linked in multiple ways. In this article, Kimberlé Crenshaw draws connections between the dynamics that constitute race, gender, and class power, as well as to the way these dynamics converge and rearticulate themselves within institutional settings to manufacture social punishment and human suffering. Crenshaw also addresses political failures within the antiracism and antiviolence movements that may contribute to the legitimacy of the contemporary punishment culture, both ideologically and materially.