Section 3 The Legal Body

#### **Chapter 8**

## Perspective Chapter: The Female Body as Sites of Power

*Barbara Grabowska*

#### **Abstract**

The female body was and is involved in politics. The idea of the so-called femininity, including the female body, has political implications. In the past, the weakness of the female body was justified, among other things, by the exclusion of women from the public sphere. Today's unrealistic ideal imposes on women the (self-)discipline of caring for physical appearance. Your own body becomes a tool of social oppression. Therefore, the emancipation of women requires the unmasking of the alleged naturalness of the female body model. The body can even become an instrument of political struggle.

**Keywords:** femininity, body, feminism, power, emancipation

#### **1. Introduction**

The starting point for my further reflections is Kate Millet's claim that sex is a status category with political implications ([1], p. 58). Sex, and corporeality in certain respects (sexual characteristics, susceptibility to diseases, physical strength, predisposition to perform given professions, etc.), has political significance. Having a body identified as a female body affects one's position in political reality, condemning its owner to a status of subordination. For Millet, the most significant consequence of being a woman is being on the losing side in an unequal distribution of political power. Therefore, in a patriarchal society, the relationship between men and women should be described with such terms as rule, domination, and subordination.

However, involving the body, especially the female body, with politics is even more profound. Legislation and social policies have a direct or indirect effect on women's ability to make decisions about their bodies. Millet draws attention to US regulations of her time that prohibited abortion. She believed it was the way in which patriarchal legislation denied women the right to decide on their own bodies and forced them to undergo backstreet abortions ([1], p. 64). In addition to the prohibition of abortion indicated by Millet, we might also mention the availability of various methods of contraception (including the financial method that involved reimbursement for contraceptives) or regulations on *in vitro* fertilization, which directly interfered with corporeality. Indirect influence, on the other hand, is exerted by, for example, demographic policies, such as incentives on childbearing, or conversely, pressures to reduce fertility. In this context, I believe, the male body proves much less susceptible to the influence of politics, and any attempt to subject it to such regulations is strongly opposed. In Poland, for example, the over-the-counter sale of EllaOne day-after pill

has been prohibited, justified by concern for the health of women who might overdose the product (although no such cases have been reported). On the other hand, the purchase of potency pills intended for men does not require a visit to a doctor, and more than that, these substances are widely advertised on radio and television. A man would feel embarrassed having to explain his problems. Female body and female sexuality have long been under control.

The body thus determines political status, and politics affect certain aspects of corporeality. This is the reason why feminists question the distinction between private and public. Political philosophers assume that alongside the public sphere, there is a private sphere, protected from outside interference, at the heart of which lies the intimate sphere. Meanwhile, when analyzing the situation of women in the context of the aforementioned legal regulations, we note that this division is illusive. Jane Mansbridge and Susan Molle Okin note that questioning the above distinction means: "... perceiving all action as potentially bearing public significance. It means noticing that the force which constitutes much of politics goes all the way down to the tiniest gestures that express domination between people, and begins with them. (...) Challenging the dichotomy of the public/private sphere means emphasizing the non-triviality of domestic issues and demanding that they be included in public discourse. It is emphasized here that whatever happens between a man and a woman at home, even in the bedroom, is conditioned and, on the other hand, itself conditions whatever happens in legislation and on the battlefields." ([2], p. 359). The binding of both spheres turns out to be reciprocal: politics regulate many private matters, and patriarchal relations that prevail in the private sphere cannot remain unaffected by political decisions.

Changing the status of women from that of subordination, therefore, requires making the issue of sex, together with its corporeal aspect, the subject of analysis, and public discourse. It is necessary to bring them out of a closed private space into the light of day. Otherwise, it is impossible to address the question of how the domination of men over women came about and why it has endured. Traditionally, the subordinate role of women is explained by referring to so-called natural differences. The role and place of women in society and politics came to be determined by the body. The body build and its frailty manifested by the deficiencies of physical and mental strength necessary to perform many activities, susceptibility to specific diseases such as hysteria and swing of moods resulting from the monthly cycle—all of this justified the patriarchal model. Germaine Greer describes a disease called "green sickness," or more academically chlorosis ([3]. p. 41)1 , which was attributed exclusively to women. Such ailments were supposed to effectively exclude women from professional and political life. In more "modern"' times, however, it was argued that women's brains are organized differently and do not allow them to succeed in science and technology, areas where knowledge now translates into power.<sup>2</sup> Therefore, women are unable to fully understand the mechanisms that govern the modern world, which is symbolized by the engineer.

<sup>1</sup> "The descriptions of the condition are vivid, and although some of them incorporate symptoms arising from other causes generally we can observe the same hypochondriacal syndromes that are put down to hysteria these days: epilepsy, asthma, breathlessness, flatulence, *sensus globi in abdomine se volventis,* lassitude, convulsions, and painful menstruation."

<sup>2</sup> Greer cites Otto Weininger's book "*Sex and Character,*" a similar type of argumentation is presented by Anne Moir and David Jessel in their work "*Brain Sex: the Real Difference between Men and Women.*"

#### **2. Gender differences—Nature or culture?**

The belief in the natural differences between sexes was questioned in the early days of feminism. John Stuart Mill, in "The Subjection of Women", in his fight for granting women the right to vote, seeks to refute the argument of women's natural and inalienable otherness invoked by opponents of their participation in politics. He asks: "What are the natural differences between the two sexes? In the present state of society, we cannot get a complete and correct answer to this; yet almost everybody dogmatizes about it, hardly anyone attends seriously to the only source for even a partial answer. (...)

Because however great and apparently ineradicable the moral and intellectual differences between men and women might be, the only evidence we can have for there being natural differences is negative" ([4], p. 308). As an example of such seemingly natural differences, Mill mentions specifically female health ailments and notes that: "we see from the almost total disappearance of 'hysterics' and fainting-fits since they have gone out of fashion." ([4], p. 344). It, therefore, turns out that it is not the corporeal constitution that has a decisive influence on women's behavior and health, but customs and fashions. Femininity is not determined only by nature but also shaped by culture.

Second-wave and contemporary feminists are far more radical in expressing this view. "From the outset, our observation of the female is consciously and unconsciously biased by assumptions that we cannot help making and cannot always identify when they have been made. The new assumption behind the discussion of the body is that everything that we may observe *could be otherwise*" ([3]. p. 5)—Greer concludes. Magdalena Środa, on the other hand, states: "Until recently, it has been a popular opinion, not questioned by many, that a woman is by nature destined for domestic and family life and a man for public and creative life. This conviction, supported by the category of 'nature,' never actually required justification but still had been justified a lot" ([5], pp. 295–296). Citing Sherry B. Ortner, she lists three types of such justifications. First of all, the female body is involved in the process of species reproduction, for which reason it is closer to nature than the male body. Secondly, a woman's body, especially its maternal function, assigns her to the home, thus greatly limiting her social mobility. Last but not least, women "by nature" have a different mental predisposition. These arguments show that the (female) body, to paraphrase Millet's thesis quoted at the beginning of the article, has political implications. This very body excludes her from the sphere of politics, deprives her of the opportunities to exert influence on political decisions, and thus deprives her of the ability to protect her interests, as: "the private world of women is nearly everywhere and always subordinated to the public (socio-political) world of men" ([5], p. 298). Even if there are currently no legal obstacles preventing women from participating in political life, the stereotype mentioned by Professor Środa still prevails to effectively discourage them from engaging in activities within the public sphere.

#### **3. (Self ) disciplining the female body**

Questioning the division between public men and domestic women, feminists make a distinction between biological sex and cultural gender. They argue that: "the male or female roles are determined by extra-natural factors, regardless of the anatomy and physiology of the external organs" ([1], p. 60). It turns out that it is not the body that determines sex, but it is sex that shapes the body. This is because many aspects of corporeality are part of gender identity, that is, that aspect of femininity that is shaped by social and cultural pressures. Greer points out that even something seemingly as tough and durable as a skeleton is susceptible to deformation under particular circumstances, like wearing corsets or performing the job of a typist or a secretary, which requires a person to constantly bend.

Pierre Bourdieu in his conception of habitus, defined as a "system of dispositions," shows how historical and social conditions determine our beliefs and practices. He uses the term social class, but I think it can also be applied to gender. It proves, among other things, that the aesthetic taste of an individual is closely related to his social position. Aesthetic preferences are the basis of social judgment and determine belonging (or exclusion) to a given group [6]. Our physicality, body shape, hairstyle, and clothing, is also a way of presenting these preferences. According to Bourdieu, physical appearance is also an element of cultural capital. According to Naomi Wolf, the body itself, not just clothing or hairstyle, is an object of fashion [7]. Therefore, the female body is not arbitrarily shaped by its owner but is given to practices consistent with the habitus. "Everything related to habitus, body language, gestures, and postures, are internalized by individuals so strongly that they seem natural" - also internalized image of the female body is considered its own. They also fail to notice that: "the image of the ideal and legitimate body (such qualities as beauty, youth, vitality, vigor, grace, and harmony) are far from reality and the real body" ([8], p. 94).

Sandra Lee Bartky also points this out, when she refers to Michel Foucault's concepts and his descriptions of disciplinary procedures, and argues that it is this type of practice that produces a body that is recognized by its appearance and characteristic gestures as feminine. Thus, we are not women because we have female bodies. Conversely, our bodies become feminine because we adopt this gender role.

Lee Bartky presents three types of practices that shape the female body:


Practices of the first type impose a certain model of the ideal body. Today it is the ideal of a slim, almost boyish figure. In order to achieve it, women undergo very strict diets and work out, performing exercises that shape various muscles. They often become anorectic or bulimic, which are the present-day conditions equivalent to hysteria. Practices focused on gestures, on the other hand, lead to the development of a submissive attitude in women. Hence the effort to appear small and harmless take up as little space as possible or express their subservience by lowering their eyes or averting their gaze in response to the gazes of men. Decorating the female body also requires a lot of effort. It is necessary to take care of the skin and complexion, proper make-up, well-groomed and stylish hair, and waxing. All these practices are aimed at one goal—transforming one's body into the body of an ideal woman and into a body that is properly trained and shaped by power relations that give it a subordinate status. However, this is an effort that is doomed to failure. The ideal turns out to be unattainable, and chasing it unsuccessfully results in feelings of guilt and

shame. It opens the way to a conviction that our body is imperfect and defective. As Lee Bartky argues: "To have a body felt to be 'feminine'—a body socially constructed through the appropriate practices—is in most cases crucial to a woman's sense of herself as female." ([9], p. 68).

This body does not belong to her. As a woman, she "must make herself 'object and prey' for the man." ([9], p. 61). Disobedience to disciplinary procedures is punished by the denial of patronage, this means low social status. The feeling of guilt is an equally severe punishment for rebel women. This is because patriarchal standards become internalized, making women extremely effective at conforming to them. Therefore, the freedom that they have now achieved is proving to be only illusive. In fact, they have been almost completely subjected to a new, anonymous, and diffuse disciplinary authority that has taken control over their bodies. In the model described by Lee Bartky, the body is a product of disciplinary procedures of power, which is thoroughly imbued with politics. The woman's body, by involving its owner in a regimen of practices that shape it, even becomes an instrument of oppression.

Since their bodies have been taken away from them, women mostly do not feel comfortable in them. Millet saw it when she wrote that: "Patriarchal conditioning and convictions seem to poison the women's attitude to their own bodies until it actually becomes a promised source of anguish" ([1], p. 89). In this way, the politicization of bodies leads to their peculiar alienation. One's own body turns out to be alien and hostile. Anyway, it can hardly be called one's own anymore since it is the product of disciplinary procedures and the result of patriarchal relations of domination. The subordinate status of women means that the most intimate sphere, as it may seem, corporeality and how it is felt, is shaped by power relations. It is impossible to escape from being drawn into this arrangement because: "for the sake of feeling oneself as an existing entity, one can now only exist as a man or as a woman" ([9], p. 68). Patriarchal power is holding on tight—what has changed is perhaps the form of exercising it. It has become more modern and less visible, but because of that perhaps even more effective. What is now effectively holding patriarchy in place is a rigid, polarized division into two sexes and the need to be assigned to one of them with all its consequences. "It is an essential part of our conceptual apparatus that the sexes are a polarity and a dichotomy in nature. Actually, that is quite false" ([3], p. 17)—says Greer. Therefore, putting the naturalness of traditional gender roles into question requires going much deeper and challenging the very foundations of gender classification.

Wolf believes that the myth of beauty oppressive the female body is the last remnant of the old ideologies of femininity ([7], p. 27). Therefore, it must be exposed and rejected. Confronting this myth requires asking about power relations. It is necessary to ask who it serves and who derives profits from it. The appearance of the female body (or rather constant concern for it) is a political matter ([7], p. 347). Without overcoming this oppression, we will not create truly egalitarian relationships.

Biology and nature, as suggested by feminists, do not unequivocally delineate the male–female dichotomy. This is because they leave a lot of room for interpretation. However, this area of freedom has been appropriated by authority. That is why it is so important to unmask the apparent naturalness and show the political entanglement of gender categories. "The 'normal' sex roles that we learn to play from our infancy are no more natural than the antics of a transvestite. In order to approximate those shapes and attitudes, which are considered normal and desirable, both sexes deform themselves, justifying the process by referring to the primary, genetic difference between the sexes." ([3], p. 22)—says Greer. It is important to be aware of this in order to try to oppose the ever-present patriarchal power.

#### **4. Beyond the male-female dichotomy**

Can the gender dichotomy be completely discarded? What could it be replaced with? Liberal feminists propose the replacement of polarized gender roles with the concept of androgyny, that is, recognizing the entire spectrum of gender identities individually chosen by each individual. "Androgyny does not eliminate gender differences but is built on the understanding that we are capable of both transcending polarized gender roles and creatively developing aspects of our personality that have been 'neglected' in traditional upbringing. If we are all socially encouraged to develop both feminine and masculine qualities (which are equally important both for society and for the good life of an individual), all discriminations will disappear" ([5], p. 322)—as Professor Środa describes the ideal of androgyny. Androgyny abolishes the traditional rigid division into men and women, replacing the polarized identification of males and females with a whole spectrum of individualized gender identities that are combinations of what has traditionally been considered masculine and feminine in various combinations and proportions. This ideal is supposed to depoliticize the body, as far as possible. This is because sex here is stripped of its political significance, blurred in the multiplicity of individual experiments, and transferred entirely to the private sphere. Gender identity freed from social pressures to become a "normalized" woman or man becomes a matter of individual preference. At the same time, androgyny does not question the existence of biological differences, it only assumes that no clear determination of those differences exists. The same set of physical characteristics may be the basis for different variations on gender roles. Corporeality is largely an area for individual experimentation, the results of which cannot be fully predicted. This means the end of the rigid framework of masculinity and femininity that individuals must be forced into with the use of disciplinary strategies. In line with the general liberal trend, the sphere of individual freedom is broadened and the influence of authority is reduced—the body is definitely freed from the scope of political influence.

However, for some, this is still an inadequate solution. A concept is emerging that completely challenges the distinction between a given biological sex and a constructed gender. Judith Butler is trying to address this issue: What other foundational categories of identity—the binary of sex, gender, and the body—can be shown as productions that create the effect of the natural, the original, and the inevitable?" ([10], p. 35).3 Therefore, the goal is to overthrow the last bastion of proponents of natural sex characteristics—biological sex. Its illusive invariability and political neutrality are to be exposed, for biological sex, which was given by nature, could not be impinged upon by power. And yet Butler tries to demonstrate that she too is a product of certain power relations—male domination and compulsory heterosexuality. Thus, politicizing the body goes even deeper than Lee Bartky showed—it is not just about the body's shape, dimensions, and appearance. The body is recognized as a cultural mark, while the order of constructing gender identity so far is reversed.

It is not gender that is formed on the foundation of biological sex (in a way more or less determined by the latter), it is our perception of biological sex and perception of bodies that is the product of cultural regulatory practices. Three fictions need to be rejected: the belief in the unequivocal nature of biological sex, the alleged internal consistency of gender, and the binarity within the two categories. This is because they only serve to uphold the existing order of power. Therefore, with reference to the

<sup>3</sup> J. Butler: *Uwikłani w płeć* [*Gender Trouble*], Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, Warsaw 2008, p. 35.

#### *Perspective Chapter: The Female Body as Sites of Power DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109680*

concept of Monique Wittig, Butler reflects: "Is there a 'physical' body prior to the perceptually perceived body? An impossible question to decide. Not only is the gathering of attributes under the category of sex suspect, but but also the distinction of these "characteristics" as such. That penis, vagina, breasts, and so forth are named sexual parts is both a restriction of the erogenous body to those parts and a fragmentation of the body as a whole" ([10], p. 215). The body is, therefore, not a given, something ready-made. We create it by distinguishing and giving names to its various parts. It is also up to us what significance we assign to its various elements. We are the ones who have completely arbitrarily selected a certain set of so-called gender characteristics. Our body is, therefore, a complete construction from the very beginning. Even if there is an objective body, which is independent of linguistic categories, it is inaccessible to us. When describing one's body, one inevitably enters the perimeter of the cultural and social system. Our corporeality is always politicized. We may at best not realize it. Therefore, using categories taken from psychoanalysis, Butler states that: "The sexed surface of the body thus emerges as the necessary sign of a natural (ised) identity and desire" ([10], p. 153). We thus find only the naturalized, instead of what was supposed to be natural. The alleged naturalness is meant to conceal the political involvement of gender identity at the biological level and create the appearance of its invariability. The category of nature is once again exposed as a tool that sustains the system of power.

Should we thus assume that: "… the body is not a 'being', but a variable boundary, a surface whose permeability is politically regulated, a signifying practice within a cultural field of gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality"? ([10], pp. 250–251). If so, the traditional division between the private sphere and the public sphere is untenable. For the very core of the private sphere, that which is most intimate to us – —our own body—turns out to be shaped by culture and power. How has that come about? In her explanation, Butler refers to Michael Foucault's claim that the entire sphere of sexuality (including, of course, the category of gender) is saturated with power, and that our bodies only make sense in the context of power relations. Therefore, sex is not only a category with political implications, it is political "from the very foundations." Categories of sex and compulsory heterosexuality: "are not natural but political categories ([10], p. 231), as Butler underlines. Citing Foucault, she stresses that: The category of sex is thus inevitably regulative, and any analysis that makes that category presuppositional uncritically extends and further legitimates that regulative strategy as a power/knowledge regime" ([10], p. 189). Until we expose the power relations that hide behind the naturalized sex category, we will not be able to change them or free ourselves from them. This is not easy, as the naturalization strategy effectively masks the matrix of gender dichotomy and compulsory heterosexuality. Therefore, if we want to change, if we want to abolish male domination and oppression associated with the social organization of sexual reproduction, we need to expose this apparent naturalness.

The awareness of politicizing gender identities paves the way for making a change. However, this is not an easy task. Butler notes that the authority that shapes our perceptions of body, sex, and desire does not fit into the liberal model of the social contract. We cannot negotiate the terms of how it functions, because it is not exercised by a group of specific, identifiable individuals in an intentional manner. It is an anonymous and dispersed power, within which: "power relations establish and limit the very possibility of will. Therefore, power can neither be taken away nor rejected, but only deployed differently." ([10], p. 228). Neither revolution nor anarchy is possible. There is no escape from being involved in politics. However, one may question

and challenge the categories imposed by it and destabilize whatever forms the basis of power relations—the dichotomy and unequivocality of gender identities. This is served, for example, by parody practices that treat the surface of the body as a space for free staging. Such activities are intended to provoke reflection on the naturalness of masculinity and femininity. The proliferation of various configurations of gender identities is expected to destabilize this category. However, the deconstruction of identity is not the deconstruction of politics; rather, it establishes as political the very terms through which identity is articulated." ([10], p. 263). Thus, the right strategy is not an attempt at depoliticizing sex and the body, which is doomed to failure; but quite the contrary, treating one's body as a "tool for political struggle." This is the only way it is possible to reinterpret the practices that define gender identity and create new possibilities that transcend and break the binary matrix. Thus, this is the approach that stands in opposition to the idea of androgyny discussed early on. It is not a matter of excluding corporeality from the political sphere; quite the contrary, the body should be properly handled in the political sphere.

### **5. The chapter conclusion**

Feminist discussions on gender address the politicization of the body in two ways. On the one hand, they point to the need to expose the involvement of corporeality in politics, which is hidden under the pretense of naturalness. They reveal that our body, the way we perceive it and the way we seek to change it, is not politically neutral but is the result of power relations. On the other hand, feminists do not wish in any way to remove gender issues from the political sphere. On the contrary, they indicate the need to bring sex and corporeality into the public debate. They argue that leaving these issues within the private sphere effectively sustains the patriarchal model. Of all the concepts that are the most radical, it is the body that becomes a tool. However both of these perspectives underscore one thing: what seems private, or even intimate to us, that is our own body, is, contrary to appearances of so-called naturalness, strongly (and according to some positions indelibly) entangled in politics.

### **Author details**

Barbara Grabowska Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland

\*Address all correspondence to: barbaragrabowska@wp.pl

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Perspective Chapter: The Female Body as Sites of Power DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109680*

#### **References**

[1] Millet K. Teoria polityki płciowej [Sexual Politics] In: Nikt nie rodzi się kobietą [One is not Born a Woman]. Czytelnik: Warszawa; 1982

[2] Mansbridge J, Moller OS. Feminizm [Feminism]. In: Przewodnik po współczesnej filozofii politycznej [A Guide to Contemporary Political Philosophy]. Warszawa: Ksiązka i Wiedza; 1998

[3] Greer G. Kobiecy eunuch [The Female Eunuch]. Rebis: Poznań; 2001

[4] Mill JS. Poddaństwo kobiet [The Subjection of Women]. Znak: Kraków; 1995

[5] Środa M. Indywidualizm i jego krytycy [Individualism and its Critics]. Aletheia: Warszawa; 2003

[6] Bourdieu P. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge; 1984

[7] Wolf N. Mit urody [The Beauty Myth]. Czarna Owca: Warszawa; 2014

[8] Matuchniach-Krasuska A. Koncepcja habitusu u Pierre'a Bournie. HYBRIS nr 31. 2015:77-111

[9] Lee Bartky S. Foucault, kobiecość i unowocześnienie władzy patriarchalnej [Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power]. In: Gender. Perspektyw antropologiczna [Gender. The Anthropological Perspective]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego; 2007

[10] Butler J. Uwikłani w płeć [Gender Trouble]. Krytyka polityczna: Warszawa; 2008

#### **Chapter 9**

## Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life

*Andrea Smith*

#### **Abstract**

Abolition feminism builds on the concept of "abolition democracy" as articulated by W.E.B. DuBois and Angela Y. Davis. They argued that in order to abolish slavery as well as institutions that furthered the afterlife of slavery, such as the prison industrial complex, it was necessary to simultaneously build a wide array of democratic institutions that would make slavery and the prison system unthinkable. In doing so, it further becomes clear that real democracy is inconsistent with slavery and the prison industrial complex. Similarly, abolition feminism signals that it is not possible to end carceral systems without a systemic gender analysis. At the same time, a liberatory feminist politic is inconsistent with an investment in carcerality. An abolitionist feminist politic is also ideally rooted in creativity and provisionality as it is primarily centered, not in just ending carceral systems, but creating systems of governance and sociality based on principles of horizontality, mutuality and relationality. At the same time, because many strands of abolition feminism tend to focus on the corporeal effects of gender violence on an individual scale, its practices are often presumed to only work on a smaller scale. This work will engage Laura Harjo's analysis to look at how "jumping scale" can be used to connected the corporeal to a global praxis for transformation.

**Keywords:** abolition feminism, carcerality, transformative justice, gender violence, anti-violence

#### **1. Introduction**

The rise of the anti-violence movement has generally situated gender violence and its response on the corporeal level. That is, the focus of sexual violence and interpersonal violence is on the impact of violence on the body. (1) How do we keep that body safe? (2) How do we heal the body from its trauma? This individualized, corporeal focus then contributed to both a carceral and medicalized response to gender violence. First, we need police to keep individual bodies safe as gender violence becomes understood as individual rather than a collective problem of managing bodies that have been deemed vulnerable (and bodies that are not deemed vulnerable or often deemed unworthy of protection). Corporeal trauma also then becomes the site of medical intervention

requiring professional treatment to enable healing. Essentially this corporeal focus implicitly understands gender violence as individualized rather than relational.

In response to these carceral and medicalized strategies for addressing gender violence developed an abolition feminist movement that called for a transformative justice strategy for addressing gender violence. Abolition feminism builds on the concept of "abolition democracy" as articulated by W.E.B. DuBois and Angela Y. Davis. They argued that in order to abolish slavery as well as institutions that furthered the afterlife of slavery, such as the prison industrial complex, it was necessary to simultaneously build a wide array of democratic institutions that would make slavery and the prison system unthinkable. In doing so, it further becomes clear that real democracy is inconsistent with slavery and the prison industrial complex ([1], p. 58; [2], p. 182). Similarly, abolition feminism signals that it is not possible to end carceral systems without a systemic gender analysis. At the same time, a liberatory feminist politic is inconsistent with an investment in carcerality. An abolitionist feminist politic is also ideally rooted in creativity and provisionality as it is primarily centered, not in just ending carceral systems, but creating systems of governance and sociality based on principles of horizontality, mutuality and relationality.

In this article, I argue that while transformative justice is a germinal framework for articulating response to gender violence, its formulations still tend to focus on gender violence as primarily corporeal and individualized rather than fully articulating corporeality in a relational manner. Consequently, transformative justice can easily lapse back into carceral and medicalized logics. Instead, I will suggest how a more global understanding of the history of transformative justice can connect the corporeal with multi-level scales of connectivity to create a different form of sociality and globality.

#### **2. Transformative justice**

Transformative justice is an abolition feminist practice that has become increasingly visible as a praxis for addressing inter-personal harm, often with a focus on gender-based violence, without relying on the criminal justice system. It operationalizes abolitionist feminism by creating processes and practices that can create communities capable of addressing harm without causing harm.1 However, what transformative justice signifies is sharply contested. First the concept of transformative justice has emerged from disparate fields of inquiry and practice.2 Within the strands of transformative justice that emerge more specifically from an abolition feminist framework, numerous questions arise: Is engaging in transformative justice inconsistent with ever calling for help from the police? Is transformative justice survivor-centered? Can transformative justice be scaled? Can it even work? My interest is less in providing a definitive account of what transformative justice is amidst these debates. As Ejeris Dixon says in a

<sup>1</sup> See Mia Mingus definition of transformative justice Barnard Center for Research on Women [3].

<sup>2</sup> Transformative justice has been used to describe a movement emerging from a critique of the co-optation of transitional justice, which is a framework by which post-conflict countries emerge to address serious human rights abuses Gready & Robins [4]. Ruth Morris also used the term to describe a critique of restorative justice, but her analysis has sometimes (although not always) operated independently of abolitionist feminist frameworks around transformative justice Morris [5]. Other organizers their engagement with term emerging from networks with revolutionary movements in Latin America. (Personal Conversation, Kim McGill, Youth Justice Coalition, March 11, 2020. Los Angeles. This is not by an means an exhaustive list of all the varied and sometimes intersecting strands of transformative justice organizing and theorizing.

#### *Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110553*

recent work on transformative justice, *Beyond Survival*, "There have been conversations, arguments, and even declarations of what and who is or is not transformative enough… I want to make certain that we let TJ [Transformative Justice] be free, that we do not judge TJ, put TJ into boxes or constrain TJ" ([6], p. loc 89). Rather, I want to explore the political possibilities for transformative justice with respect to one issue frequently debated—whether or not transformative justice can be built to scale.

Transformative justice is often viewed in at least some strands of this movement as developing out of a critique of restorative justice. ARestorative justice@ is an umbrella term that describes a wide range of programs which attempt to address harm—from the individual to the systemic level—from a restorative and reconciliatory rather than a punitive framework. That is, as opposed to the US criminal justice system that focuses solely on punishing a person who causes harm and removing that person from society through incarceration, restorative justice attempts to involve all parties (the person who caused harm, the person who was harmed, and community members) in determining the appropriate response to a harm in an effort to restore the community to wholeness. However, as restorative justice became popularized through being increasingly attached to the criminal justice system through diversionary programs, organizers operating from an abolition feminist perspective sought to develop a framework that did not rely on the criminal justice system. Ruth Morris was one of the first restorative justice practitioners to shift to the concept of transformative justice. She argued:

*The very word restorative was unhealthy for victims. A victim's first instinct is to want the world back as it was. Until a victim is ready to move on from this, to recognize they can transform the world positively from their pain, but they can't restore the world as it was, their healing is blocked. Restorative justice, although intended to speak more of a Garden of Eden kind of restoration to the universe as God envisioned it, in practice encouraged victims in imagining that you can restore a past, before some trauma changed life forever. Restorative theory did not take into account the enormous structural injustices at the base of our justice systems, and the extent to which they function mainly to reinforce racism and classism. Any theory or method that ignores the racism and classism that are basic to retributive justice is missing something very vital, and will serve to reinforce that racism and classism further, by not challenging it. Related to both of these points, the idea of restoring justice implied we had had justice, and lost it. In fact, distributive justice abounds everywhere, and most offenders are, more than the average person is, victims of distributive injustice. Do we want to restore offenders to the marginalized, enraged, disempowered condition most were in just before the offence? This makes no sense at all ([5], p. 19)!*

Not surprisingly, practitioners of transformative justice are wary of co-optation and incorporation into institutions and often focus on local praxis. For instance, nationally renowned transformative justice practitioner Shira Hassan argues that transformative justice cannot be scaled because to scale it would be to institutionalize it and transformative justice would thus devolve back into restorative justice [7]. Others, such as Ejeris Dixon, acknowledge that while TJ is not currently building to scale, eventually the goal is to "start small, build to scale, and allow ourselves to learn from both our successes and our failure" ([8], p. loc 303). In general, whether or not practitioners believe transformative justice can be built to scale, they often emphasize working at the local level first.

Some strands of the transformative justice movement also formed out of the realization that "community-based" approaches toward addressing harm often relied upon a romanticized notion of community that was not sexist, homophobic or otherwise problematic—or that "community" even existed to begin with. As restorative justice became associated with the social service delivery or as an "alternative" within the criminal justice system, transformative justice became articulated as a political organizing project geared toward creating communities of mutual accountability. The work of abolition feminists emerges amidst the contradictions of gender violence and harm that was perpetrated in the very movements that were trying to transform society. Consequently, the center of attention of some strands of abolition feminism has been the corporeal scale of gender violence. Many abolition feminists called for a shift of building to scale to building deeper and healthier relations among organizers on the local level as a result of this more individualized and corporeal focus [9]. This shift did not signify a lack of interest in ending systemic oppression; rather, local organizing became imagined as the site where systemic oppression could be most effectively addressed. As Adrienne Marie Brown frames it, "I love the idea of shifting from 'mile wide inch deep' movements to 'inch wide mile deep' movements that schism the existing paradigm" (ibid, 16). Doing the deep work necessary to transform communities structured under the logics of racial, gender and colonial violence as well as to create a space for traumatized bodies to heal seemed to work against the possibility then of bringing transformative justice to scale.

Another reason for the focus on the very local scale is the continuing focus of the corporeality of gender violence. Many strands of the transformative justice movement correctly noted that social justice struggles often collapsed because of the continuing impacts of unaddressed trauma within communities impacted by violence. Individuals acting out of unaddressed trauma had difficulty working collectively without bitter conflict. Thus, it was important that corporeal healing be integrated into social justice organizing itself. But then this focus on "self-care" and "healing" often displaced the importance of collective organizing, particularly at a larger scale. Certainly as Herbert Marcuse demonstrated, a focus on the body and pleasure can an important site to unveil the death-dealing structures of white supremacy, genocide, patriarchy and capitalism [10]. Creating a society that is pleasurable would necessarily create a society that is more just. But while many strands of the transformative justice movement have in fact focused on "pleasure activism" [11], how this pleasure on the corporeal scale is connected to dismantling global structures of oppression is not always operationalized. Pleasure activism is easier to imagine on the corporeal or local level rather than on a global level.

In this article, I wish to employ Laura Harjo's Indigenous feminist methodology of "jumping scale" to suggest different political possibilities for articulating the relationship between transformative justice, the body and its healing from trauma and scale. Harjo's work suggests that instead of articulating the relationship among the corporeal, the local and scale as unidirectional (starting small and building to scale) antagonistic (inch deep/mile wide vs. mile deep/inch wide), jumping scale suggests the possibility of a mile-wide/mile-deep approach that simultaneously resists incorporation into statist policies. Essentially, such an approach involves reconceptualizing transformative justice as more than a set of local processes, but as a way of life.

#### **3. Jumping scale**

Jumping scale according to Laura Harjo is a manner in which Indigenous transformation happens through traversing through different scales across time and

#### *Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110553*

space.3 She contends that transformation happens through a relational praxis through individual body, local and global scales. At the same these scales are also translated temporally through the ancestral knowledge and Indigenous futurities. What connects these traversals across scales is that they are built through relationality. They are never simply about gaining number nor leaving the body behind or ignoring the local to achieve the global. But rather they all exist in relationship to each other.

*The Mvskoke individual living in the city without access to practices such as stomp dance or traditional games still perpetuates other Mvskoke values and practices; they still enact Mvskoke community even if it is at the scale of a single person and their body. Scale works with emergence geographies to help understand the spatial imaginary of relationality and kinship that operates in the Mvskoke community in ways that draw upon a network of spatiotemporal locations ([12], p. 11).*

*Mariame Kaba notes that transformative justice cannot be seen as a simply an alternative practice to incarceration.*

*It's not actually the alternative… It is an ideology, a framework, a political vision, a practice… it's simply a way to shift and transform our relationships to allow us to build the conditions under which we will no longer need prisons. Part of the problem of positing a quote "alternative" to the PIC is that it's impossible. What is the alternative to oppression ([13], p. loc 3939)?*

Similarly, Ruth Wilson Gilmore argues that the current abolitionist focus on the "prison industrial complex," originally termed in order note the expansive nature of the carceral system, has instead truncated abolitionist politics. Thus if, transformative justice is not an "alternative," what is it? Gilmore calls for abolitionist geographies that recognize that "freedom is a place" and that abolition requires not simply the dismantling of prisons, but the transformation of place [14]. But transformation of place can only happen through jumping scale because all places exist in relationship to teach other. Harjo's articulation of jumping scale coordinates not only the local, but the individual body level to the global. Her articulations are consonant with an abolitionist feminist praxis that understands that global movements for social change are undermined when they are structured by individual practices of gender violence. As transformative justice practitioner Mia Mingus has argued, the abuse in our world begins with the fact that we have an abusive relationship with ourselves [15].

So that transformative justice can jump scale spatially we must also jump scale temporally. By traversing temporalities to ascertain the multiple genealogies of transformative justice, we can expand transformative justice's possible futurities.

#### **4. Traversing time**

*"Futurity is the invocation of many temporalities and spatialities to form an imaginary that is constructed from energy, kinship, community knowledge collective power, and geographies" ([12], p. 11)*

<sup>3</sup> Harjo builds on the work of Neil Smith of jumping scales in which challenges the binary of moving from small to big and resists the presumptions of statist territoriality but de-naturalizes the order of racial/ colonialist capitalist space.

Harjo describes her vision of Indigenous futurities in which communities can jump scale across time and place in order to spatialize the future. This happens through a process of what she describes as kin-space-tie envelopes that enable us to "understand social relations within the processes of globalization, such as political, cultural, and economic impacts connected to an area or geography" ([12], p. 28) But rather than chronological time being the glue in these envelopes, it is our relationships throughout time and space that provide an imaginary for the world we want to live in. "Futurity is a practice that invokes our ancestors' and relatives' unactivated possibilities in our present lived moment, and it imagines future possibilities" ([12], p. 34).

To explore how transformative justice can spatialize the future, I will first traverse time by exploring some of the multiple genealogies that helped give rise to the transformative justice movement. My intent is not so much to replace a "bad" genealogical account of transformative justice with a correct one. Rather, I seek to demonstrate other political possibilities for transformative justice that emerge when we multiply transformative justice's genealogies, particularly by exploring a variegated history of the abolition feminist politics that gave rise to transformative justice. In particular, transformative justice emerged not just out of abolition feminist's critique of carcerality, but its commitment to building systems of governance and living based on principles of horizontality, mutuality and relationality. Genealogical accounts of transformative justice tend to focus on its emergence out of what Mimi Kim describes as the "carceral creep" [16] within the anti-violence movement [17–19]. However, it equally emerged through an Indigenous critique of settler colonialism, feminist critiques of revolutionary movements in Latin America and critiques of the nationstate governance systems. From these multiple genealogies emerged multiple visions of what transformative justice could be.

At least one strand of the transformative justice movement developed through organizations working with an abolition feminist analysis.4 This strand is most popularly known through the statement made by Generation Five, an organization focused on ending child sexual abuse without investing in carceral systems. While Generation Five no longer exists, individuals from Generation Five have brought this politic to a number of organizations including Generative Somatics and the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. The Generation Five statement itself, however, was also the product of collaboration with a number of individuals and organizations, including Incite! Women of Color Against Violence5 and Critical Resistance. In this essay, I wish to focus on the development of abolition feminist thought that emerged out of Incite! to build on the genealogies of transformative justice to assess what this genealogy might have to say about the scaling of transformative justice.

#### **4.1 History of Incite!**

Incite! emerged out of the both the anti-violence movement and the critical resistance movement.6 Co-founders of Incite! had been involved in anti-violence

<sup>4</sup> While Generation Five is often credited for the term "transformative justice," it is important to note that others have also used the term through other genealogical strands. For instance, the Youth Justice Coalition began employing this term through its engagement with movements in Chiapas.

<sup>5</sup> The name of Incite at the time of Generation Five. It later changed its name to be Incite! Women and Trans People of Color Against Violence, and the name has undergone changes since then.

<sup>6</sup> Information on the history of Incite! that is not cited comes from my personal involvement as a cofounder of Incite!

#### *Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110553*

organizing for many years. The idea of Incite! in particular emerged when some of the co-founders had been engaged in a frustrating board meeting of the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault where some board members had proposed that Hillary Clinton be invited as a keynote speaker to the next national conference. This choice was illustrative of what the eventual co-founders of Incite! perceived to be as two trends in the anti-violence movement: (1) issues faced by women of color were at the margins of the anti-violence movement and (2) this movement was primarily concerned with professionalization, respectability and social service provision instead of building a political movement to actually end violence. At the same time, co-founders were also fatigued with being part of the "women of color caucus" of their various national and state anti-violence organizations in which they provided continual critique of white-dominated movements to no effect. Thus, at this board meeting, these eventual co-founders of Incite! began writing the names of people who could begin a women of color anti-violence organization that was committed to grassroots organizing rather than primarily to social service delivery. Many years later, these individuals listed on this napkin eventually converged in Santa Cruz for the first Color of Violence conference held in April 2000.

The founding of Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex was also a formative part of the genealogy of Incite! Critical Resistance formed nationally to advance abolitionism. Some of the co-founders of Incite! had also been involved in co-organizing the first Critical Resistance conference held in Berkeley in 1999. As the anti-violence movement became increasingly connected to the criminal justice system, it became virtually impossible to critique criminalization within mainstream anti-violence organizations. The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (or VAWA), despite being part of a repressive anti-crime bill, was heralded as "feminist" legislation. Any attempts to critique VAWA were immediately denounced as anti-survivor. However, the emergence of critical resistance began to provide a framework by which those in the anti-violence movement could critique its investment in criminalization.

At the time of the founding conference of Incite!, the "Color of Violence" in 2000, the founders did not know what the solution to carceral feminism was. But it sought to create a space to figure out what the possibilities might be. In that spirit, the Color of Violence was organized to bring abolitionists in conversation with anti-violence advocates who did not necessarily have an abolitionist perspective. Through this conversation, anti-violence advocates were challenged to rethink their unquestioned reliance on criminal legal solutions. At the same time, they also challenged abolitionists to develop more thoroughgoing gender analysis in their work. This continuing conversation culminated in a statement produced by Incite! and critical resistance on gender violence and the prison industrial complex, which can be understood as an abolition feminist call to develop non-statist approaches to ending gender violence.7

Incite! organizing operated at the intersections of addressing healing at the bodily level while simultaneously addressing global structures of violence. On the one hand, it was intervening in the tendency in more patriarchal social justice movements to create little space for healing or for addressing interpersonal violence *within* these movements. They were aware of interpersonal dynamics that resulted from organizations inability to address impact of trauma on peoples' bodies quickly led to organizational dysfunctionality and disintegration. At the same time, it was wary of the social service model for addressing corporeal trauma that did challenge the global conditions that created trauma in the first place.

<sup>7</sup> The statement can be found online as well is in Incite (Ed.). [20].

While developing their abolition feminist critiques of carcerality, however, Incite! members did not know how it would be possible to end inter-personal gender violence without relying on the criminal justice system. Thus, Incite! started organizing activist institutes to figure out what could be other possibilities. Ideas that developed from these institutes were distributed so that local groups could experiment with them.8 Numerous formations, connected and not connected with Incite!, developed that began experimenting with different processes and strategies. Mimi Kim then used this work from Incite! to develop creative interventions, from which emerged the immortal 600+ Creative Interventions Toolkit that is a foundational text for many transformative justice practitioners today.9

Given this genealogy, it is not a surprise that transformative justice became equated with local processes. Through years of experimentation, many practitioners learned that such processes could actually be successful, but they had to be thoughtful and time intensive. Such local processes tended to come into place AFTER harm had occurred, and their contextually-based nature made them difficult to imagine being scaled.

However, it is also important to note that these practices that emerged from Incite! were influenced not just by those who emerged out of the anti-violence movement. Sista II Sista began collaborating with Incite! soon after its formation and had a transformative effect on Incite!'s political vision. It influenced Incite!'s abolition feminist analysis to not just focus on ending carceral systems, but in creating systems of governance and living based on principles of horizontality, mutuality and relationality. Many organizers in Sista II Sista were focused less on the critiquing carceral feminism and more on addressing gender violence within revolutionary movements. Thus, their implementation of transformative justice was always premised on it building to scale. Through Sista II Sista, Incite! became involved in the World Social Forum and became more directly engaged in transnational mass movements for social change. These exchanges shifted the focus of Incite! from simply thinking of transformative justice as a process for addressing harm after it occurred to stopping harm from happening in the first place. They also provided more of a transnational perspective on what transformative justice could look like.

Incite!'s engagement with Indigenous feminist organizing (which contributed to its co-founding of the Boarding School Healing Project)10 lead to the analysis that the prison industrial complex is the arm of a nation-state form of governance that is based on violence, domination and control. Abolishing the prison industrial complex thus requires challenging the presumed inevitability of a nation-state form of governance. One of Incite!'s training modules for instance, framed gender violence as existing the intersections of capitalism and colonization and a commitment to decolonization was evidenced in Incite!'s principles of unity and its initial organizing packets.11

In addition, Incite! linked gender violence not only to carcerality but to global systems of violence. It organized against the War in Afghanistan because many mainstream anti-violence organizations were supporting with the rationale that the war would liberate women from the Taliban. While Incite! was developing local responses to violence, it was just as involved in organizing against global systems of violence

<sup>8</sup> A copy of these statement can be found at https://incite-national.org/community-accountabilityworking-document/.

<sup>9</sup> The toolkit can be found at http://www.creative-interventions.org/tools/toolkit/.

<sup>10</sup> The Boarding School Healing project later morphed into the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. Information on this organization can be found at https://boardingschoolhealing.org/. <sup>11</sup> From author's personal collection.

*Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110553*

by working with Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and other transnational groups. It also collaborated nationally with RJ911 which was a national coalition of racial justice organizations opposing the war on terror. An example of this synthesis could be found in Sista II Sista's Weapons of Mass Resistance which was a simultaneous campaign against imperialism, military recruitment and police violence. Its campaign slogan was: "From Brooklyn to Baghdad: We Want You Out."12 All of these influences exposed Incite! members to different models of organizing in which personal transformation was directly linked to global transformation.

#### **5. Traversing space**

Laura Harjo notes that jumping scale means that local community works must operate through multiple temporal and spatial frameworks, from the local to the global: "Scale is produced through relationality and through social processes that transcend…terrestrial realm and geographic positions" ([12], p. 44). Indeed, many movements, particularly those (although not exclusively) that are Indigenous-led, seem to operate through such a framework. One movement that had a strong influence on the development of Incite! was the Movement of Landless People (known as Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurail Sem Terra or MST). At the time of Incite!'s foundation, this movement was based in networks of families which claim territory that is owned privately, but is not being used. The families set up tents and fences and defend the land, which is called an "occupation." If they managed to gain control of the land, then they form a settlement in which they build houses and more permanent structures. At the time Incite! was forming, 300,000 families had been involved in these occupations. Families rather than individuals take part in this resistance. About 20 families form a nucleus, which is coordinated by one man and one woman. The nuclei are then organized into the following sectors: (1) production/cooperation/ employment, (2) education/trading; (3) education, (4) gender, (5) communication, (6) human rights, (7) health and (8) culture. Both men and women participate in the gender sector. This sector is responsible for ensuring women are involved in all decision-making positions and are equally represented in public life. Security teams are mixed gender. The gender team trains security to deal with domestic violence. Obviously, since the MST is not a legal organization and, thus, cannot utilize the state to address domestic violence, it must develop accountability structures from within.

All issues are discussed communally. As time progresses, participants report that domestic violence decreases because interpersonal relationships are communal and transparent. Also, because women engage in "physical" roles, such as being involved in security, women become less likely to be seen as "easy targets" for violence; the women also think of themselves differently. This strategy effectively connected bodily transformation with structural transformation. By changing the governance structure and engaging women in enforcing security, women's bodies ontologically shifted from being necessarily vulnerable to violence to capable of powerful action. In addition, sectors and leadership roles rotate so that there is less of a fixed, hierarchical leadership. Hierarchical leadership tends to promote power differentials and hence abuse. This leadership model, thus, helps prevent the conditions of abuse from happening in the first place. In addition, issues among families are dealt with very openly and transparently since abuse tends to proliferate in secrecy. Members of MST reported

<sup>12</sup> From author's personal collection.

to Incite! in various meetings that while their communities were not perfect, they noticed that the longer they lived under these structures, the less violence happened in the first place. From these exchanges, Incite! members learned that transformative justice practices needed to focus not only on intervening when violence happens, but on creating communities where violence becomes unthinkable. In addition, because this structure connected corporeal transformation with communal transformation, then individuals become transformed as well.

In conversations with members of Incite!, members of the MST distinguished their organizing model from community-based models in the United States in that, unlike the United States-based organizations, the MST does not strive to create what they termed hippy commune zones. They note that the system can handle any number of localized alternative groups as long as those groups do not grow. Rather, whenever, an occupation becomes relatively stable, some families leave that area to start a new one. This philosophy seemed to be mirrored in the development of the factory movement in Argentina of which Incite! members were also in dialog. These organizers reported to members of Incite that when workers took over factories, they immediately began to connect with other factories to collectivize resources on a larger scale. Thus, rather than organize from a "deep vs. wide" philosophy, their approach was of organizing deep AND wide. This philosophy is illustrative of Harjo's concept of jumping scales. That is, if we understand that we all our related, then deeper relationships on the corporeal and local levels are furthered when organizers deepen their relations with all of creation on the global scale. Otherwise, one can end up promoting exclusivist and cliquish organizational projects that might benefit a local group but be harmful for other communities. Incite! exchanges with organizers in Chiapas further demonstrated that it was possible to do this deep relational work on a larger scale if one engaged in process that promoted horizontal participation. They suggested that building the infrastructure took time, but once the infrastructure is built, it was possible to coordinate egalitarian mass action rapidly.

On the one hand, Incite learned from these movements the importance of building the world we want to live in now on the local level. But members also learned that these world-making projects have to build to a sufficient scale so that they could begin to squeeze out the current system and thus clearly demonstrate that another world is possible. Incite! also learned that it was in fact possible to operate communities on a larger scale that operated on principles of horizontality and reciprocity.

Incite! members also were informed by the organizing strategies of Masum, a women's organization in Pune, India, which addresses violence through accountability strategies that do not rely on the state. The members of Masum actively intervene themselves in cases of domestic violence by using such non-violent tactics as singing outside the home of the person committing violence until that person ended the abuse. Masum organizers reported they have been able to work on this issue without community backlash because Masum simultaneously provides needed community services such as micro credit, health care, education, etc. After many years, this group has come to be seen as a needed community institution and, thus, has the power to intervene in cases of gender violence where their interventions might otherwise be resisted. Incite! learned that interventions in violence are more successful when they are not segmented from the rest of life. That is, in the United States, organizing is often fractured into an issue-based approach. Because gender violence is segmented from the rest of life, it proliferates. However, the approach of Masum was not to organize around a particular issue but to create a different way of life. Because these transformative processes and structures connect the body and its needs to governance

#### *Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110553*

systems these new systems become internalized on the bodily level to create new beings capable of living in more just systems. This provided another transformative justice of jumping scale that addressing a particular issue is more effective when it works on a multi-relational scale with all other issues simultaneously.

Finally, Incite! was also informed by the work of Sista II Sista. Sista II Sista focused on deep local organizing to address violence against girls in the neighborhood committed both by the police and other members of the community. Sista II Sista created a video project documenting police harassment after one girl was killed and a second was sexually assaulted and killed by the police. In addition, it created a community accountability program, called ASisters Liberated Ground@ to organize its members to monitor violence in the community without relying upon the police. One of the ways it increased its base of support was by recruiting young women to attend freedom schools that provide political education from an integrated mind–body– spirit framework that then trains girls to become activists on their own behalf. It also started a day-care cooperative that attracts women who need daycare services, but then provides training so they can become organizers as well. At the same time, as mentioned previously, they also worked on a global scale, connecting their efforts to grassroots movements globally, particularly in Latin America. They engaged in various fair-trade projects as well political and intellectual exchange. The work of Sista II Sista demonstrates how organizing deep and wide were not at tension with each other but are mutually supportive. It further demonstrated that organizing strategies that connect the body to the larger systems in which it inhabits creates new socialities based on more justice-centered logics.

Incite!'s experience with movements globally helped it consider a different relationship to the processes of "co-optation." Incite! initially began in many ways in fear of co-optation because it was critical of how the federal government had co-opted the anti-violence movement with federal dollars until eventually this movement was operating essentially as an arm of the state. This fear of co-optation contributes to a fear of jumping scale because this becomes equated with institutionalization and hence co-optation. We see similar tendencies in the United State in debates about voting where electoral politics is seen as essential for some organizers, while seen as reformist and a distraction from revolutionary politics by others.

However, when Incite! participated in the World Social Forum, its exchange with revolutionary movements revealed a different possibility for understanding the dynamics of cooptation. There, movements seem to have no problem with engaging in electoral politics or other practices that might be deemed in the United States as reformist. They operated on a dual power organizing model, which is a strategy of taking power by making power. Making power involves building the world you want to live in now, while at the same time resisting and challenging the power structures we currently have by taking power. Of course, such models exist in the United States but generally the "taking power" part of operations is often much stronger than the making power operations. Making power involves developing an infrastructure of horizontal governance that can involve hundreds of thousands of people. Consequently, engagement with the system can soon become the totality of one's organizing efforts, thus increasing the fear of co-optation. But transnational movements have been able to develop organizing processes in which their level of "making power" is as equally strong as their "taking power." Having this strong "making power" infrastructure seems to enable these movements more easily engage in taking power initiatives that could be seen as reformist as means to jump scale without being invested in institutional reform per se.

Large-scale organizing that engages institutional reform requires what Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA) describes as a "jazzy" approach [21]. Organizations do not necessarily have to fear institutionalization just because more mainstream institutions adopt one's language or proposed policies and practices because that can be a sign that a movement is actually transforming the common sense. However, movements must be aware of shifting terrain and adjust strategies accordingly. As Shira Hassan notes: "A purity politic happens when we think that transformative justice has a formula that you are supposed to follow every single time" ([7], p. loc 3612) In addition, a lesson Incite members learned from these exchanges with transnational movements is to rethink whether operating at a smaller scale necessarily equates with a "more pure" and less co-opted politic. In fact, these movements suggested that remaining at a purely local scale is equally a part of institutionalization and co-optation: the system promotes a flourishing of alternative small organizing projects that fulfill our quest to be "alternative" as long as these projects do not coalesce to change the system.

The insight of Incite! organizers as well as others who have been organizing transnationally informed the development of Generation Five's foundational statement on transformative justice since they had been part of the collaborative process that gave rise to this statement. This analysis of the need for transformative justice to jump scale is clear in many sections of the statement. "Transformative Justice must respond to the need to transform the violent conditions and dynamics of our lives—such as racism, colonization, patriarchy, and heterosexism—in order to achieve justice at every level" (Generation [22], p. 4) Because it was the product of a consultation with people not just rooted primarily in the anti-violence movement but in leftist and transnational movements, the statement situates transformative justice as integral to revolutionary politics.

*While Leftist and social justice movements in the U.S. continue to pose significant ongoing challenges to the power and primacy of the State, we have failed to offer real alternatives to replace, dismantle, or transform it. Ultimately, we will not be successful in mobilizing masses of people to transform current political, economic, and social apparatuses if we do not have a concrete vision for the future. The goal of dismantling oppressive structures is shortsighted, and perhaps impossible, if we are not also prepared to build alternatives. This is not merely a rhetorical failure or a failure of analysis; it is a failure of practice. As this paper will argue in detail, the lack of liberatory approaches to violence actually undermines the entire project of social justice on both ideological and practical levels (Generation [22], p. 8).*

Informed by Indigenous theories of decolonization, this statement explains that the goal of transformative justice practices is to build to sufficient scale in order to transform the state itself.

*Built on this foundation, we envision alternative institutions of justice that would invest larger segments of the public as they became increasingly viable. This might be maintained through the building of an interconnected system of alternative institutions that, theoretically, could one day transform the State itself. In the same way that we challenge the Left to view individual transformation and social justice as fundamentally connected, we challenge the sexual and domestic violence sectors to expand their work to include transforming the conditions that allow violence to occur and to explicitly challenge State violence (Generation [22], p. 24).*

Thus, while the transformative justice processes today that have emerged out of genealogical strands often emphasize the individualized body as well as the local, these strands historically also connected local transformative justice process with global transformation.

#### **6. Jumping scale through transformative justice**

These multiple strands and genealogies of transformative justice through time and space suggest some possibilities for developing a multi-scalar transformative justice. In this section, I will point to some of these possibilities as well some contemporary examples that speak to what these possibilities could be in practice.

#### **6.1 Building deep by building wide**

One lesson learned from transnational transformative justice movements is not whether we build deep OR wide, but that we might more effectively build deep when we simultaneously build wide. In the United States, it is often presumed that we should build local models first and then as they are successful, we may try to expand them. However, these local models are not easy to build. Even when they are generally "successful" they can often be so draining and time-consuming that people involved in them burn out. As a result, local efforts do not multiply. Thus, learning from transnational movements, it may be the case that for local efforts to be more successful, they need to simultaneously connect with global efforts to provide needed resources, infrastructure and support so that they become sustainable. In particular, jumping scale allows movements to produce new scales of action that are not necessarily circumscribed by the state.

Often in my organizing experience, I have found that a local team will often run into an issue or a stumbling block. However, it is often not the same stumbling block that another local group hits, and generally another local group has often figured out a solution to another local group's problem. But by having all groups connected to each other, it is easier to figure out solutions to local problems as well as spread the work so that the process becomes less draining and time-consuming for all involved.

One such model of this possibility is CAT-911, which is a network of community action teams creating alternatives to 911 throughout southern California.13 What is noteworthy about this system is that while it is focused on building very local responses, these local teams are also building together regionally. They have a Web site that has a forum where they can exchange ideas, troubleshoot issues and provide mutual support. They have regional trainings and other gatherings to multiply the effects of their work. One could imagine multiple regional hubs of transformative justice projects and processes that can then network nationally or internationally.

#### **6.2 Transformative justice as a way of life**

Jumping scale also suggests that has much transformative justice organizing needs to focus on building creative structures of governance BEFORE violence happens, not just addressing the effects of harm afterwards. As Mariame Kaba and Shira Hassan note, transformative justice processes are often about mediating between a process that is long

<sup>13</sup> For more information, see www.cat-911.org.

enough to be meaningful, but not so long as to take over one's life or the life of an organization [23]. On the one hand, processes that take a long time become hard to replicate on a larger scale because they are so time-consuming. However, processes must take years in order to effect the massive transformation required to stop being people from engaging in abuse. As a result, people often critique transformative justice as a failure.

However, as the work of Kaba and Hassan suggest, the fault is less about the failure of transformative justice processes per se as it is a misunderstanding of what a transformative justice process can do. A "process" will always be simultaneously too short and not long enough but that does not mean a process cannot be effective for what it is set up to do. But processes must be understood as part of a larger infrastructure that creates a transformative justice way of life. Here lessons learned transnationally can help suggest a way forward. As discussed previously, other movements focus more on creating different governance structures in which people become less violent in the first place. This is also an important lesson learned from Indigenous decolonization structures. As many Native organizers note, gender violence was often relatively rare prior to colonization. There were processes to address gender violence when it happened. But the most significant thing was that the social structures in Native communities stopped gender violence from happening in the first place [24, 25]. When there are social systems in which there is transparency, horizontality and collectivity, it becomes increasingly difficult to abuse. The relatively rare times it does happen can then more satisfactorily addressed through a process because the process is supported by a transformative justice way of life.

An example in the United States that speaks to this possibility includes the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. Part of this infrastructure involves individuals developing "pods" or a collection of individuals that would get support if either one has caused harm or one has harmed someone. The pod is then a network of individuals who know each other and are prepared to act collectively. A person can have multiple pods for different purposes. However, the idea of it is that each person in that pod would also be encouraged to develop their own pod as well as to share the idea of pod-making with others. People can check in regularly with each other so that support systems are ready to act when something goes wrong.14

This approach echoes some of the apparatus developed previously by Friends Are Reaching Out (FAR OUT) in Seattle.15 The premise of this model is that when people are abused, they become isolated. The domestic violence movement further isolates them through the shelter system, where they cannot tell their friends where they are. In addition, the domestic violence movement does not work with the people who could most likely hold perpetrators accountable B their friends. FAR Out = s model was based on developing friendship groups to make regular commitments to stay in contact with each other. In addition, these groups develop processes to talk openly about relationships. One way abuse continues is that we tend to keep our sexual relationships private. By talking about them more openly, it is easier for friends to hold us accountable.

Essentially, this pod infrastructure would ideally grow until everyone is in a pod that would reverse that isolation created by capitalism that seems to make the prison industrial complex a necessity. But it also suggests that mutual accountability is not just something that we engage in at the point of emergency but that it becomes a way of life to be thinking and acting together collectively on the personal level. This is

<sup>14</sup> For more information on this model, see https://batjc.wordpress.com/pods-and-pod-mappingworksheet/

<sup>15</sup> For a longer discussion as well as the problems that happened in the implementation of this model, see Burk [26].

essential because a local process will not squeeze out the prison industrial complex or denaturalize its assumed necessity. But a new way of life will do that. Furthermore, corporeal transformation must synergize with global transformation.

#### **6.3 Rethinking co-optation**

Learning from the multiple genealogies of transformative justice may also require us to rethink its relationship to institutionalization and co-optation. One reason transformative justice practitioners are reluctant to think about jumping scale is that scale is often equated with institutionalization and co-optation. If we try to engage in transformative justice in settings like schools for instance, this will just lead to transformative justice being watered down into ways that no longer really challenge the system.16 Certainly, we can see this process happening everywhere. For instance, in 2013, the L.A. school board mandated restorative justice programs in all schools as a result of organizers trying to stop the "school-to-prison pipeline."17 But the programs that were often implemented tended to focus on transforming students into mini-police officers without addressing the hierarchical manner in which education exists.18 Essentially the restorative justice programs tended to assume it was always the students that were the problem rather than the teachers or school administration. In one school I happened to witness how restorative justice became equated with having students go in a circle and tell other students about their favorite ice cream flavor. Thus, the lesson learned from experiences like this is just to avoid such efforts to expand the reach of transformative justice.

However, the experiences learned from transnational justice movements perhaps shift our relationship to this lesson learned. At one World Social Forum gathering, workshop participants troubled the presumed relationship between co-optation and scale by suggesting that keeping practices small and more "pure" is also another example of co-optation.

<sup>16</sup> For a deeper analysis of the problems of restorative justice in schools, see Hereth et al. [27].

<sup>17</sup> Available from: http://laschoolreport.com/california-has-voted-to-expand-its-ban-on-willful-defiancesuspensions-a-look-at-how-an-even-more-expansive-2013-reform-has-played-out-in-l-a-unified/ For more on the school-to-prison pipelines in LA schools, see Center, L. C. S. [28].

<sup>18</sup> Other critiques of this policy included the lack of training and resources given to teachers to implement these programs. See Watanabe & Blume [29].

This process is illustrated in the diagram above. As represented by Sista II Sista co-founder, Paula X Rojas, the idea is that the current system has most people driving along the highway of colonialism and capitalism in gas-guzzling cars destroying the world. However, some people, particularly those who live in the seat of empire in the United States, do not wish to do this. So, the system supports us to build out alternative highways where we can live in a more "pure" alternative system. We feel so better about ourselves, that we ignore the fact that we are driving in circles on our alternative highway while the highway of colonialism is still continuing on, destroying the world. Thus, co-optation can happen through institutionalization, but it can also happen by diverting our energies into small "pure" projects that essentially provide escape hatches for a few from the overall system. In addition, ultimately if transformative justice remains localized, it will then actually enable the proliferation of the prison industrial complex by providing temporary escapes from it rather than squeezing it out of existence. Transformative justice has to jump scale in order to squeeze out the prison industrial complex and its presumed inevitability.

Jumping scale suggests a different relationship between co-optation and space by connecting spaces together such that institutions are engaged as they are embedded with other spaces and structures. The issue may be less avoiding large or "impure" spaces but transforming our relationship to those spaces. For example, in the previously mentioned example of the co-optation of restorative justice programs in Los Angeles schools, it was also the case that this co-optation was furthered by educational activists not adapting their strategies once the demand for restorative justice programs in schools was won. When there was a relative vacuum in determining what the programs could be and activists had a time-sensitive opportunity to organize and develop the agenda, they did not take this opportunity. Rather, once "victory" was achieved, schools were left to determine what restorative justice would look like without major input from transformative justice organizers. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore notes, organizers organize for victory, but they do not organize for the day after victory when the landscape changes and new strategies are required.

By contrast, organizers in other transnational movements often have a more flexible relationship with strategies and hence seem to have less a fear of co-optation because co-optation seem to be taken for granted. For instance, as the same time I would hear organizers in the United States argue that we should not get involved in electoral politics, I would hear organizers from revolutionary movements in Latin America argue that of course they were going to engage in electoral politics. However, unlike movements in the United States that seem to rest once their "candidate" wins, these organizers did not invest in the candidates themselves. If the candidate furthered their aims, they would support that candidate, but they had no allegiance beyond that. They were constantly organizing for the day after victory.

Our relationship to broader movements can be transformed by jumping scale. That is, focusing on building the world we want now is necessary to avoid being absorbed into a reactive politics. However, as Paula X Rojas notes, while we build another world, our engagement with larger systems can be transformed from a politics of reaction to a politics of theater. Jumping scale sheds light on the problematic assumption identified by Shira Hassan and Ejeris Dixon that transformative justice requires that one never engages in the criminal legal system. If we focus on abolition as a positive project, then it is primarily not just about avoiding the criminal justice system, but changing the world so that the current system becomes unthinkable. Jumping scale, as Harjo demonstrates, also requires a different spatio-temporal understanding of what it means to change the world. This change requires new relationalities from the

#### *Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110553*

individual's relationship to self, to how we understand kinship, ancestral relationships, future generations, etc., all the way up to modes of production, the state, the relationships of ecosystems, etc. These all represent different ontologies, but those ontologies are necessarily grounded in material space as well as ideology and social relations. Thus, in the meantime, we may need to use the system to deal with everyday emergencies. But if we are grounded in creating a different world, then our shortterm strategies can be more effectively used as theater, as a mean to share to the world would another system could look like.19

One such example that complicates the relationship between "reform" and transformation is the organization survived and punished. This is an organization that develops support campaigns for survivors who have been criminalized as a result of resisting gender-based violence.20 Their work could be seen as a reformist strategy that does not challenge the prison industrial complex but only who is in the prison industrial complex, thus creating a dichotomy between people who deserve and those who do not deserve to be in prison. However, survived and punished frames its campaigns from an abolition feminist analysis:

*For many survivors, the experiences of domestic violence, rape, and other forms of gender violence are bound up with systems of incarceration and police violence. Nearly 60% of people in women's prisons nationwide, and as many as 94% of some women's prison populations, have a history of physical or sexual abuse before being incarcerated. Survivor defense committees are critical because they help to secure freedom for criminalized survivors. They can transform not only the lives of criminalized survivors but also those who come to their defense. They are an exercise in building collective power and care against staggering odds. Effective defense campaigns provide thousands of people with opportunities to demonstrate care for criminalized individuals through various tactics (including letter writing, financial support, prison visits, and more). They connect people in a heartfelt, direct way that teaches specific lessons about the brutality of prisons and their role in reinforcing gender violence. This direct connection can change minds and hearts, helping people to (hopefully) develop more radical and expansive politics. In the end, a practice of abolitionist care underscores that our fates are intertwined and our liberation is interconnected. As such, defense campaigns guided by an ethic and practice of care can be powerful strategies to lead us towards abolition [30].*

Survived and punished further rejects the deserving vs. non-deserving dichotomies by organizing around criminalized survivors that are not "perfect victims." In fact, one of their gatherings was entitled, "No Perfect Victims." By rejecting this dichotomy, they challenge the mainstream anti-violence movement's reluctance to support criminalized survivors of sexual and domestic violence.21 Their work thus synthesizes meeting the immediate needs of people who need to be freed from prison today with abolishing prisons tomorrow.

<sup>19</sup> Webinar, Reflections of Praxis-Based Learning, April 21, 2020. New School, New York.

<sup>20</sup> For more information, see Available from: https://survivedandpunished.org/.

<sup>21</sup> Mainstream anti-violence organizations refused to support the campaigns to free Marissa Alexander, Bresha Meadows or to support the survivors of Daniel Holtzclaw. For instance, when I contacted Ohio anti-violence organizations to see if they would support Bresha Meadows, they informed me that they did not want to alienate police officers by doing so.

#### **6.4 Ontological transformation**

For us to have a world structured by transformative justice, we will be not only transforming places but transforming peoples in the process. This transformation requires not just political and social shifts, but ontological shifts at the corporeal level. Certainly, one of most significant contributions of abolition feminism is that we are always struggling for community liberation with the realization that the communities we seek to liberate are themselves oppressive. Furthermore, we ourselves are the oppressive people within our communities that require transformation. We have been so shaped by white supremacy, colonialism and heteropatriarchy that even our imagination about what the world could be is structured by these logics. We would not recognize our future selves in a world of transformative justice. As Riverside CAT-911 states in its orientation material:

*Addressing carcerality includes addressing carceral logics within our own organizing. There is always the tendency to want to expunge "bad" or the "wrong" people in our movements. For instance, there is a tendency to focus on police officers as the problem rather than policing itself. This then leads to movements engaging in all sort of policing behaviors they excuse because they are the "right" people.*

*Riverside CAT-911 begins with the assumption that we are the wrong people. We recognize our ability to harm others and to engage carceral behavior as much as anyone else. We thus strive to build a movement that is not organized around the "right" people, but better processes and structures that enable us to collectively become better people. [31]*

Building on José Esteban Muñoz, transformative justice is always on the horizon, a world for which we lack the vocabulary to describe [32, 33]. Consequently, we engage transformative justice strategies with flexibility and humility because we do not ultimately know for sure what will be required to transform ourselves ontologically. Thus, maybe some of the questions that proliferate in transformative justice movements, such as which strategies are acceptable and when, need to remain open questions and subject to debate as we learn from our mistakes. Thus, transformative justice necessarily requires a relational strategy between the corporeal and the global that recognizes that bodily transformation and global transformation are inextricably linked.

In addition, an abolition feminist analytic that attends to the ontological shifts enabled by transformative justice can be employed to address white supremacist and/ or police violence. Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes note that we need to stop thinking about transformative justice as the response to harm perpetrated by the powerful [34]. However, how does transformative justice work for cases when the perpetrator is not part of one's community? When the person causing harm is a police officer? Or is engaging in white supremacist violence? How does a community enable accountability when the person causing harm denies the legitimacy of that community? The Los Angeles Incite! chapter in collaboration with LA COIL, CURB and Youth Justice Coalition held a workshop and strategy session to imagine what transformative justice might look like in cases of police and white supremacist violence. Many different strategies were developed, but a theme that emerged from these discussions is that community-based strategies require people to be in community with you. If transformative justice is based on principles of non-disposability, then have our transformative justice processes unwittingly developed a politics of mass disposability by presuming that everyone who perpetrates state or white supremacist violence as

#### *Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110553*

outside the realm of possible community?22 Some of the ideas that emerged from this workshop constellated around the theme that transformative justice must become a process of making relatives, of creating community with those deemed to be perpetually outside of it so that accountability can happen. Of course, organizers fear doing so because they are concerned that such work will enable co-optation. But as Laura Harjo suggests, jumping scale is less about building a mass movement or gaining institutional support and more about creating what Los Angeles-based organizer Luz Elena Henao describes as the connective tissue necessary to create relationships that can transform the world.<sup>23</sup>

#### **7. Conclusion**

If the criminal justice system is fundamentally a logic of anti-relationality based on disposability, then transformative justice is a project of relationship-building. But that relationship-building requires jumping scales to transform relationships globally and bodily simultaneously. Otherwise, we essentially replicate the logic of criminal justice systems by creating communities in which only those relationships within a community matter. An abolition feminist analysis necessarily requires us to develop movements that jump scale by addressing violence at the individual, community and global levels. Jumping scale emphasizes locating violence in multi-relational fashion—individual violence within the community that failed to prevent it, the carceral/ settler state that destroys relationality and employs individualism, and the global capitalist, white supremacist and genocidal logics that structure these relationships. Employing an Indigenous abolition feminist framework of jumping scale enables us to attend to all of these levels of violence so that we can build transformative justice deep and wide simultaneously so that we become different people not fundamentally constituted through trauma as we build a world that creates less trauma.

<sup>22</sup> For a report from this gathering, see Available from: https://andrea366.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/ transformative-justice-strategies-for-addressing-policevigilantehatewhite-supremacist-violence/.

*Feminism – Corporeality, Materialism, and Beyond*

### **Author details**

Andrea Smith University of California, Riverside, Untied States of America

\*Address all correspondence to: asmith@ucr.edu

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Abolition Feminism and Jumping Scale: Transformative Justice as a Way of Life DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110553*

#### **References**

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[2] Du Bois WEB. Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace and Howe; 1935

[3] Barnard Center for Research on Women. What is Transformative Justice New York: Barnard College; 2020. Available from: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=U-\_BOFz5TXo

[4] Gready P, Robins S, editors. From Transitional to Transformative Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2019

[5] Morris R. Stories of Transformative Justice. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press; 2000

[6] Piepzna-Samarasinha LL, Dixon E, editors. Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement. Chico, California: AK Press; 2020b. Available from: https://books. google.com/books?id=t2iRDwAAQBAJ

[7] Piepzna-Samarasinha LL. Every mistake I've ever made: An interview with Shira Hassan. In: Piepzna-Samarasinha LL, Dixon E, editors. Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement. Chico, California: AK Press; 2020. Available from: https://books. google.com/books?id=t2iRDwAAQBAJ

[8] Dixon E. Building community safety. In: Piepzna-Samarasinha LL, Dixon E, editors. Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice

Movement. Chico, California: AK Press; 2020. Available from: https://books. google.com/books?id=t2iRDwAAQBAJ

[9] Brown AM. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Chico, California: AK Press; 2017

[10] Marcuse H. Eros and Civilization. New York/London: Routledge; 2012

[11] Brown AM. Pleasure Activism. Chico, California: AK Press; 2019

[12] Harjo L. Spiral to the Stars. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press; 2019

[13] Piepzna-Samarasinha LL, Dixon E. Be humble: An interview with Mariame Kaba. In: Piepzna-Samarasinha LL, Dixon E, editors. Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement. Chico, California: AK Press; 2020a. Available from: https://books.google. com/books?id=t2iRDwAAQBAJ

[14] Gilmore RW. Abolition geography and the problem of innocence. Tabula Rasa. 2018;**28**:57-77

[15] Mingus M. Keynote Address Building Accountable Communities. New York, NY: Barnard College; 27 April 2019

[16] Kim ME. The carceral creep: Genderbased violence, race, and the expansion of the Punitive State, 1973-1983. Social Problems. 2020b;**67**(2):251-269

[17] Kim ME. From carceral feminism to transformative justice: Women-of-color feminism and alternatives to incarceration. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work. 2018;**27**(3):219-233. DOI: 10.1080/15313204.2018.1474827 [18] Kim ME. Anti-carceral feminism: The contradictions of progress and the possibilities of counter-hegemonic struggle. Affilia. 2020a;**35**(3):0886109919878276

[19] Thuma EL. All Our Trials Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press; 2019. Available from: www. jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctvfp633k

[20] Incite (Ed.). The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color. Cambridge, MA: South End Press; 2006

[21] Communities Against Rape and Abuse. Taking risks: Implementing grassroots community accountability strategies. In: Incite! (ed.). In: The Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. pp. 250-266

[22] Generation Five. Toward transformative justice. Generation Five. 2007. Retrieved May 21. Available from: http://www.generationfive.org/ wp-content/uploads/2013/07/G5\_Toward\_ Transformative\_ Justice-Document.pdf

[23] Kaba M, Hassan S. Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators. Chico, California: AK Press; 2019. Available from: https://books.google. com/books?id=\_Fg1xQEACAAJ

[24] Deer S. The Beginning and End of Rape Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press; 2015. Available from: www.jstor.org/ stable/10.5749/j.ctt17w8gfr

[25] Smith A. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press; 2005

[26] Burk C. Think. Rethink. Accountable communities. In: Chen C-I, Dulani J,

Piepzna-Samarasinha LL, editors. The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence within Activist Communities. Chico, California: AK Press; 2016. pp. 265-280

[27] Hereth J, Kaba M, Meiners ER, Wallace L. Restorative justice is not enough: School-based interventions in the carceral state. Disrupting the schoolto-prison pipeline. 2012. pp. 240-264

[28] Center L. C. S. Black, Brown, and Over-Policed in L.A. Schools. 2013

[29] Watanabe T, Blume H. Why Some LAUSD Teachers are Balking at a New Approach to Discipline Problems. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times; 2015. Available from: https://www.latimes. com/local/education/la-me-schooldiscipline-20151108-story.html

[30] Survived and Punished. (n.d.). #Survived and punished: Survivor defense as Abolitionist Praxis. Available from: https://survivedandpunished.org/ wp-content/uploads/2018/06/survivedand-punished-toolkit.pdf

[31] Riverside CAT-911. 2021. Orientation

[32] Keeling K. Queer Times, Black Futures. New York, NY: New York University Press; 2019

[33] Muñoz JE. Cruising Utopia The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York, NY: NYU Press; 2009. Available from: www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg4nr

[34] Hayes K, Kaba M. The Sentencing of Nassar Was Not 'Transformative Justice.' Here's Why. The Appeal. 2018. Available from: https://theappeal.org/ the-sentencing-of-larry-nassar-wasnot-transformative-justice-here-s-whya2ea323a6645/

#### **Chapter 10**

## Sustainable Development and Economic Empowerment of Women

*Veyzon Campos Muniz*

#### **Abstract**

The main objective of this chapter is to demonstrate the possible interrelationships between sustainable development, as a human right, and women's economic empowerment based on the hypothesis that the aforementioned right suffers a deficit of effectiveness when faced with contexts in which the equality in labor relations is not observed. In the first part, the need for a non-rhetorical affirmation of the right to development is exposed. It follows exploring general historical issues surrounding the sexual division of labor and asserting the global need to enable women to exercise their capacities and freedoms, freeing themselves from gender stereotypes. The analysis of good practices for the induction of the right to development is carried out, with gender equity as one of its main components. Therefore, it is argued that the acceptance of women in the formal labor market and the wage parity between men and women are relevant themes to the extent that their practical implementation is hampered by a male chauvinist culture, which consequently makes the aforementioned issue a challenge.

**Keywords:** sustainable development, human rights, Women's rights, economic empowerment, gender equality

#### **1. Introduction**

Empowering women, making them aware of their status as subjects of rights and thus promoting gender equity in all social and economic activities of a State, is a guarantee for the effective strengthening of economies, the promotion of business, the improvement of quality of life, and, consequently, the effectiveness of the human right to sustainable development, according to the United Nations Agenda 2015–2030. Thus, studying the interrelationships between the right to development and women's economic empowerment is fundamental to the full effectiveness of human rights.

Indeed, reflections on the sexual division of labor, its global characteristics, repercussions, and perspectives, are opportune and necessary in the search for awareness of and realization of gender equality. Cardoso [1], when looking at the European scenario, for example, points out that in sectors where work is predominantly female, wages are lower compared to those paid to men, although work has the same or higher quality. Out of necessity, female workers are subjected to flexible, low-paying jobs—a problem observed in several state experiences.

Not infrequently, men and women are professionally evaluated in different ways due to the so-called "gender stereotype." As Costa & Santos [2] points out well: "the concept of stereotype is closely linked to the study of the perception of individuals, based on the knowledge of their social category of belonging." Gender stereotypes are, regrettably and globally, culturally accepted.

Therefore, it is intended to understand the phenomenon of the structural sexual division of labor and its impact on the effectiveness of the human right to sustainable development, highlighting the capacities of women and presenting strategies for inducing economic development with female participation in the labor market.

#### **2. Right to development and gender equality**

A part of the international debate for more than thirty years, the right to development was declared by the United Nations in 1986 as a human right. However, in spite of its enunciation, it can be seen that it sometimes does not appear in the practical domain of state planning; sometimes, it is not implemented in the social reality. In fact, States tend to show primarily rhetorical support for the right to development but neglect its basic contents in political practice [3].

One can think of the right to development as a possibility to achieve the improvement of social relations established in a given environment. This right-synthesis strives for political will and for the collective commitment to its effectiveness. After all, "whoever holds political or economic power in their hands has a commitment to humanity that they must not ignore" [4]. The responsibility for its implementation presupposes the sharing of burdens by all social actors: non-governmental organizations, international organizations, the private sector, and, of course, local and national governments. If there is no participation committed to the common well-being, it is difficult to reverse the structural conditions that impose obstacles to development.

The right to development presupposes a passive subjection of States, the international community, and also the private sector (including as an agent promoting jobs) to favor better human development, through solidarity and economic cooperation [4]. Fortunately, note that

*development must be conceived as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people can enjoy [...] it is emphasized that the right to development is a universal and inalienable right, an integral part of fundamental human rights [... which] recognizes the interdependent relationship between democracy, development and human rights [5].*

The interdependent condition of democracy, development itself, and human rights is what allows for the affirmation of gender equality as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the United Nations Summit for Sustainable Development, in September 2015, the United Nations adopted the SDGs as a form of strategic planning to guide state policies and international cooperation activities in

the 2015–2030 Agenda, in order to remove the merely programmatic character of the right to development.1

In the same vein, the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action [6], in its item 18, of part I, establishes that

*the human rights of women and girls are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The full participation of women, under conditions of equality, in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life, at the national, regional and international levels, as well as the eradication of all forms of discrimination based on sex, constitute priority objectives of the international community.*

Thus, gender equality is perceived as an indispensable component for a State to assert the right to development. In the United Nations diction, the aforementioned guarantee includes, among other aspects, equal rights at work and in employment and the safeguarding of social protection and security.2

It is also observed that gender equality is intrinsically linked to the human condition [8], arises with it, and, therefore, is an aspect that is found in every human being since conception. The imputation of equality occurs at every moment that the human being is perceived as such. However, when referring to the situation of women in the world, the notorious inequalities existing between men and women are perceived, especially in the socioeconomic domains.

According to The World's Women3 , gender disparities are rooted in structural inequities in access to economic resources around the world. In many countries, women continue to be economically and exclusively dependent on their spouses. Fewer women than men earn their own income as a result of the unequal division of formal and informal work. About one in three married women in developing countries has no control over family spending on major purchases, and one in ten married women is not consulted about where their earnings are going. Also, under the terms of the project, women of working age, in developed and developing countries, are more likely to be poorer than men when they have dependent children and do not have a partner to contribute to the family income or when their income are non-existent or too low to support the entire family's expenses. When it comes to elderly women in developed countries, they are more likely than men to be poor, particularly when they live

<sup>2</sup> *Discrimination against women* ([7], p. 19–39).

<sup>3</sup> Project that presents recent statistics and analyzes on the situation of gender disparities around the globe, based on the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), which aims to promote and protect the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all women throughout their life cycle.

<sup>1</sup> SDG no. 5 specifies: 5.1. End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere; [...] 5.4. Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work, through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies, as well as the promotion of shared responsibility within the home and family, according to national contexts; 5.5. Ensuring the full and effective participation of women and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life; [...] 5.a. Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws; 5.b. Increase the use of basic technologies, in particular information and communication technologies, to promote women's empowerment; 5.c. Adopt and strengthen sound policies and applicable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.

in single-person cells. The difference in poverty rates between women and men shows a downward trend in some countries, although it continues to rise in many others.

Unequivocally, it points to the need for States to implement public policies of social protection and regulation of labor relations, which are sensitive to gender inequalities. However, in times of crisis, the tension between the state's role in inducing development, enabling the reduction of inequalities and discrimination, and the need for financial contingency and economic growth based on private results generates a conflictive situation.

#### **3. Sexual division of work and gender inequalities as historical constructions**

According to Facchi [9], between the 14th and 18th centuries, several European women were burned and tortured under the accusation of being witches when they tried to have autonomy over their bodies. The European bourgeois man submitted, through violence, the woman to the role of a housewife while he affirmed himself as the provider of the family. With this, the sexual and structural division of contemporary labor was determined.

According to the bibliographic review of Cisne [10], the sexing of the female body designates an extension of the concepts of slavery and servitude, through which women are reduced to sex, being appropriated with regard not only to their workforce but also to their body and their life. This phenomenon of historical materiality denotes the concrete material appropriation of women's bodily individuality, in a process that takes them out of their subject condition and turns them into "things." Therefore, such appropriation differs from the simple capitalist exploitation of the "free" workforce, as it does not designate a formal contractual or wage relationship measured by hours or products. It is an appropriation that takes place both individually, especially through marriage and the family, and collectively, through sexist institutions such as churches, the State, and companies. Consequently, its expressions are: the appropriation of time, the appropriation of body products, the sexual obligation, and the physical burden of members in need of care, especially males.

Not even with the affirmation of fundamental rights, as observed with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a French political document that was fundamental to the construction of later democratic constitutional models, did it get rid of the patriarchal roots present until today. Olympe de Gouges' proposition of a Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens (1791) was vehemently opposed and rejected, reaffirming the "naturalization" of the role of women as "objects", alien to political decision-making and, essentially, restricted to the domestic space. In the aforementioned document, the woman, considered "unnatural" and "too dangerous," defended, in her article 13, that for the maintenance of the State, "the contributions of women and men must be equal", since women participate "in all the thankless work, of all the heavy tasks"; and "therefore, have the same participation in the distribution of posts, jobs, positions, dignities and industry" [11].

#### **4. Capabilities and freedoms of women**

In due course, it is asserted that the exposed sexual division of labor leads to sexual discrimination in labor relations at a local and global level (as denounced by the

United Nations Agenda). Such discrimination occurs from the social (re)affirmation of gender stereotypes. For example: women are seen taking care of children and men working outside their homes, and this is seen as acceptable and correct.4

Such stereotypes over time and in different spaces did not allow the woman to show her true capabilities. Capabilities, from the perspective of Nussbaum [12], are constituted as "what people are truly capable of being and doing in an informed way, through an intuitive idea of a worthwhile life be lived". The role of women's capacities in inducing the development of individuals' public liberties is affirmed, enabling the creation of a political-institutional-normative environment that overcomes national, regional, religious, racial, and economic distinctions through the affirmation of female-centered human rights "in reflecting on the basic political principles that can provide the basis for a set of constitutional guarantees in all nations" [12]. In these terms, the effectiveness of women's capabilities and freedoms is an important factor in consolidating democratic environments.

It is pointed out that beliefs in the immutability of the sexual division of labor will only disappear if social "roles" are re-signified and work activities are shared equitably. Thus, in order to make sustainable development effective in practice, it is necessary to recognize and affirm women's freedoms for the full exercise of decent work.5

In this way, the political safeguard of these capacities highlights the potential they have in expanding their freedoms so that, when they reach a desirable standard of living, based on equal working conditions and opportunities, they deconstruct unfair structural models, promoting socioeconomically more favorable environments and, consequently, inducing the effectiveness of the right to development.

Assuring capabilities to people so that they can exercise their main rights is to grant them freedom to have the kind of life they want [14]. Ideally, from the moment women freely choose a profession, they enter the labor market in the area of their aptitude and are able to receive the consideration corresponding to their functions. And so, women are allowed to live the life they have chosen and not the life that patriarchal society has determined based on gender stereotypes.

The education given to children is a decisive factor, so that, regardless of gender, they can, in the future, choose the profession they want.6 It is necessary to teach boys that they are also responsible for household chores and girls that they can study exact subjects if they want, noting that the educational process is not restricted to one gender.

Nussbaum [16], when analyzing capabilities based on entitlement theory, teaches that it is not just a matter of a subject "having a right" but an individual "having a right

<sup>4</sup> "Men are expected to possess high levels of quality, including being independent, dominating, assertive and competent. On the other hand, high levels of commonality attributes are expected from women, which include being friendly, altruistic, concerned with others and expressive in emotional terms" (Costa; Santos, [2], p. 32).

<sup>5</sup> Particularly by the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), it is clear that the list of human rights at work includes, in addition to the principles and guarantees relating to individual working conditions, the right to safe and healthy working conditions, the right to social security, the right to fair remuneration and the right to a reasonable limit on the number of hours worked ([13], p. 7).

<sup>6</sup> "There are women with an excellent predisposition to program. [...] The problem is that they have to be very persistent because of the cultural pressure that is gradually exerted. In high school there are few left who want to be scientists or programmers. At university, even less. Only the most persistent [and with opportunities] make it to the end." [15].

to" some given object. It is not enough to have the right; it is necessary that this right be exercised, with due urgency. Women need to be aware of their rights, and this is made possible through education. If women live in situations that lower their self-esteem and place them in a situation of submission, they will not exercise their abilities. They will not know they are free if they do not realize their rights are being violated [17].

Therefore, raising women's awareness of their capabilities and freedoms and understanding the value they have represent an effective strategy for overcoming inequities in the labor market. Technology, in this sense, comes to cooperate with this urgent social transformation in the reality of developed countries, since non-human instruments end up "humanizing" managerial choices, in non-discriminatory interference, regardless of personal opinions or social pressures. Thus open up the possibility of division of labor based on competence and not on gender affinity as a perspective of change.

#### **5. Good practices in sustainable development induction**

The United Nations, through its Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and its agency Global Compact, with a view to minimize the harmful repercussions for sustainable development arising from the affirmation of patriarchal labor structures around the world, has proposed Principles of Empowerment of Women as a way of guiding the business productive sector in the sense of distributing power to women in the work environment.


The international organization's commitment is in line with some state experiences in which the protection of anti-discrimination is a fundamental concern as a constitutional commitment and instrument of affirmation of the human right to sustainable development. The United Kingdom, for example, in April 2017, began to require all companies with a number of 250 employees or more to publish, by April 2018, the salary difference in the payment of employees. Regulation no. 172/2017, which proposes transparency on business data related to inequalities in payments between men and

*Sustainable Development and Economic Empowerment of Women DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109675*

women, in compliance with the Equality Act of 2010, represents an important advance for the economic empowerment of women, constituting an unequivocal normative mechanism of development induction.7 *The British State Secretary for International Relations, even when commenting on the new regulation, stated that "helping women reach their full potential is not only the right thing to do, but also makes economic sense"* [18].

It is important that political authorities are sensitive to the practical implementation of gender equality, overcoming the concept of hegemonic masculinity.8 The guarantee of fundamental rights (especially education) allows women to open up their professional space, in line with democratic premises. Understanding the effective promotion of equality in the labor field as the induction of equals services and rights, it's must impose a state intervention in the economy focused on efforts to empower women as agents of development.

Freitas [20] is emphatic: "sustainability implies the practice of equity." In this sense, it should be said that, in the present and in future generations, there is the challenge of eradicating gender discrimination, in order to achieve the constitutional objective of building a plural, equitable, and sustainably developed State.9 However, there is a long way to go in the search for equality between men and women.

Gender equity, which has been greatly impeded by misogynistic social conceptions, has hindered economic development in different local realities. It is argued, therefore, that based on the idea of cooperation for sustainability, public enforcement optimizes this reality.

Donaggio & Midori [21], along these lines, assess that the "gain resulting from greater gender equity would be even greater in developing countries" such as Brazil. It is estimated that greater gender equity could result in an estimated 10% increase in Latin America's Gross Domestic Product. Indeed, such a positive impact would depend on "eliminating not only the current wage gap between men and women for the same job with the same training, but also other obstacles to development potential," which "includes various forms of unpaid work," economic underrepresentation (such as discrimination in the granting of credit), political underrepresentation, and the various forms of violence" to which women are subject.

#### **6. Conclusions**

The proposed and developed reflection leads to the following conclusive considerations:

<sup>7</sup> *The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017*.

<sup>8</sup> The discursive perspectives emphasize the symbolic dimension of the concept of "masculinity", formulated within a multidimensional understanding of gender. Any specification of hegemonic masculinity usually involves the formulation of cultural ideals; however, it should be considered only as a cultural norm. Gender relations are also constituted through political practices, including wage labor, housework, and child care, as well as through thoughtless routine actions [19].

<sup>9</sup> The multidimensional model of sustainability is adopted, highlighting its social, ethical, economic and legal-political dimensions. Namely, the social dimension shelters the fundamental rights that depend on public and non-excludable policies. The ethical dimension, in turn, dispenses with empathic solidarity, concerned with interpersonal support and assistance. The economic dimension informs those productive relations must be guided by anti-discriminatory principles. And the legal-political dimension points to the need to guarantee the well-being of present and future generations. Such dimensions are intertwined and interdependent. Therefore, for there to be sustainability necessary [20].


### **Author details**

Veyzon Campos Muniz1,2

1 University of Coimbra (UC), Portugal

2 Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Brazil

\*Address all correspondence to: veyzon.muniz@gmail.com

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

### **References**

[1] Cardoso AR. Female Work in Portugal: Valuing Women in the Economy or Valuing the Economy with Women? CITE; 1997. p. 33

[2] Costa S, Santos SM. Stereotype of Women in Portugal and its Relationship with Sexual Discrimination at Work. CITE; 1997. p. 12

[3] Marks S. The human right to development: Between rhetoric and reality. Harvard Human Rights Journal. 2004;**v**:17

[4] Nieto M. El derecho al desarrollo como derecho humano. CODHEM; 2001. p. 60

[5] Piovesan F. Right to Development. II International Colloquium on Human Rights. PUC/SP; 2002. p. 6

[6] UN. Vienna Declaration and Program of Action. 1993. http:// www.oas.org/dil/port/1993%20 Declara%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20 e%20Programa%20de%20 Ac%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20adoptado%20 pela%20Confer%C3%Ance%20 World%20from%20Vienna%20 about%20%20HumanRights%20in%20 June%20from%201993.pdf

[7] UN. Discrimination against women. Information Sheet on Human Rights. 2004;**22**:19-39

[8] Arendt H. The Human Condition. Forense; 2003. p. 17

[9] Facchi A. Brief History of Human Rights. Loyola; 2011. p. 87

[10] Cisne M. Feminism and marxism: Theoretical-political notes to address social inequalities. Serviço Social

& Sociedade 2018;**132**:211-230. DOI: 10.1590/0101-6628.138

[11] Gouges O. Declaration of the rights of women and citizens [1791]. International Interdisciplinary Journal Interthesis. 2007;**4**(1):2

[12] Nussbaum M. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge Press; 2000. p. 35

[13] ILO. Report V – Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work: From Commitment to Action. BIT; 2012. p. 7

[14] Nussbaum M, Sen A. The Quality of Life. Clarendon Press; 1993. p. 3

[15] Sucasas A. Women's Equality at Work Can Generate 27.2 Trillion Reais in Profits. 2017. https://brasil. elpais.com/brasil/2017/01/27/ cultura/1485512033\_886853.html

[16] Nussbaum M. Capabilities as fundamental entitlements: Sen and social justice. 2017. http://www. lse.ac.uk/humanRights/aboutUs/ articlesAndTranscripts/Constitutions\_ and\_Capabilities.pdf

[17] Nussbaum M. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge Press; 2001. p. 5

[18] Duarte F. New Law Forces Companies to Expose the Difference between men's and women's Wages in the UK. 2017. http://www.bbc.com/ portuguese/geral-39515235

[19] Connell RW, Messerschmidt JW. Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender and Society. 2005;**19**:829-859

[20] Freitas J. Sustainability: Right to the Future. Fórum; 2012. p. 53

[21] Donaggio A, Midori F. The Value of a Woman in the Labor Market. 2017. http://epoca.globo.com/economia/ noticia/2017/07/o-valor-de-uma-mulherno-mercado-de-trabalho.html?utm

Section 4

## The Body That Performs

#### **Chapter 11**

## Dance and Resistance: An Embodiment of the Body as a Medium to Fight Violence against Women

*Vani Tendenan*

#### **Abstract**

This paper offers the perspective of dance as a manifestation of body resistance so as to produce a theological and practical basis for voicing and fighting violence against women in Indonesia. The author chooses dance as a resistance medium with a feminist dimension because dance has a relational character that forms a connection to the existence of the body and is open to shape each individual's experience, including the reality of suffering. Some of the theories that will be used are dance theory from Kimerer L. LaMothe and ritual theory from Roy A. Rappaport. The two perspectives will have a constructive dialog to show dance as an embodiment of defense against violence against women. This paper is divided into several sub-topics. The first is introduction, the second is the research methods, the third is the meaning of resistance, the fourth is the theoretical study of dance as a ritual practice, the fifth is the character of openness and relational dance, the sixth is dance as a feminist ritual medium for resistance, and seventh is the conclusions.

**Keywords:** dance, resistance, embodiment, feminist theology, violence against women

### **1. Introduction**

Violence against women in Indonesia is a form of violence that continues to increase. Based on the 2022 Annual Records of Violence against Women, 338,496 cases of gender-based violence (KBG) against women were collected with details, complaints to Komnas Perempuan 3838 cases, service agencies 7029 cases, a significant 50% increase in KBG against women, namely 338,496 cases in 2021 (from 226,062 cases in 2020) [1]. The increase in the number of violence against women shows that in Indonesia, women lack protection and security space to defend themselves from various forms of violence. If women do not get a safe space, it will open up space for violence.

Violence against women in Indonesia is not only a social or cultural issue, but also a significant theological problem for common life. Serene Jones from the point of view of feminist theology sees that the issue of violence against women is also

intertwined with other forms of oppression, such as racism, poverty, exploitation, heterosexism, ageism, and discrimination [2]. Violence against women then becomes a problem of theological research because violence causes oppression as well as restraints on the existence of the human body. The issue of violence against women then raises the question that is there a source of theology that has the resilience to deal with violence? Or how can a theological perspective study be used to respond to violence against women?

This paper offers the perspective of dance as an embodiment of body resistance as a theological and practical basis for voicing and fighting violence against women in Indonesia. Dance as a ritual practice can communicate an inner experience that is expressed through body movements and expressions [3]. LaMothe shows that dance has the power to express human experience not with words, but through movements that signal an experience. The author chooses dance as a resistance medium with a feminist dimension because dance has a relational character that forms an appreciation for the existence of the body; is open to shaping each individual's experience; has the potential to open a language space that frees women to express themselves and even becomes a medium for self-defense in voicing the reality of suffering.

Some of the theories that will be used are dance theory from Kimerer L. LaMothe and ritual theory from Roy A. Rappaport. The two perspectives will have a constructive dialog to show dance as an embodiment of defense against violence against women. This paper is divided into several sub-topics. The first is introduction, the second is the research methods, the third is the meaning of resistance, the fourth is the theoretical study of dance as a ritual practice, the fifth is the character of openness and relational dance, the sixth is dance as a feminist ritual medium for resistance, and seventh is the conclusions.

#### **2. Research methods**

The research method used in this paper is a qualitative method with a feminist approach and literature studies. Qualitative methods investigate, find, and describe in a narrative a meaning that originates from the actions of everyday life [4]. Research with qualitative methods uses human experience or action as a significant research location to produce meaning. Data collection and processing of qualitative data as research methods do not focus on numerical data, but on empirical data that require interpretation of an action, human behavior. The author chooses to use a qualitative method because this approach to human experience is relevant to the feminist approach, which is also used as the focus of the research method in this paper.

The feminist method also uses an approach to human experience, specifically the subject of women as a source of knowledge. Jennie Barnsley quotes Linda Hogan seeing two relations that emerge in the investigation of the feminist method, namely "women experiences of oppression under patriarchy and 'engaged action for change" [5]. The feminist method originates from the problem of oppression of women's experiences, which gives rise to an action to transform the meaning of experience. In this paper, a feminist method approach is used to understand violence against women as part of women's experiences that require theological construction through a cultural dimension, namely dance. Dance can be a medium of transformation to speak out against the reality of violence against women.

*Dance and Resistance: An Embodiment of the Body as a Medium to Fight Violence against Women DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109681*

#### **3. The meaning of resistance**

Violence against women occurs in various forms and social contexts of human life. B. Rudi Harnoko in his article entitled Behind Acts of Violence Against Women agrees that violence does not only include physical damage, but also includes threats, pressure, suppression of the actualization of human's mental abilities and thinking power [6]. Harnoko showed that violence against the physical body is the same as violence against the individual's soul, which destroys the individual's ability to develop. Violence also refers to restraint on the actualization of the human body, which is the right of every individual in reality as a human being. If the existence of the body is not given the opportunity to actualize itself, then violence becomes a space for oppression of the body.

Accordingly, Jones, from a feminist theological perspective, sees violence as a widespread cultural and social practice. Jones saw "violence as systemic and structural, tolerated or accepted as "natural"-part of the human condition" [7]. Violence against women also becomes structured violence because it is supported by the social relations of human life. While, the systemic aspect shows that violence has been formed through the system of power in society. As a result, violence is normalized as part of human life practices.

Based on the context of violence, which is prone to occur in human relations, the author sees the meaning of resistance as a source of theory and practice in dealing with forms of violence. In terminology, Resistance means "a situation in which people or organizations fight against something or refuse to accept or be changed by something" [8]. Resistance describes an individual's ability to deal with problems, so the meaning of resistance is also closely related to efforts to resist. Next, Catherine Mills analyzes the meaning Resistance from Judith Butler. Mills saw "there is the linguistic vulnerability of the subject, so far as the subject is produced through language and hence is susceptible to its power to injure and wound" [9]. The linguistic dimension with resistance is in a vulnerability relationship. The emphasis on the subject as the agent of social transformation becomes vulnerable to injury when the subject is only formed in the medium of language. The intended language dimension also leads to verbal categories, which allow the production of a word to become uncontrollable, even language allows control over the subject so that the subject becomes helpless. Then Mills quotes Butler, who uses the concept of power from Michel Foucault to emphasize the meaning of Resistance through the subject.

*"Power acts on the subject in at least two ways; first, by making the subject possible, as the constitutive conditions of possibility of the subject and, second, as what is 'taken up and reiterated in the subject's own' acting" [10].*

Resistance can occur when the subject is placed in a power frame. Power is meant not as a passive subject, but as an active subject. Butler's perspective in Mills's writing describes Resistance as being confronted with efforts to bring subjects into action to survive through the power of existence. The subject is given space to perform actions that display the subject's self-existence. Power can be interpreted positively, namely to restore the rights of each subject to its existence in social relations. Resistance means strength as well as power to defend oneself against the suppression of one's reality as a subject.

In line with Mills's writings, Monique Deveaux outlines Foucault's agonistic concept of power to define resistance to violence. Deveaux sees "an agonistic model of power-the notion that where there is power, there is resistance" [11]. Agonistic power describes the strength of resistance based on the subject's desire to defend himself, to

show strength. Implicitly, Deveaux shows that without power, or the will to survive, it becomes difficult to practice Resistance because Resistance appears in the form of self-defense. The value of Resistance to violence can be understood as a form of the subject's struggle against oppressive power. Resistance also describes the power of the subject in an effort to defend against other powers.

Basically, Mills and Deveaux's perspective refers to the meaning of resistance that arises through the recognition of the existence of the subject. Resistance becomes resistance efforts because subjects, more specifically women who are vulnerable to becoming victims of violence, are not given space as subjects who have power over themselves. Women are actually used as objects that do not have the power or strength to act. Then, the meaning of resistance becomes an opportunity to see the ability, strength of women as subjects who are able to maintain their existence without any restraints and oppression. The author then chooses dance as the medium of resistance because the power of dance lies in the body's freedom to perform an action and has characteristics relational and openness.

#### **4. Dance as a ritual practice**

One of the works of art that involves body movement is dance. Dance is categorized as a nonverbal art that involves the reality of human life. Kimerer L. LaMothe in his book Why We Dance? A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming defines dance in three elements, namely "create and become patterns of sensation and response, cultivate a sensory awareness, and align our health and well-being with the challenges of the moment" [12]. LaMothe shows that dance is not just a moving body, but dance is formed in patterns that are identical to self-images. Dance patterns display sensations and body responses that are created based on the wishes of the dancers. Dance represents the dancer's experience and life. On the other hand, LaMothe shows that dance is formed in an awareness of the senses to participate through body movements and patterns. Dancing means being involved freely, and there is no element of coercion because every dance movement or pattern displays the dancer's own will. The sensory awareness element of dance also has an influence on the concept of sensation and self-response to human experience with its surroundings. In this case, dance is the awareness of the body's actions to move in response to efforts to align itself with circumstances. The circumstances or moments that LaMothe refers to also refer to the reality of suffering, pleasure, and the reality of self-experience in the world. Dance is a complex body movement because it implies self-existence with various experiences of human life.

Elsewhere in the book, LaMothe defines dance as a living entity that integrates reason with experience. LaMothe is in line with Gerardus van der Leeuw's perspective of seeing dance as "represents and brings into being as one—the complex webs of personal and communal experiences, symbolic and social relations that make the moment of performing" [13]. In dancing, individuals are formed in unity both personally and communally, which produce a performance. Basically, dance is an experience that is shown or manifested through symbolic actions, which can be done in groups or individually. The experience embodied in dance also involves the involvement of reason as a process of forming actions, so that dancing becomes a reasoning activity with bodily experience. Then, LaMothe emphasized that the unity of life meant was "dance enacts: bodily life and cultural life" [14]. LaMothe points out that dance is contextual because it consists of the experience of the human body with

#### *Dance and Resistance: An Embodiment of the Body as a Medium to Fight Violence against Women DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109681*

cultural life that influences dance practice. Bodily life refers to the media or means of dance that shape human life, namely the body. In this case, dance displays the experience of the body, which is the basis of human life. Meanwhile, cultural life leads to social relations and environmental influences that shape individuals in the process of acting. Then, dance becomes an act of performance that unites the experience of the body and the experience of human culture.

If dance is understood as body movements that represent human existence through performances or performances, then dance becomes part of ritual practice. Roy A. Rappaport wrote the ritual as "the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not entirely encoded by the performers" [15]. Rappaport sees ritual at the display or performance level as a series of actions that are not only understood by the performers of the ritual, but can also be communicated by others. Ritual itself becomes open to bring up new meanings because meaning is not determined by default by actors. In Rappaport's understanding, ritual means the arrangement of an action that is formed together to achieve an agreed meaning. Later, Rappaport listed several characteristics of the rituals. First, "encoding by other than performers, formality, invariance, and performance" [16]. Rappaport's ritual markers show that the actions in the ritual are structured and unchanging. Structured means directed and fixed. In addition, Rappaport describes the characteristics of ritual with performance because performance forms the meaning of a ritual. Without performances or practices, rituals are difficult to identify. The characteristics described by Rappaport are markers of various human activities that can be categorized as ritual practices.

Ritual is not only marked by several characteristic, Rappaport also shows ritual as a special form of communication. Rituals are specific actions [17]. Rappaport emphasized that ritual practices originate from actions, human experiences that are given a special space, meaning that rituals are distinguished from ordinary actions. If the ritual is understood as a special action, then the ritual explicitly also contains a special message or meaning. Then the ritual becomes a communication process marked by two things. "First, there are those in which actions achieve, secondly, there are those in which transmitters achieve effects by informing" [18]. Ritual is understood as communication because of actions to achieve something, actions that influence the formation of messages or meanings. As communication, ritual becomes a medium that transmits messages to recipients, and actions are formed to inform meaning.

Based on the ritual perspective from Rappaport, dance becomes a ritual practice because it contains elements of specific actions. First, dance as a ritual, embodied in the performance of bodily experience, in the sense that its reality is seen through the form of movement. Without the dimension of body embodiment, dance cannot be performed because the basis of the medium used is the human body. Second, dance is formed in an awareness to achieve certain patterns. As a ritual practice, dance involves reasoning awareness in producing movements, and there is a meaning or purpose that is achieved through dance. Furthermore, quoting from Judith Lynne Hanna's thoughts, dance as a ritual is "transformative performance" and "manifestation of many systems of belief" [19]. Hanna describes dance as a ritual practice that can transform both cultural processes and human experience. Dance does not mean standing body movements without a belief system, but dance rituals include the embodiment of a belief formed by humans. In this case, dance can be categorized as a ritual practice because it consists of a series of specific actions through body movements. Actions formed through a belief system to generate meaning.

#### **5. Character openness and relational of dance**

Talking about dance, one of the fundamental dimensions in dance is the experience of the body. As a nonverbal art, the body becomes the main focus in dance rituals to communicate messages or meanings. Kristin Kissel in her thesis entitled Dancing Theology – A Construction of a Pneumatology of The Body describes that the human body intertwined with various aspects of life, be it material, reasoning, beliefs, characteristics that allow for an action [20]. Kissell describes the body comprehensively because it is formed based on the units of human life. Through the body, humans can feel, know, and reason every reality of life. The body not only acts, but is also connected with reason so that the body becomes the medium for the unity of reason and action. Without a body, humans cannot channel reason with their actions.

Kissell's argument against the body implicitly shows that the body connects all tissues of human life. If the body is the main source in dancing, then dancing means that it is relational because it does not separate human existence, namely reason and action. Then dance can be understood to be relational in character because the body is formed in response to acting and reasoning, and the dimensions of the body relate to the complexity of human life. Kissell departs from the theology of pneumatology to elaborate on the relational aspects of the body.

*"Dance as an art medium and example of body, soul relationality can provide a new structure and a new way of imagining theology and a pneumatology of the body; for in dance and the choreographic process, there is no separation between body and soul, body and Spirit because all are part of the dancing whole" [21].*

Kissel seeks to bridge the distortions of the body and the soul in the world of Christian theology. For Kissell, the body is not only made up of physical matter. However, the reality of the body is integrated with the soul or spirit, which allows humans to connect with the Divine. Kissell's perspective supports the meaning of dance as a relational body involvement. Dance appears through the soul, the spirit that unites in the body. Dance is used as a theological medium because the meaning of the body is actively involved in unity with the soul. Through Kissell's thought, the relational nature of dance also shows an interdependent unity. A dancing body means showing a soul that is also dancing, so that dance becomes a medium for feminist rituals that shape the meaning of the body in relationality. A relationship that is established between oneself is also a relationship with God through the spirit, soul in the body.

Furthermore, from the perspective of feminist theology, Lisa Isherwood and Elizabeth Stuart use the body as a theological medium. "The body in its entirety is the site of experience" [22]. Isherwood and Stuart raise aspects of human experience as essential in interpreting the body. This is also done as an effort to equalize the primacy of reason or ratio. The body is the source and site for the formation of human experience, which means that the body moves in an inclusive manner. Inclusiveness leads to acceptance of the reality of diverse human experiences. Then, the body cannot be excluded only by rational use, but experience also becomes a major part of the body. If the body is the source of experience, then dance also means the arising of open experience. "The body is far more expansive and inclusive" [23]. The body includes reason with experience, but it is also broader because through the body, every reality of life is thoroughly processed.

Based on Isherwood and Stuart's argument, the body, which is the source of dance movement, can be understood as a site of openness for each individual. Dance

#### *Dance and Resistance: An Embodiment of the Body as a Medium to Fight Violence against Women DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109681*

displays the reality of the experience of the human body with various dynamics of meaning to be displayed. Dance is not limited to the verbal medium, but through dance, the body moves openly to be involved in movement patterns. Dance is a medium of resistance that displays human experience in openness with self-reality as well as experiences with the world around us. In addition, dance can be a medium of resistance for people who experience violence because the experience of injury, suffering can be expressed or communicated through the openness of body movements.

The meaning of the openness of dance is in line with the universal values of dance. LaMothe uses Gerard Van der Leeuw's perspective to see the correlation between the body and dance. LaMothe wrote "dance is the most universal of the arts because doing it requires nothing other than one's own body" [24]. In LaMothe's perspective, dance starts from the main source, namely the body. As the main source, dance does not use a medium or means outside the body, but through the body itself, each individual can start the dance. Then, dance is understood to be both open and universal because the body belongs to every individual, an essential possession in human life. Furthermore, the meaning of dance forms the meaning of the body in the space of equality because each individual can display his body's experience to communicate a meaning.

In more depth, LaMothe emphasized "every human being is a body moving, its movement is its life" [24]. The body as a universal medium for dance forms movement. LaMothe points out that the correlation between the body and dance is also present in the experience of movement. A moving body, a dancing body signifies human life. The correlation that is manifested through movement then produces dance not only in the meaning to be conveyed, but mainly in the body in selfexistence with the reality of experience. If the meaning of the body being a source of life, dance can also be interpreted as a source of openness to life experiences. An experience that is open to everyone and everyone can participate together. Then, the open and relational nature of dance as a ritual practice shows that dance is a source or medium of feminist resistance that displays bodily actions in an effort to defend oneself against various forms of violence against the body.

#### **6. Dance as a feminist ritual medium for resistance**

Dance is an experience of the body as well as a medium for feminist rituals that can shape efforts to resist violence against the body. As a ritual practice, dance implies an act devoted to the meaning of life. Specific actions refer to any movements, rhythms, or floor patterns that are displayed through the body, actions taken to show an unusual action so that movements, rhythms or floor patterns that are displayed through the body, actions taken to show an unusual action so that the dance becomes more meaningful. Aside from being a ritual medium that is nonverbal, dance is also a medium of communication that connects individuals to other individuals. Judith Lynne Hanna wrote three characteristics of dance as a form of communication.

*"Dance has grammar (a set of rules specifying the manner in which movement can be meaningfully combined), semantics (the meaning of movements), and vocabulary (steps and movement phrases which may comprise realistic or abstract symbols)" [19].*

Individuals can use dance as a medium to convey meaning or a message. The grammar of dance includes actions and body language that are formed regularly based on the will of the dancer. Dance also has a semantic character because everybody

movement has its own meaning. On the other hand, the character of dance as a medium of communication also implies vocabulary through the symbols displayed in movement. Hanna's perspective shows that the dimension of dance has relevant properties to become a tool in achieving something. In addition, Hanna described that the dimensions of the human body in dance are a central source of communication in conveying meaning.

From a feminist ritual standpoint, dance can be a medium of resistance that empowers and celebrates the lives of every individual. Feminist rituals display "use symbols and stories, images and words, gestures and dances, along with a variety of art forms, which emerge from women's experiences" [25]. Dance is a medium for feminist rituals that show the experience of the body as an aspect of women's experience, the movement of the body in unity with the soul.

Furthermore, the relational and open dimension of dance also forms bodily experiences that originate from women's experiences, namely the movement of body beauty as well as self-creativity. Feminism places the experience of women in respecting the experience of the body as a source of life. Feminist rituals through dance have the capacity to fight for equality, goodness for life together because the dimension of bodily experience takes precedence in practice.

Dance as a feminist ritual medium has a value of Resistance because each individual or community can maintain their own existence through movement, bodily actions in making sense of life. In addition, dance also has a feminist character, which is relational and open. Relational refers to the bond that unites the body and soul, connecting the reality of individual experience with the reality of the world around it, and more specifically dancing can connect the individual's relationship with God. Through dance, the body is no longer depicted as separate from the soul, but rather the body is connected, entwined with the soul as a resource for theology. Implicitly, the relational character of dance lies in the unity of the body, which expresses the soul, reason, and human action. The relational nature of the body also shows the body's openness to the expression of feelings with the mind in response to an experience. In dancing, the body is not limited only by the mind, but the dimension of feelings, human emotions are also manifested openly. In this case, the meaning of Resistance through dance becomes positive because it unites all aspects of human life in relation and openness. Dance involves human experience, including efforts to display self-defense power through movement and patterns of beauty of the body.

#### **7. Conclusions**

Dance as a ritual medium shows the practice of body experience, which is relational and open. In dancing, everyone can be open to express their body experiences. The body is no longer just a practice of thought but also a practice of action that connects humans with the reality of life experience. Reality also leads to the experience of oneself, with others, and also with God. Then, the feminist nature of dance becomes an effort to resist women's violence. Resistance is not an attempt to commit violence, but an effort to self-defense that respects, protects, and fights for self-existence through body movements in dance**.**

*Dance and Resistance: An Embodiment of the Body as a Medium to Fight Violence against Women DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109681*

### **Author details**

Vani Tendenan Toraja Church, North Toraja, Indonesia

\*Address all correspondence to: vanimantong@gmail.com

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

### **References**

[1] Perempuan K. Annual Records of Violence against Women 2022. Siaran Pers Komnas Perempuan Catatan Tahunan Kekerasan terhadap Perempuan 2022 [Internet], (Jakarta, 8 March 2022). 2022

[2] Jones SJ. Feminist Theory and Christian Theology: Cartographies of Grace (Guides to Theological Inquiry). Minneapolis: Fortress Press; 2000. p. 6

[3] LaMothe KL. Why dance? Towards a theory of religion as practice and performance. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. 2005;**17**(2):119

[4] Erickson F. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research. California: SAGE Publications; 2018. p. 87

[5] Hogan L. From women's experience to feminist theology. In: Barnsley J, editor. Grounded Theology: Adopting and Adapting Qualitative Research Methods for Feminist Theological Enquiry. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press; 1995. pp. 110-111

[6] Harnoko BR. Behind acts of violence against women "Dibalik tindak kekerasan terhadap perempuan". MUWAZAH: Jurnal Kajian Gender. 2010;**2010**:183

[7] Jones S. Cartographies of Grace (Guides to Theological Inquiry). Minneapolis: Fortress Press; 2000. p. 90

[8] Cambridge Dictionar. Meaning of resistance [Internet]. 2022. Available from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ dictionary/english/resistance

[9] Mills C. Efficacy and vulnerability: Judith Butler on reiteration and resistance. Australian Feminist Studies. 2010;**2010**:268

[10] Mills C. Efficacy and Vulnerability. p. 270

[11] Deveaux M. Feminism and empowerment: A critical reading of Foucault. Feminist Studies. 2014;**20**(2):231

[12] LaMothe KL. Why We Dance? A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming. New York: Columbia University Press; 2015. pp. 4-6

[13] LaMothe KL. Between Dancing and Writing: The Practice of Religious Studies. New York: Fordham University Press; 2004. p. 180

[14] La Mothe KL. Between Dancing and Writing. p. 180

[15] Rappaport RA. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1999. p. 24

[16] Rappaport RA. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. pp. 32-36

[17] Rappaport RA. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. p.50

[18] Rappaport RA. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. p. 51

[19] Hanna JL. Dance and ritual. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance. 2013;**2013**:40

[20] Kissell K. Dancing Theology—A Construction of a Pneumatology of the Body. Loyola Marymount University; 2020. p. 16

[21] Kissell K. Dancing Theology – A Construction of a Pneumatology. p. 6

[22] Isherwood L, Stuart E. Introducing Body Theology. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press; 1998. p. 39

*Dance and Resistance: An Embodiment of the Body as a Medium to Fight Violence against Women DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109681*

[23] Isherwood L., Stuart E. Introducing Body Theology. p. 39

[24] La Mothe KL. Between Dancing and Writing: The Practice of Religious Studies. New York: Fordham University Press; 2004. p. 18

[25] Neu DL. Women's empowerment through feminist rituals. Women and Therapy. 2010;**2010**:191

### **Chapter 12**

Perspective Chapter: Patriarchy and Masculinity Represented in the Diaries of Seafarers Analyzed from the Perspective of Marxist Feminism – Domination Structure of Seafarers and the Marginalization of Women

*Yoriko Ishida*

#### **Abstract**

Looking at the human "body," which has existed in contexts beyond the distinction between men and women, there are "dominators" and "the dominated" in which a situation of "oppressor" and "oppressed" is created. A world in which this is most evident is that of seafaring. There, domination is not limited to one structure; rather, a twofold domination structure exists. One is the domination and oppression among men, and the other is the existence of women who have been marginalized in the industry. Marxist feminism has clarified that the oppression of women in capitalist societies is based on the connection between capitalism and patriarchy, and in the industry, the vector of domination is not necessarily "male → female," but rather "male → male → female." The purpose of this paper is to focus on the shipping industry, which has been constructed at the base of capitalism and to point out the kinds of oppressive structures that have developed there, using the textual analysis of "diaries of seafarers" as a methodology, by focusing on the "bodies" of men and women represented in the history of seafarers in the East and West, with *patriarchy* onboard ships and the *masculinity* of seafarers as keywords.

**Keywords:** patriarchy, masculinity, Marxist feminism, seafarers, shipping industry, body, sexuality, materialism

#### **1. Introduction**

When we look at the human body, which has existed in one world beyond the distinction between men and women, we realize that there are always "dominators" and "dominated" people and that situations of "oppression" and "othering" are created. The world in which this is most evident is that of "seafarers." There, the vector of domination is not limited to one; rather, a dual structure of domination exists. One is the domination and oppression that exists among men, and the other is the existence of women, who, as "concepts," have been relegated to the margins in the shipping industry. In particular, Marxist feminism has clarified that the oppression of women in capitalist societies is based on the link between capitalism and patriarchy, but in the shipping industry, "capitalism" and *patriarchy* are complex, as the vector of domination is not necessarily "male → female" but "male → male → female." The purpose of this paper is to focus on "seafaring," or the shipping industry—which has constructed the basis of capitalism—and to identify what kind of oppressive structures have developed in this industry. In particular, by focusing on the "bodies" of men and women as represented in the histories of seafarers in the East and West, with *patriarchy* on board ships and the *masculinity* of seafarers as keywords, I point out that, in the shipping industry, which can be called the authority of materialism, the domination of men by men ultimately oppressed and otherized women. I also indicate that the domination of men by men in the materialist world of shipping ultimately oppressed and othered women.

#### **2. Defining** *patriarchy* **and diversifying** *masculinity*

In this section, I clarify the definition of *patriarchy* and the diversification of *masculinity*. No term has been used more extensively than the term *patriarchy*, and since the 1970s, it has been a key term in feminist theory1 . However, the concept of patriarchy existed long before it became essential in feminist theory, and originally, it did not necessarily mean the domination of women by men. In Japan, as well as in Europe and the United States, it refers to a family structure in which the male members of the family, who hold patriarchal authority within the family, dominate and control the other family members. In other words, the "patriarchal system" is a system of "patriarchs." Thus, when discussing *patriarchy*, it is necessary to consider not only the "male → female" structure, but also the "male → male" structure. It is important that, regardless of the direction of the vector of domination, various forms of domination are preserved within the patriarchal system, and they become "culture" and form a strong ideology. In *Sociology of Domination* (*Soziologie der Herrsc*haft), Max Weber classifies the concept of domination into three types—legitimate domination, traditional domination, and charismatic domination—and argues that patriarchal domination is the purest form of "traditional domination" [2]. In Weber's theory of patriarchy, the primary stage of ruling control is the family, but the patriarchal family, in Weber's sense, is not a so-called "family" in general but "one that has non-related members and is managerial in character." Thus, "by extension, it is possible to discuss a certain type of political control by setting up a relationship between the sovereign and the administrative executives and subjects, with the patriarch and children." [3]. Consequently, patriarchy can be extended to a much greater extent than the "family" if the basic conditions of "absolute power" and the "reverence of the members" are met.

<sup>1</sup> It is no secret that it was Kate Millett's *Sexual Politics* that first incorporated *patriarchy* into the construction of feminist theory. Millett focused on the fact that in most cultures and societies, it is men who are in control, and she called the system of male domination of women a patriarchal structure. Although feminist theory is not monolithic, such as radical feminism, liberal feminism, and Marxist feminism, there is no doubt that all of them are clubbed with the idea of "a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress, and exploit women" and "a totality of relations and norms in which power is distributed based on gender in favor of men and roles are fixedly allocated" [1].

#### *Perspective Chapter: Patriarchy and Masculinity Represented in the Diaries of Seafarers… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109693*

Masculinity, on the other hand, is often possessed by "men," and the term *masculinity* has been interpreted almost synonymously with "maleness" or "manliness." However, the latest masculinity research suggests that *masculinity* is not a monolithic quality that all men possess. In the 1970s, masculinology began as part of the academic field of gender studies in the West. The leading scholar in this field is Robert W. Connell. In *Masculinities* and *The Men and the Boys*, Connell considers masculinity not as a singular form but as a plural form (masculinities), and he examines gender not only in terms of feminine/ masculine contrast but also in terms of the interactions among the various masculinities. Thus, Connell refers to the plurality of masculinities. In addition to referring to the plurality of masculinities, Connell focuses on gender-based power relations by defining hegemonic masculinity as a form of hegemonic masculinity [4]. Just as *patriarchy* is not necessarily limited to the family or to the domination of women by men, so *masculinity* is not limited to male characteristics but is of a diverse nature, an interpretation that is presented to us more convincingly when we analyze seafarers' histories.

#### **3. The concept of seafarers and seafarers' culture in the west and Japan**

Before going into this essay, it is necessary to explain what kind of people *seafarers* were and why *patriarchy* and *masculinity* are associated with seafarers. Seventy percent of the earth's surface is covered by the sea, and for humans living in such an environment, *ships* have been an indispensable means of transportation since ancient times. It is the seafarers who move the ships. It is interesting to note that the impression of seafarers is the same in all ages, in all regions, in all times, and in all places. It is no exaggeration to say that a *seafarer culture* has persisted across borders and throughout the ages. In Japan and in the West, at least during the era of sailing ships and steamships, which, unlike today's automated ships, required a great deal of manpower to operate, *seamanship* and *manliness* were strongly associated with each other. It is no exaggeration to say that the ideals of masculinity were associated with seamen's labor, and there was no room or need to dispute them. As an occupation of maximum physical strain, it is not surprising that physical toughness was held in very high regard and as essential to the proper execution of the job [5].

Moreover, it is no exaggeration to say that in no other profession does class have so great an influence on the duties of a man as it does in the seafaring profession. In the nineteenth century, as depicted in the nautical diaries of Richard Henry Dana, the subject of the analysis in this paper. In England, in particular, the rapid population growth provided the British merchant fleet with an abundant labor force, but the crews were subjected to poor working conditions, including poor food and low wages on board. The poor conditions also affected the character and ethics of the seafarers, leading to the prejudice that they were socially and morally inferior. Barton notes that merchant seamen perceived their being called Jack Tar as a cause of "oppression" [6].

These prejudices had a profound effect on the relationship between seafarers and captains. To manage and control rough and rowdy seafarers to hold them down by force with a certain amount of authority. The question is not whether the seafarers were socially or morally inferior but whether such prejudice against them resulted in an increase in the captain's power. This is where the patriarchal system comes into play.

This was the case not only in the West but also in Japan, where the same rhetoric was used against seafarers. In Japan, one might say that the social and moral depravity of seafarers is represented by the stereotype that seafarers take part in betting and womanizing. This is not as simple as saying that they were simply prodigal and

incorrigible. This stereotype is not only a product of the capitalist system of modern shipping but also a symbol of the oppression that seafarers were forced to endure. The unique culture of seafarers gave the impression that seafarers were corrupt and that they were subject to the oppression of *deceptive substitution*, as if debauchery were the responsibility of the individual who favored it.

#### **4.** *Patriarchy* **and** *Masculinity* **represented in seafarers' histories**

This chapter points to the "patriarchal system" that persisted among men in the shipping industry, and how, through that patriarchy, *masculinity* was divided into *masculinity* of the dominant and of the ruled.

In *Women Seafarers and Their Identities*, Momoko Kitada points out that the definition of *patriarchy*, which has been referred to as a system that oppresses women, has a somewhat different meaning in the shipping world [7]. She further explains the unique patriarchal system on board the ship as follows.

This definition is a little different from the original meaning of patriarchy, which was based on the authority of [the] father over his sons in early societies in Western Europe (although the relationship between the two meanings is [self-evident]). It is relevant that the term "patriarchy" in its original sense can be applied to social relationships aboard single-sex (male) ships. The relationship between the Master (Captain) of a modern-day vessel and "his" crew (the rest of the seafarers) resonates strongly with the idea of an authoritarian father figure whose rule cannot be challenged but who is expected to act in the best interests of those in his "care." Within ship culture, the authority of the Master over the crew is absolute [7].

The concept of domination between men on board, Kitada argues, implies a relationship in the hierarchy of captain and crew; however, her argument does not go so far as to explain why this is important.

I believe that to clarify the concept of patriarchy among men in shipping, I must go back to the early histories of seafarers—that is, to the age of sailing ships in the West—and to the early Meiji period in Japan, when ships were modernized. In early seafarers' history, both in the West and in Japan, seafarers were not so much "seafarers" as "laborers." Shipping companies, or capitalists, invested capital in vessels and other assets to employ workers (seafarers) and earn profits. Naturally, since seafarers do not own assets, they are employed by the shipping company and work under the organization's command and order. Thus, a structure of domination between capitalists (shipping companies) and workers (seafarers) has already been established. In other words, it is clear that Marxist historical materialism has supported the world of shipping. However, what is noteworthy in the early history of seafarers is that the unique domination structure of the seafaring industry—"captain → crew" rather than the "shipping company → seafarer" domination structure—was firmly established.

It is well known that there is a great difference between an officer and a sailor. Therefore, it would be foolish to speak of the "histories of seafarers" as if they were all the same, but since the overwhelming majority of seafarers in the early days of shipping were sailors, it is thought that the contemporary image of seafarers has been formed mainly by sailors. For example, Richard Henry Dana's *Two Years before the Mast: A Personal Narrative*, published in 1840, is a true account of his 2 years as a merchant sailor from 1834 to 1836. The "misery" is brought about by the hierarchy of captain and sailor, a "distinctive patriarchal system," as he describes. In the record of August 1834, when the ship had just set sail, the following description appears.

#### *Perspective Chapter: Patriarchy and Masculinity Represented in the Diaries of Seafarers… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109693*

Yet a sailor's life is at best but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure and with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous [8].

Dana's description indicates that seafaring was a demanding occupation during the era of sailing ships in the West. Industrialization was originally oriented toward using labor as cheaply as possible. In this sense, it is not surprising that seafarers were forced to work hard, but what makes the seafaring industry unique is that, because of the harshness of the work, a system and culture unique to the industry were created, and the traces of this system and culture have not disappeared even today. The image of the crew formed during the era of sailing ships remains a representation of all seafarers, even today. Furthermore, in the domination of seafarers by captains, we can read a "distinctive patriarchal system" in seafaring as well as the existence of a hegemonic masculinity held by the controlling captain and a subordinate masculinity held by the lower-ranking sailors. This is most evident in the tyrannical control of the ship's crew by the captain. In *Two Years before the Mast: A Personal Narrative*, Richard Henry Dana is on board a sailing ship in 1834 and witnesses the absolute power of the captain.

The captain, in the first place, is [the] lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes when he pleases, is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything, without a question even from his chief officer. He has the power to turn his officers off duty, and even to break them and make them do duty as sailors in the forecastle. Where there are no passengers and no supercargo, as in our vessel, he has no companion but his own dignity, and few pleasures, unless he differs from most of his kind, beyond the consciousness of possessing supreme power, and, occasionally, the exercise of it [8].

As discussed in the previous section, interpreting Weber's theory of patriarchy in a broad sense, an organization in which both "absolute power" and the "reverence of members" exist is a group under a patriarchal control structure dominated and controlled by the patriarch, regardless of blood relations. From the above description, it can be understood that the "patriarchal system" that Weber discusses is prominent in the relationship between captains and sailors, but what is particularly noteworthy is that captains who are on the controlling side in such a "patriarchal system" possess *hegemonic masculinity* without exception. The captain's power is the power to perform the duties of the ship's officers. The captain's power is not limited to the orders of duty on board the ship but emerges most clearly in Dana's narrative in light of the scene in Chapter 15, titled "Flogging," in which the body of the sailor is depicted.

When he was made fast, he turned to the captain, who stood rolling up his sleeves, getting ready for the blow, and asked him what he was to be flogged for. "Have I ever refused my duty, sir? Have you ever known me to hang back, or to be insolent, or not to know my work?"

"No," said the captain[.] "[It] is not that that I flog you for; I flog you for your interference, for asking questions."

"Can't a man ask a question here without being flogged?"

"No," shouted the captain[.] "[N]obody shall open his mouth aboard this vessel but myself," and he began laying the blows upon his back, swinging half round between each blow, to give it full effect. As he went on[,] his passion increased, and he danced about the deck, calling out, as he swung the rope, "If you want to know what I flog you for, I'll tell you. It's because I like to do it! Because I like to do it! It suits me! That's what I do it for!"

The man writhed under the pain until he could endure it no longer, when he called out, with an exclamation more common among foreigners than with us… [8]

The body of the sailor, who is flogged even though he has no right to be, symbolizes the contrast between the *hegemonic masculinity* of the captain, who occupies absolute power in a ship with a completely established patriarchal system, and the *subordinate masculinity* of the sailor, who has no choice but to submit to him.

#### **5. Seafarers' sexuality and the othering of women—complete separation of production and reproduction labor**

How did the "male → male" structure of oppression, or distinctive patriarchy in seafaring, as described in the previous chapter, affect women? This section discusses the ways in which the sexuality of seafarers turned women into others, using *From the bottom of the ship at 140 degrees Fahrenheit – Diary of a lowly sailor in the international Shipping Industry* as a primary source, as it has been considered a valuable seafarer's record in the early nineteenth century. This is the diary of Hachiro Hirono, a member of the engine department of Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK Line), which is commonly known as the "*Hirono Diary*" (named the "*Hirono Diary*" hereafter). This diary contains records from November 1928 to June 1931, when the author was on board the Akita Maru and Katori Maru as a lowly sailor of the engine department of the NYK Line. This diary conveys the actual employment conditions of pre-war seafarers (ratings). In the *Hirono Diary*, references to "women" appear frequently. For example, in his diary dated February 6, 1929, it is written as follows:

I have been tired of hearing our sailors talk about "women." For the first four or five days on board, I listened to them out of curiosity, but every morning and evening, I [have] been tired of hearing them to the point that I have calluses on my ears. They returned to the ship in the morning and were happy to talk loudly and blatantly about the whore and the girl they had last night [9].

In the *Hirono Diary*, the so-called "drinking, gambling, and prostituting" are frequently mentioned, which could be considered a common practice in seafaring and is based on cultural and financial patriarchal domination. What did this manifestation of culture mean for women? I do not intend to theorize that modern seafaring was unsuitable for women because of the hard work involved. It is not that simple. If hard work determined the unification of gender in the seafaring industry, then the problem of excessive gendering in the contemporary seafaring industry should have been solved by today's dramatic advances in technology and the high-technology nature of ships. However, the reality is that this has not been the case. It is not the harshness of modern seafarer labor that is significant but the impact of the patriarchal system that has supported such harsh labor.

It is noteworthy that the unique culture of seafarers was complicit in the gendering of the seafaring industry. The diversification of patriarchy and masculinity in the seafaring industry, which had constructed a "male → male" domination vector, became the basis of the shipping industry that supported the capitalist system, and the unique seafarers' culture that was established there suggested a unity of gender and produced discourses that "othered" and excluded women. In other words, the "male → male" domination structure has been established as a holistic concept constructed in a relationship in which women are regarded as others. In fact, as already explained, given the harshness of the seafaring industry and the tyrannical control of the captain over the crew, it is not difficult to imagine that the space on board was not a space in which women could enter. This shows how the shipping world was a space that excluded women. In other words, seafarers on board were defined by a monosexual

#### *Perspective Chapter: Patriarchy and Masculinity Represented in the Diaries of Seafarers… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109693*

living system, and because of this, their lives became monosexualized, and a culture of othering women was born.

Here, I need to go one step further. What was the effect of the presence of women on individual seafarers? I have already noted that the modern seafaring industry was fully integrated into the patriarchal system of domination, but what was the consciousness of the individual seafarers who were placed in that system? As is clear from the above quoted passage, the word "woman" in the *Hirono Diary* appears mostly as a word meaning "whore," "concubine," or "prostitute." Behind the word "woman," one can always see "sexuality." Considering the working and living conditions of modern seafarers, a ship was a closed space where only men existed, but this does not mean that it was "genderless." On the contrary, the difference between one sex and the other is strongly expressed in a space where sexual unification is the norm. Their working environment must have had a significant impact on their sexuality, but, as Hirono describes, many of the lowerclass sailors were single, so their sexuality was directed toward an unspecified number of women. This is where the concept of "prostitution" naturally emerges. The patriarchal system of domination that supported the seafaring industry not only excluded women but also helped to transform their status into that of being bought by men.

This is not limited to seafarers in Japan. In the history of British seafarers, the situation of seafarers' prostitution was more intense. In Japan, the extant sailors' diaries and other records indicate that sailors bought women when they disembarked in port and went out to brothels; there is no mention of large numbers of prostitutes boarding ships while they were at anchor. In England, however, it was more common for prostitutes to be brought on board; according to Suzanne J. Stark, in the early nineteenth century, when a ship came into port, there were hundreds of prostitutes on board until the ship sailed. This was not necessarily true of "merchant ships" alone but was more pronounced on "warships." However, given the blurring of the distinction between naval and merchant crews in the early days of British shipping, onboard prostitution was not uncommon on merchant ships either [10].

When examined in light of patriarchal structures of domination and the othering of women in modern shipping, prostitution has even greater profound implications. In feminist theory, so-called "sex work" is not seen as a "sexually depraved act" but as a kind of economic activity and labor. If "becoming a prostitute" is an economic activity for the women depicted in the seafarers' diaries, then the presence of "women" in the seafarers' histories is significant. The incorporation of sexuality into the labor of seafaring means that prostitution determines the roles of men and women in seafaring based on their sexual identities. In Marxist feminist theory, the patriarchal concept is analyzed materialistically and is based on the idea that the male "sexual domination" of women has a "material basis."

In "the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union," Hartman argues that "…we define patriarchy as a set of social relations which has a material base and in which there are hierarchical relations between men and solidarity among them which enable them in tum to dominate women. The material base of patriarchy is men's control over women's labor power. That control is maintained by excluding women from access to necessary economically productive resources and by restricting women's sexuality" [11]. Due to patriarchal domination, the background of the domination vector of "captain → seafarer" is the composition of "seafarer (male) → female," and these vectors result in a materialistic foundation of profit for shipping companies. In the modern shipping industry, seafarers were the essential labor force for shippers and shipping companies to maintain their capital, while women were the devices for reproducing that labor force.

This is not to say that women were exploited by men through prostitution. As mentioned previously, insofar as "prostitution" is also an economic activity, men are "customers" for women, and as long as a transaction over sex is established, they are not being exploited. The problem is that patriarchal rule has in effect determined the behavior of seafarers (men) and women as role norms, the roles have been completely separated, with men as productive labor (seafarers) and women as reproductive labor bought by seafarers2 . In the contemporary era, prostitution was a reproductive device of the shipping industry, and the division of labor between male and female seafarers was determined, just as the division of labor in the modern era has been established as "male = outside production labor / female = inside reproduction labor."

At the basis of the patriarchal double structure of power and control, "captain → seafarer," there existed a stepping stone, even if only a small one, which was women. When women became "a prostitute" for seafarers, they were already relegated to a situation where they could only exist on the periphery of the shipping industry. The patriarchal system in seafarers' culture did not directly dominate and oppress women, but it was also a threatening system for women on an entirely different level.

#### **6. Conclusion**

Ships and women have been considered from opposing angles in Western maritime history. While women were considered harmful to ships and seafarers, disruptive to shipboard order, and an invitation to misfortune, they were also objects of worship [12]. In the latter, we can cite as examples the fact that, in English, ships are represented by the pronoun "she"3 and that, from the nineteenth century onward, many popular ship figureheads were represented by half-naked women [13]. In the West, there are records of women serving on pirate ships, warships, and merchant vessels as early as the eighteenth century. In this sense, the history of seafarers in the West may appear to be far more generous toward women than in Japan. However, even in the West, when we consider *patriarchy* as a key word, we still see that the ship was a completely gendered space.4

This paper has shed light on the structure of patriarchal domination in seafarers' histories. The concept of patriarchal domination has been a defining force in the histories of seafarers and has determined the nature of gender in the shipping industry. In other words, it is no exaggeration to say that the patriarchal system has supported the

<sup>2</sup> In feminist theory, especially Marxist feminism, "reproductive labor" means free "domestic labor" in the private sphere. While domestic labor is "reproductive" in the context of the housewife being otherized from the market and producing the labor force of the "husband" outside the market, in this paper "prostitution" is interpreted as reproductive in the context of indirectly contributing to maintaining the labor force of "sailors" as "other" from outside the shipping industry, even though it is not free.

<sup>3</sup> The reason for the ship being taken for a "she" is not clear. There are a number of theories, including that "the ship was controlled by a man, who compared the ship as his partner to a woman," or that "several men followed around, making a big fuss all the time." The following website has some interesting information: https://www.tabisen.com/tabisen/yutaka/post-2963.html

<sup>4</sup> For example, there were women who accompanied their husbands on board as captains' wives. Some of them even took the place of their husbands as captains of ships. Some of them even sailed the ship in place of their husbands, the captains. The women who appear in the maritime history of Europe and the United States are not the main purpose of this paper and will be discussed in another paper. For more information on women on board ships from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, see the author's book [14].

#### *Perspective Chapter: Patriarchy and Masculinity Represented in the Diaries of Seafarers… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109693*

shipping industry in Japan. The memory of gender unification, which has been etched in the memory of the shipping industry for a long time, is surely inherited even today. Gender identity was the principle that maintained the order of the shipping industry, and it was believed that only men could be given subjectivity in seafaring. The image of the seafarer, which has been formed by the ratings in the histories of modern seafarers, may no longer be a relic of the past for large shipping companies, but it may still leave its mark on small companies. Even today, there are very few female ratings.

How can we dispel this and make the seafaring profession more open to women? It would not make sense to try to promote gender equality in terms of the ratio of numbers by establishing a quota system. After all, the author's proposal may not be in line with the general goal of increasing the number of female seafarers, as there are limits to increasing the number of female seafarers. The patriarchal system of domination that once existed among men may no longer exist, but it has changed in the modern era, as it has othered women on a different level. The reason for the high turnover rate of female seafarers is overwhelmingly due to family reasons, such as marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing care. As discussed in this paper, this is because the system of the "gender role division of labor" is determined by the patriarchal system. In other words, the seafaring industry, which requires long hours of work outside the home, is an occupation that promotes more masculinity in terms of gender roles in the division of labor, and it is the seafaring industry that has promoted the patriarchal system. It is not surprising that it is difficult for women to enter such a profession.

It is a well-known fact that the working conditions of workers after the Industrial Revolution were so poor that socialist thought aimed at abolishing the capitalist system was established. Marxist feminism was developed under these circumstances as a socialist ideology that aimed to change class relations between capitalists and workers, and materialism not only created class exploitation but also caused the exploitation of women. In other words, Marxist feminism, in its early stages, to shrug off the poor working conditions of women workers, found the cause of women's oppression in capitalist society, which had created such conditions. However, in light of the particularities of the seafaring industry, we see "another form of female oppression" in which women "cannot even become workers" in the shipping industry. There, as the original Marxist feminism found, we can find the cause of women's oppression in capitalist society (the shipping industry), which brought about a class-dominated system of capitalists and workers, or captains and sailors [15–18].

#### **Author details**

Yoriko Ishida National Institute of Technology, Oshima College, Japan

\*Address all correspondence to: yoriko@oshima-k.ac.jp

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

### **References**

[1] Millett K. Sexual Politics. New York: Columbia University Press; 2016

[2] Weber M. Shihai no Shakaigaku (Soziologie der Herrschaft). Tokyo: Sobunsha; 1960

[3] Sechiyama K. Higashi-Ajia no Kafuchosei: Jenda no Hikaku Shakaigaku (Patriarchy in East Asia: Comparative Sociology of Gender). Tokyo: Keiso Shobo; 1996

[4] Connell RW. Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press; 1995

[5] Kirby D, Hinkkanen M-L. The Baltic and the North Seas. London: Routledge; 2000

[6] Howell C, Twomey R, editors. Jack Tar in History: Essays in the History of Maritime Life and Labour. New Brunswick: Acadiensis Press; 1991

[7] Kitada M. Women Seafarers and Their Identities. Cardiff: Cardiff University; 2010. pp. 14-16

[8] Dana RH. Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston; 1869. pp. 28-29

[9] Hirono H. Kashi 140-do no funazoko kara: gaikoku-kouro no kakyu senin nikki (jou) (From the bottom of the ship at 140 degrees Fahrenheit - Diary of a lowly sailor in the international Shipping Industry, volume 1). Tokyo: Taihei Shuppansha; 1978

[10] Suzanne JS. Female Tar: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail. London: Random House; 1996

[11] Sargent L. Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism. London: South End Press; 1981

[12] Creighton MS, Norling L, editors. Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700- 1920. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press; 1996

[13] Cordingly D. Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives. New York: Random House; 2007

[14] Ishida Y. Women at Sea beyond Gender Politics: Feminist Analysis on Femininity, Masculinity, and Sexuality in Bodies of Seafaring Women in Historical Discourse. Mauritius: Lambert Academic Publishing; 2019

[15] Connell RW. The Men and the Boys. Los Angels: University of California Press; 2000

[16] Demetriou DZ. Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity: A critique. Theory and Society. 2001;**30**(3):337-361

[17] Eisenstein ZR, editor. Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism. New York: Monthly Review Press; 1979

[18] Kuhn A, Wolpe AM, editors. Feminism and Materialism: Women and Mode of Production. Boston: Routledge; 1978

#### **Chapter 13**

## Teacher Power and Gender in Libyan Language Teacher Education

*Reda Elmabruk and Nesrin Etarhuni*

#### **Abstract**

Teacher power (TP) is a function of teacher knowledge that makes teachers far superior over their students. How TP is exerted in language classrooms can influence students' emotional well-being and can hinder active participation. This case study employs a discursive approach- rather than a perceptive one- to explore how Libyan EFL teacher educators exercise power and whether such power is influenced by gender. Teachers' discourse is recorded and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively to determine the extent to which male and female teachers utilise pro-social or anti-social power how student–teachers respond to and perceive TP is also investigated. Six teacher educators (three males and three females) were observed over 18 lectures (22 hours) involving 47 students. Personal interviews were conducted with the educators, besides holding focus groups. The findings reveal convergent patterns of power with unique gender variances in TP ratios (anti-social: pro-social). Male power ratio (2.3:1) was much greater than the females' (1.5:1) who displayed command power, zero criticism, and zero coercion; Female power was distinguished by politeness, compliment and "command softening" whereas the students tolerated command, interruption, and questioning, unwarranted coercion and unconstructive criticism were met with silent protest. Balancing power was deemed crucial to foster affective stress-free learning.

**Keywords:** antisocial/prosocial power, classroom discourse, gender differences, Libyan language teacher education, teacher power strategies

#### **1. Introduction**

In Libyan, and Muslim culture at large, teachers are very much esteemed by both students and society [1]. It is because of the knowledge they possess and convey to others that teachers are rendered superior over their learners [2]. Notwithstanding how teacher superiority, or teacher power (TP), is perceived, learners as recipients of power are somewhat sensitive to how it is exercised. While learners react positively to constructive comments, teacher praise, or encouragement, they are endowed with a sensitive threshold to power, that is perhaps embedded in their culture. Excess power, for example, coercion, criticism, or over-interruption can harm the less-powerful learners, hence causing increased anxiety and/or avoidance of further class contribution [3].

When teachers are conscious of the adverse consequences of power, they will be able to mitigate power to reduce anxiety and promote a relaxed classroom environment. Mitigating TP using "command softening" expressions has proven successful in the present study. Therefore, a conscientious understanding of how to manipulate TP, appreciate how affective learning and learner contribution are influenced is indispensable for EFL teaching practitioners. Therefore "understanding power use in the classroom is essential to setting up positive, pro-social learning environments and avoid abusing (or the perception of) teacher power" [4].

#### **1.1 Related studies**

Earlier studies on TP were largely quantitative and based primarily on students' perceptions of exerted power (e.g. [5–8]). In particular, those studies reference the five power sources [9] as bases for TP measurement, which were not originally intended for classroom contexts and were founded on the perceptions of students, over whom power was exerted [5]. More recently though several qualitative case studies were carried out with emphasis on power relations and specific strategies of teacher power:

For example, a case study was undertaken to explore politeness strategies by Indonesian teachers and students in high school settings using video-recorded observations [10]. The results show that positive, negative, and bold forms of politeness, perceptions of teacher and students of power, as well as social distance all contributed to the politeness strategies used.

A later case study explored gender effects on politeness strategies by Iranian EFL teachers' classroom interaction [11]. The researchers carried out classroom observations of ten classes involving five male and five female teachers. Frequencies and percentages of politeness acts were worked out and then compared. The results showed that students' interaction and learning were positively influenced by the females' politeness strategies; moreover, the females were more interactive and supportive of student's mistakes; they asked more referential questions, complimented more, and used fewer commands. A direct relationship between polite strategies and learning processes was posited.

Another case study was conducted to examine Malaysian secondary school classroom discourse in which they used classroom observations and pedagogic discourse analysis [12]. It was found that discourse is characterised with teacher domination controlling discourse and student behaviour, e.g. in turn taking and in the types of questions posed.

An additional case study employed classroom observations of twelve EFL classes to analyse command strategies of Malay university teachers [13]. Their findings reveal that while lecturers do not always use directives, teacher talk dominates teaching and learning; the students on the other hand acknowledged adherence to teachers' orders.

Power relationships among teachers and students were explored in Filipino private universities [14]. Eight teachers and eight students were interviewed using openended and semi-structured interviews. Exceptional and convergent experiences of power relations emerged from the thematic analysis used. Both teachers and students revealed that their experience of power or lack of power could be described in terms of differences in knowledge and expertise. Several limits to teacher power were identified by both groups.

A further qualitative case study on politeness was carried out to analyse the realisation and choices of politeness strategies in an Indonesian EFL teacher education *Teacher Power and Gender in Libyan Language Teacher Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110578*

context [15]. The study used a framework of politeness strategies [16] to analyse the classroom discourse of thirty students and their teacher in two classes. The findings disclose positive politeness, negative politeness, and bald on record. Positive politeness was to maintain a close teacher–student relationship, negative politeness to minimise coercion, and bald on records to give explicit instruction. Sociological factors, e.g. distance, power, and degree of imposition, influenced choices of politeness strategies.

#### **1.2 The gap**

Whereas previous studies focused mainly on teacher power use in Asian countries, little emphasis was made on Arab EFL contexts. More specifically, to the authors' best knowledge, no research has been conducted in Libyan EFL teacher education or even higher education as a whole. This research, therefore, contributes to the field through a qualitative case study that explores the extent of teacher power use with particular emphasis on gender differences and the discursive strategies applied.

#### **1.3 Research questions**

Based on the underlying perspective set out thus far, three pivotal research questions have been posited to direct data collection instruments:


#### **2. Conceptual framework**

#### **2.1 Teacher power**

The source of power is invariably traced to possession of knowledge [2]. Broadly speaking, power is an individual's capacity to influence the behaviour of another person or group of persons [17]. That is, teachers are capable of applying power over their students due to the knowledge they possess [18]. "Power", "influence", and "control" are treated as synonymous in the relevant literature [19]. The view that power is control of action and cognition is sustained [20]. This means that teachers not only have the potential to limit the freedom of students but also to influence their minds through cognitive learning. More specifically, power is perceived as one's capacity to make a person do something that he/she would not otherwise do has he/she not been exposed to power [21]. Hence, "the teacher is considered superior in terms of his/her knowledge, experience, and judgements, whereas learners are the 'lesser' partners in the interaction" [1].

Further perspectives consider teacher power as "the teacher's ability to affect in some way the students' well-being beyond the students' control" [5], rendering them unable to avert its consequences. More importantly, teacher power is exerted through classroom discourse, and consequently, its impact will be felt by students in multiple

facets, in their affective learning [5], motivation to participate in class activities [22], and in their academic achievement [23].

An interrelationship of power with discourse is emphasised by advocating a "difference between knowing and teaching, and that difference is communication in the classroom" [24]. Power is then "linguistically expressed by teachers and presented in the classroom" [18]. Accordingly, teacher power discourse is expressed not only by content-knowledge alone but more specifically through the manipulation of discursive strategies: "We now realise that knowledge of content material is an insufficient condition to instruction; the practising teacher must learn the communication strategies that can control student behaviours requisite for learning" [6].

Since power is manifested through language, or put another way, language is power [25]; an assessment of teacher power must therefore be embedded in the discursive features employed by the teacher [1] instead of power as simply perceived by the students.

#### **2.2 Teacher power strategies**

Expressions of teacher power are identified through teacher power strategies (TPS) that embrace "behaviour alteration techniques" which teachers employ to control or modify student learning activities. When power strategies are not employed, or misused, the teacher's potential to enhance student learning is diminished. Thus, managing power strategies is critical to teaching effectiveness and to classroom management [6]. A discourse-based classification of TPS typically used in classroom discourse has been compiled from relevant literature.

The following classification provides eight sources for TPS that have been used in this case study to evaluate how power is revealed through teacher discourse. These are as follows:

#### **3. Command**

As one of the most common forms of classroom power [13], this strategy is typically associated with the use of imperatives to issue instruction.

#### **4. Questioning**

Questioning is an essential classroom activity which teachers use to elicit information, check comprehension, or to evaluate students. A teacher "has the right to give orders and ask questions, whereas the students have only the obligation to comply and answer" [25].

#### **5. Interruption**

This strategy is typically used by people with high-power status as a "device for exercising power and control in conversation" to interrupt other speakers and thus control discourse [26].

#### **6. Criticism**

Teachers legitimately possess power to be critical of students. Criticism, however, may have negative outcomes, for it can "discourage and intimidate the learner and may even stop him answering future questions" [1].

#### **7. Coercion**

Coercive power is known to have negative consequences on learning [5]. It is based on learners' expectations that they would be penalised if they do not adhere to requirements; thus "the strength of a teacher's coercive power is contingent upon the student's perception of how probable it is that the teacher will exact punishment for non-conformance" [5].

#### **8. Politeness**

Politeness involves using appropriate words in context, a tactic that is governed by social norms [12]. Hence, a teacher may mitigate power with forms of politeness to make learners feel more at ease.

#### **9. Compliment**

Offering compliment or praise is another strategy that reduces power. One common way of giving a compliment is positive feedback, which can "boost learners' sense of confidence and simultaneously decreases their language anxiety which is very common in FL classroom" [3].

#### **10. Reward**

This form of power "involves introducing something pleasant or removing something unpleasant, if the student does comply" [5]. Teachers may also use reward power, e.g. grades, prizes, or privileges, in different ways to influence learners' behaviour; however, that the influence of reward is associated with how desirable that reward is to students [27].

#### **10.1 Anti vs. pro-social power**

Teacher power exerted through classroom discourse can influence students positively or negatively [8]. A positive impact of power is attributed to pro-social strategies, such as politeness, complement, and reward, which have motivating effects on students [22].


**Table 1.** *Sources of anti and pro-social power.* Pro-social power is also said to assist in achieving learning outcomes [4]. Negative power, on the other hand, is associated with the exertion of anti-social strategies, e.g. interruption, coercion, and criticism, the overuse of which can lead to withdrawal from learning activities. Command, criticism, coercing, interruption, and questioning in various degrees do cause increased student anxiety [3].

**Table 1** classifies TPS into anti-social teacher power (ATP; 1–5) and pro-social teacher power (PTP; 6–8).

#### **11. Method**

The research methodology for this study is based on exploratory qualitative case-study design. An exploratory approach allows researchers to explore an event or activity through a variety of methods [28]. Further, a case study is characterised by in-depth inquiry where data describes and explains the explored phenomenon [29]. The typicality of case (commensurate with a sampling frame in quantitative research) is significant in qualitative research and has been described in the sense of singularity that is "expected in some way to be typical of something more general; the focus is the issue not the case as such" [29]. That is why the present case study is explanatory qualitative, for in pursuit of improving practice it seeks to explore or narrate a story [30] of how Libyan EFL teacher educators exert power through a display of classroom discourse.

Concerning generalisation from a qualitative case (parallel to external validity in quantitative research), the researchers particularly find the argument; "generalisation is a process in research, as much or more than it is a product of research… Welldesigned qualitative research can be just as useful for generalisation as well-designed quantitative research" [31] accommodating. Therefore, in accordance with this outlined methodology, the following data collection methods were pursued:

#### **11.1 Classroom observation**

Having obtained consent to carry out classroom observation, the researchers considered it necessary to initially conceal the exact purpose of the study. To guard against threats to internal validity, power behaviour needed to occur genuinely, not due to reactivity (e.g. [32]), otherwise known as the Hawthorne effect [33]; the process where subjects adjust their behaviour in response to being observed. It is recommended [34] that the Hawthorne effect is mitigated by gathering data through unobtrusive tactics such that participants are unaware of being researched as long as no harm is inflicted. When later debriefed, the case teachers confirmed they would have almost certainly moderated their power strategies in some way had they known the exact research purpose. Debriefing is the act of informing participants about the intentions of the study in which they just participated; during this process, researchers reveal any deceptions that occurred and explain why deception was necessary [35]. Following such debriefing, the case teachers consented to their transcribed data being anonymously reported.

#### **11.2 Teachers' interviews**

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six Libyan EFL teacher educators (three males and three females). The purpose of the interviews was to understand their perceptions of power, and it is employed in teacher education classrooms.

Appropriate consent was obtained to record and anonymously report responses. Each of the interviews lasted between 30 minutes and 40 minutes.

#### **11.3 Focus group discussion (FGD)**

Seven focus group discussions were conducted involving 47 second-semester students who attended the observed lectures. Each FGs was associated with a particular skill subject taught (reading, writing, grammar, listening, vocabulary, and speaking). All the students volunteered to take part and consented to audio recording and having their responses reported anonymously. The discussion themes addressed students' perceptions of power and how anti- or pro-social power concern their emotional wellbeing and how they participate in class activities.

#### **12. Results and discussion**

A mixed-method approach to data analysis was adopted. Observed incidents of TPS were categorised as anti- or pro-social power, according to TP classification (**Table 1**), which were then transformed into percentages. TPS data (frequencies, per cent, and ratios) were compiled from observation data for each educator. On the other hand, content analysis was used to highlight relevant extracts from the teacher interviews and students FGDs, both of which were reported verbatim to preserve language competency and style. Where applicable, insertions in square brackets are added to clarify intended meaning; exclamation marks in square brackets indicate redundant words.

#### **12.1 Background data**

**Table 2** summarises the educators' background data including age, experience, subjects taught, and the hours observed. To maintain anonymity, the teachers are referred to alphabetically from A to F.

What follows is a discussion of observed power in 22 hours of classroom discourse. The flow of discussion addresses the research questions posed by the study: the extent and the proportions of manifested power, gender differences in power use, and the student–teachers' perception of and response to exerted power. The terms


#### **Table 2.** *Background data on the case teachers.*

teacher-educators, educators, and teachers are used as synonyms; the same applies to students and student–teachers (other alternatives though not used in this study are pre-service teachers, trainee-teachers, or trainees).

#### **12.2 Observed teacher power**

**Table 3** illustrates the case teachers' observed antisocial teacher power (ATP) contrasted with pro-social teacher power (PTP). The power strategies are displayed in descending order along with the ensuing TP ratio.

#### **12.3 Anti-social power**

Overall, the case teachers (males and females) exhibited a higher degree of antisocial (69.3%) with respect to pro-social power (30.7%), which works out at more than twice the ratio (2.3:1). Antisocial power was predominantly exerted through command (36.7%), i.e. using imperative forms, a finding that is consistent with previous studies, e.g. [13, 15].

• Command power was typically applied to issue classroom instruction, with which the students complied. However, the teachers' interview data revealed inconsistency with their practice. Teacher A (male) had claimed a preference for politeness over command, yet he was observed to exert the highest level of command power (68.2%).

*I prefer to ask my students politely. This [does] not mean that I do not give imperative[s], but sometimes. I prefer to ask politely; [for example] could you please answer this question (Teacher A; male).*

Further, he advocated balancing command power with polite instruction, which, again, did not materialise in his classes:


#### **Table 3.**

*Anti- and pro-social power ratios.*

*Teacher Power and Gender in Libyan Language Teacher Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110578*

> *I do not agree [like] this way (commanding) because some students feel sense [sensitive] from this way. Maybe the teacher must… mix between these ways, imperative and the other way [politeness] because some students need to make [follow] your way by strong [force]…other students [are] against that, so he must make [use] both ways not command only (Teacher A; male).*

Teacher C (male) also expressed opposition to the use of pure command. His claim is to accommodate for students' emotional needs:

*I do not agree [like] this way [using commands] because some students feel sense [sensitive] from [to] this way. Maybe the teacher must mix between these ways; imperative and the other way [politeness] because some students need to make [follow] your way by strong [force]…other students [are] against that so he [the teacher] must make [use] both ways not imperative only (Teacher C; male).*

That a teacher's behaviour contradicts his/her retort can only be attributed to "response bias", e.g. [36], where respondents attempt to portray a positive impression for themselves. The anticipation of such phenomenon was one reason for initially concealing from the case teachers the exact purpose of the study. The other reason is reactivity; the likelihood of participants altering behaviour upon being observed (see Method).

• Questioning (26.4%) was the second most frequent ATP used mainly for pedagogic purposes. Open-ended questions were posed more often than yes/no questions to engage students, who mostly responded in short phrases or sentence fragments.

This questioning excerpt is from Teacher C's (male) grammar class. The topic involved negative imperative construction:

1.*T: How can you form the negative form of imperative? S1: Not. T: Yes, but what comes before not? S2: Do not! T: Thank you! Do not or do not. Give me an example. S2: Do not come late. T: Very good, thank you.*

In a questioning routine by Teacher F (female), she followed through with probing questions to elicit appropriate responses. The topic under discussion was forms of life in the future, and she came up with a good idea herself:

2.*T: What do you think life will be in future? S1: Changing in technology. T: OK, change in technology in terms of what? S2: New style of living? T: Good!…like what? S2: How people communicate… S3: New video phones. S4: Maybe no mobile phones…use hand watch.* *T: You mean wristwatch! S4: Yes, wristwatch… wristwatch phone. T: Perhaps wrist-mobile.*

• Teachers' interruption, criticism, and coercion power (4.5%, 1.3%, and 0.4%, consecutively) together constituted a minor proportion (6.2%) of total antisocial power. Interruption was used primarily to correct students' grammar and pronunciation.

Being a grammar instructor, Teacher C (male) displayed maximum interruption power (13.5%); extracts 3–5 are cases in which he interrupts to correct or indicate errors:

3.*S: This word uncorrect.*

*T: uncorrect? S: Sorry! incorrect. T: Good, so this word is incorrect.*

4.*S: She is coming from France.*

*T: Shouldn't it be in the present simple.*

*S: She come from France?*

*T: She come?*

*S: She comes.*

*T: Correct.*

5.*S: This one match.*

*T: Add "es".*

*S: Matches.*

*T: Thank you.*

In (3), Teacher C interrupted by highlighting the wrong word (uncorrect) with emphatic stress. The student reproduced the correct form. The teacher initially ignored the missing verb "be" (is) as he focused on the word form, but later reiterated the sentence correctly, placing slight stress on "is". In (4), a student produced the present continuous form inappropriately. The teacher interrupted by asking the student to use the present simple instead; however, the verb "come" was missing an "s" which made the teacher re-interrupt. In (5), the teacher interrupted to correct the form of present simple.

Although error correction is viewed as a controversial issue in terms of immediate versus non-immediate or delayed correction, Teacher C (male) revealed a kind of response bias regarding interruption for he claimed a belief in letting students express themselves without being "cut off " [interrupted] to sustain the flow of information:

*[The] teacher must not interrupt… [he] must be [follow] step by step. If he asks [a] question to [a] student, [he] must leave him [to] complete his answer because if [the] teacher does this thing, the student in front of him will cut off [disengage]; let the information distributed [flow] or [it will be] destroyed (Teacher C; male).*

• Criticism at a low 0.4% was apparently used by Teachers A, B, & C (males) in association with a perceived lack of progress and failure to engage in class discussion:

6.*I think I've done [a] big effort but without any benefit (Teacher A; male)*

7.*You are university students… you aren't high school students (Teacher B; male)*

8.*You are not with us; you are sleeping (Teacher C; male)*

Teacher A praised himself for "doing big effort" (6) and criticised the class for lacking progress (without any benefit). Despite such unconstructive criticism, the students did not object or argue; they appeared to endure criticism in silence.

Teacher B (7) criticised his class for low competence by comparing them with high school students. Though the students were dissatisfied, they did not contradict the teacher, for he possessed the authority to criticise, be it unconstructively.

In (8), Teacher C caught a student "daydreaming". He asked her a question, and she looked in bewilderment. Her classmate tried to help by whispering something, but it was too late; the teacher had delivered his verdict. In all three cases of such criticism, the students protested in silence.

To a certain extent, tolerance or compliance to teacher power is by convention embedded in the Arab culture; students traditionally show respect by remaining silent and only speak when asked [37].

The reported incidents of criticism (6–8) appear unconstructive. They lacked a well-reasoned opinion and gave negative personal comments in a non-friendly manner. Such unconstructive criticism is associated with irresponsible teacher behaviour and can "harm the teacher–student relationship and fuel retaliation by the students as a response" [38]. Unconstructive criticism could also lead to "reduced motivation and limited engagement with future feedback" [39].


In (9) a strong, perhaps unwarranted, form of coercion (repeating Reading 2) was applied to reprimand a student who was looking at photos in her mobile phone during the lecture. Quite embarrassed, she put her phone away and looked down silently.

In (10), as the class failed to answer a question (What is the next word?), the teacher resorted to unwarranted coercion; this time to "fail all". The students objected silently, for premeditated silence can be interpreted as protest [40]. Silent protest meant the students withdrew from further class interaction.

Coercion recurred on a third, less harmful occasion; being thrown "from the window" if they do not bring their pencils (11). Grinning at each other, the students took this with some sense of humour (perhaps "humorous coercion").

#### **12.4 Pro-social strategies**

The pro-social strategies displayed by the case teacher (30.7%) suggest a moderate level of positive power.

• Politeness (20.5%) was affected with expressions, such as *please/ can/ could/ would you?* which helped to reduce the impact of command. According to Teacher A (male), who exhibited a low rate of politeness (3.1%), politeness can be applied in a pragmatic fashion:

*It depends on the type of student; some students need to be ordered… some of them, but most of them prefer to be treated politely (Teacher A; male).*

Such differential treatment by teachers may give the impression of unfairness or injustice.

Teacher B (male) expressed preference for using politeness, which he claims to apply, but at 24.7% rate of politeness power, this claim was unrealistic:

*I like to be more polite [when I] to use [use] these [this] power. As you know, they (the students) are adults and they need high respect. (Teacher B; male).*

The highest rate of politeness among the case teachers was demonstrated by Teacher D (female) at 30.2%. She confirmed:

*I want to give instructions with politeness or to see [the] difference between giving orders and giving polite structures. So, could, may… I like to use them a lot in my teaching, to be honest. (Teacher D; female)*

• Teachers' total complement power (10%) was used primarily to praise and motivate students, e.g. *good; that's good; thank you; well done; excellent*. When used, forms of praise encouraged the students to take part in class discussion/ activity without worrying too much about mistakes. Teacher E (female) acknowledged linguistically incorrect responses without bothering to correct. Teacher D (female) frequently used compliment to encourage contribution regardless of quality:

*I want you to answer questions with no worry; do not worry if you answer wrong way [wrongly], just try to express yourself (Teacher D; female).*

Error tolerance by teachers did encourage student contribution; it reduced anxiety and facilitated stress-free learning [41, 42]. Other teachers, e.g. Teacher A, rarely offered compliment (1.8%). A lack of complement, coupled with unconstructive criticism, raises anxiety and may harm affective learning [3].


The students were "promised" to pass to the next level of reading and "from now" if they could guess the topic for a given paragraph, which is neither practical nor acceptable.

A more pragmatic way to apply reward power was used by Teacher E (female); she offered extra marks to encourage student participation:

14. *You'll get ten marks for class participation (Teacher E; female).* Teacher F (female) also followed a similar reward tactic:

15. *If you need to collect more marks, you have to discuss and speak (Teacher F; female).*

#### **12.5 Teacher Power and gender**

**Table 4** demonstrates antisocial power and pro-social power by male and female teachers. It reveals case teachers' individual power strategies (a%–F%) and percentages (sum%). "Ratios" (across) represent TP ratios for each teacher.

Remarkable gender differences in TP have emerged. Anti-social strategies were applied less frequently (59.2%) by females than the males (77.6%). This finding is in agreement with previous studies, e.g. [13, 15, 43, 44]. Moreover, the females exhibited higher pro-social power (40.8%), which is almost twice as much as the males (22.4%). That is, the female teachers displayed a tendency to use more politeness, complement, and reward strategies than their male counterpart. This inclination towards positive pro-social power helped reduce learner anxiety and created a relaxed classroom atmosphere for the student–teachers, hence attracting active involvement [45], an observation that was less evident in the male classes.

**Figure 1** highlights gender differences concerning antisocial power strategies.

Commanding by the male teachers was more evident (49.3%) than the females (19.8%). The female teachers also mitigated command power through what was termed "command softening" by introducing attenuating expressions, such as *try to*


#### **Table 4.**

*Male versus female teacher power.*

#### **Figure 1.**

*ATP contrast by male and female teachers.*

and *just*…, which helped to mitigate the impact of command power, a technique that was not detected in the male teachers' discourse.

Interruption power was applied almost equally by both sexes (4.5% by males; 4.3% by females). Whereas criticism, unconstructive at that, was exercised 22 times (2.3%) by the male teachers, it was absent from the females' discourse, i.e. zero criticism. The same was also true for coercion power (zero coercion). This "uncritical non-coercive" tactic minimised female teacher power and created an increasingly relaxed and stressfree learning environment that supported active participation.

Contrasting male and female pro-social power (**Figure 2**) reveals more politeness strategies (21.5%) by the female teachers (14.8%), which is consistent with findings in [13, 42, 43] endorsing decreased female power.

Instead, the female teachers appeared to apply a much higher proportion of complement strategies (14%) than the males (6.3%), a result that conforms to those in [11, 43, 44]. Reward power was negligent and almost similar for both males and females (0.3% and 0.2% consecutively).

**Figure 2.** *PTP by the male and female teachers.*

Based on TP ratios (**Table 4**), it is apparent that the females adopted a far more balanced approach to teacher power than their male counterparts did. Remarkably, female Teacher D was the only one who manifested a higher rate of pro-social than anti-social power (0.6:1).

Teacher F (female), nonetheless, broke the pattern of female pro-social power dominance. She had displayed a higher anti-social power ratio of 4.2 to 1 by exerting a high level of command (32.6%) and interruption (12.8%).

Gender differences in teacher power as outlined in the findings could be explained in terms of masculine versus feminine discourse features. The male teachers tend to adopt a more masculine style of discourse demonstrated through the exertion of command power, which stretched to a relatively high 49.3% in contrast with the females' 19.8% (**Figure 1**). Moreover, the female teachers employed compassionate feminine features of discourse notably through expressions of politeness (25.8% against 15.3% for males) and compliment (14% as opposed to 6.3% by males) as **Figure 2** demonstrates.

#### **12.6 Student: teachers reactions**

The student–teachers' perception of and reaction to teacher power are discussed in terms of ant-social and pro-social power. Concerning antisocial power, tolerable and intolerable forms were discussed. When applicable, the number of students (out of 47) who preferred a particular aspect of power is included.

#### *12.6.1 Tolerable anti-social power*

Unanimously, the student–teachers acknowledged ATP and accepted that teachers have a privilege to exercise command, questioning, interruption, criticism, or coercion but at an appropriate tolerable level. The students believe that antisocial power can be tolerated when used for the following purposes: accomplish pedagogic objectives or maintain discipline (S1, S5, S8), get attention (S2, S5), issue instruction (S3, S5, S6), pose questions (S7), maintain respect (S8) or, to a certain extent, interrupt students (S6). The following excerpts reveal some of the students' attitudes to ATP:

*S1: [The] teacher must control students because there have [has] to be discipline in the class. [A]teacher without power, his students will not take him seriously.*

*S2: Power of teacher is very important to make students focus; [so that they] do not get to lose [lost] in the lecture.*

*S3: Sometimes power is good when it is about the lesson (giving instruction). [In that case] It is good. It is not bad.*

*S4: I think it's [asking questions] the key for understanding. If [the] teacher does not have [ask] any questions, the students will have the same thing [knowledge]. It's my opinion.*

*S5: I would prefer high power. It helps learning in class when [the teacher has] high use of power or authority. It will help [when] we are forced to concentrate, focus, grab your [our] attention…leads to better understanding.*

*S6: It [interruption] helps to give information; sometimes it is good when [a] student say[s] something wrong just to explain this point; maybe to correct your answer and put another idea for your answer so [to] help.*

*S7: Teacher power is [a] good idea to control the class. Students must be control [controlled] and maybe [make them] love [the] subject…to answer it [questions] in [the] final…to respect [the] teacher like dads and sons.*

#### *12.6.2 Intolerable anti-social power*

All the students opposed excessive use of anti-social power. For them, overuse of power (expressed as "power" or "high power") was unacceptable; it deeply harmed their emotional well-being, e.g. feeling afraid (S10, S11, S12); scared (S11, S12, S13); discouraged (S8); uncomfortable (S8, S9); unconfident (S10, S11). More importantly, excessive anti-social power affected students' cognitive development (S9, S12), keeping up with lecture (S8); asking questions (S9, S10, S11, S12); expressing opinions (S10); participating in activities (S8, S13):

*S8: High power will make us uncomfortable in [when] asking questions and in thinking [keeping up] with him [the teacher] and sharing ideas. It will affect [us] for sure, especially for [in] English learning.*

*S9: The teacher that has high power can make me feel afraid to speak and ask questions; afraid to say my opinion. It makes me hard [uneasy] to feel confident when speaking.*

*S10: It will be hard to ask questions to the teacher that have [who has] high power and hard to feel confident to talk with the teacher; [I] feel scared… afraid he will not accept my question.*

*S11: I think it [high power] will affect participation. It makes students scared to ask questions. If so afraid [to ask], they will not learn.*

*S 12: If [the] teacher was very powerful on [over] his students will be negatively affected by the teacher.*

*S13: When the teacher uses power too much, [he/she] becomes scary [and] of course, students will not participate; [they] will feel frightened. He should be [in] command but in a formal way, not over-control [over-powerful].*

Specific strategies of anti-social power, e.g. command were rejected by most students (39). Instead, they preferred a modified or mitigated version of command:

*S14: The student should feel being asked to do something not being ordered and that would make [a] difference.*

*S15: I do not like [the] teacher when [he/she] say[s] 'do that', 'not to do that'. I think 'please', 'could you', 'do you mind' is more politely [polite].*

Teacher interruption power was a thorny issue. A majority of the students (39) disliked being interrupted for no reason, especially when frequent. It could lead to a loss of focus and withdrawal from an activity.

*Teacher Power and Gender in Libyan Language Teacher Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110578*

> *S16: When the teacher interrupt[s] anyone [it] is not polite and I'll not be comfortable with [the] teacher who interrupt[s] me all the time. Ok, I will not focus, and I will not say anything.*

Teacher interruption for cognitive aims was nevertheless tolerated by most students (32), e.g. to supplement or rectify a response (S18), or to correct grammar/ pronunciation mistakes (S19).

*S17: Sometimes [it's] good for teachers, maybe to correct an answer and put another idea to help [the] student; to give him some words to him keep going. Sometimes [a student] [is] feeling shy, so interrupt[ion] maybe [may] help the student.*

*S18: I like [the] teacher when [he/she] correct[s] my grammar mistakes. I want [to] improve grammar to be [a] good teacher. Sometimes [the] teacher correct[s] pronunciation. In speaking, pronunciation must be in [a] good way.*

However, being interrupted for non-cognitive purposes, e.g. when making a presentation, expressing an opinion, or when engaged in an open activity or conversation was equally disliked by a majority of students (42), for they lose the point or ideas (S19, S20, S22), get confused (S19, S20), lose confidence (S20), feel unimportant (S21):

*S19: Teacher interruption confuse[s] me; I lose the point. That happens with me many times. [It] make[s] me confused.*

*S20: When [the] teacher interrupted [interrupts] that will interfere in our way; [the] students will not feel confident.*

*S21: It [interruption] makes me feel [that] what I say is not important and I do not have to participate again.*

*S22: When you talk about something and [the] teacher interrupt[s] you, your ideas going [vanish] and you cannot say anything else.*

One student praised her (female) teacher who encouraged her students to speak freely without paying attention to mistakes. Such attitude of error tolerance was praised by all students:

*S23: I like her way (Teacher D). She said we should speak with no worry about [the] mistakes we do. Now I feel confidence [confident] to speak in her class.*

Criticism was a sensitive issue for students. Now, criticism overlaps with interruption; a teacher may criticise immediately by interrupting a student while speaking, or later through delayed criticism. In either case, (immediate or delayed) criticality can be constructive or unconstructive, a topic of interest under corrective feedback. Whatever the case may be, a large majority (45) hated immediate criticism to the point of complete withdrawal, especially in front of peers:

*S24: I do not like [it] when [the] teacher criticise[s] me in front of [the] class. I feel embarrassed; it's not good for me if [the] teacher [is] critical all the time; I stop talking.*

The students also thought that the teacher should have ample space to listen to them first, then criticise later (delayed criticism):

*S25: The teacher has got enough time to criticise or when he wants to say something. The teacher has to listen carefully and then respond and interact with the students.*

Criticising students for improper behaviour was deemed a teacher's duty by all students, so long as he/she deals with in a professional non-provocative manner.

In response to Teacher A's coercive power, the students reacted to two types of coercion. One was unwarranted (threat of being failed) which they met with silent resistance on two occasions and withdrew from further contribution, a counterproductive consequence to coercive treatment. Keeping silent was the only form of resistance whilst maintaining respect for the teacher. On a third coercive incident, a humorous variety of coercion (the threat of being thrown out of the window if they do not bring their pencils) emerged. The students took this unlikely threat with a sense of humour.

#### *12.6.3 Pro-social power*

Contrary to the students' views on high or anti-social power, they unanimously favoured teachers who exercised pro-social power more often, e.g. politeness and complement. Instead of exerting control purely to impose authority, they expected teachers to come down to students' level. The students argued that teacher politeness and praise make them feel less anxious and more motivated to participate. Such prosocial approach to power manifestation created a friendly and relaxed atmosphere (S27; S28; S30), facilitated a positive learning environment (S27; S28), and encouraged active participation (S28; S29).

*S26: Teachers who minimise [power] are better; this makes you love [the] teachers more and appreciate and respect them more.*

*S27: Less power helps to feel relaxed in the lecture, [the result of which is] asking and understanding more.*

*S28: Politeness is very good to use because [it] make[s] [the] teacher have [a] relationship like father and sons. I like this teacher to learn and participate with.*

*S29: The students will feel comfortable with the teacher and they will not get embarrassed because they will feel relaxed; the students feel being asked to do something not ordered and that would make [a] difference.*

#### *12.6.4 Balance of power*

The students clearly disapproved of excessive teacher power. It raised anxiety and negatively affected class contribution. Surprisingly, however, a high degree of prosociable power was unfavourably perceived. It emerged from the focus group discussions that a balance of power was appropriate. Teacher power should neither be too high to depress and dissuade active participation nor too low to drop teacher respect:

*S30: When [a] teacher does not have power, I will not understand or I can understand but not like one [who] has power in teaching. At the same time over of power [overpower] it [!] will not help the student; so [it should be] in the middle.*

*S31: Not too low [power], not too high level, because I need to feel that person in front of me is a teacher and he deserves respect because of his position.*

*S32: I hate [it] when [a] teacher become [becomes] closer [too close] to students because they would not be so polite with him; he will lose place [status].*

*S33: I prefer the medium between them [anti and pro-social power], because eventually he is a teacher, and he is on the top of students [has higher status]; I think he should be in the middle.*

#### **13. Conclusion**

Teacher power manifestation, overall, was loaded with anti-social power more so than pro-social power, resulting in over double the ratio (2.3:1). Command (36.7%) was the most commonly used power to give instruction and maintain control, questioning rated second (26.4%) with more open questions to engage students. Interruption appeared much less (4.5%) mainly to correct mistakes. Occasions of unconstructive criticism (1.3%) and unwarranted coercion (0.4%) were unwelcome and confronted with silent protest.

Remarkable gender differences emerged. The females revealed far less antisocial power in terms of command, but employed questioning techniques that motivated student interaction. The impact of female command power was mitigated by "command softening". Little gender differences occurred regarding interruption or reward. On the other hand, a higher ratio of politeness and compliment was observed which. In combination with zero criticism and zero coercion and a tolerance for error, notably reduced student anxiety and facilitated livelier class participation.

The findings align with those by [46, 46] who assert that females utilise feminine communication strategies, e.g. hedging, polite forms, and question intonations. In contrast, men dwell on a masculine style of discourse where they use less polite language and are insensitive about question intonation. Therefore, to enhance teacher–student communication and inspire positive learning environments, it is strongly recommended that teachers, males in particular, revise their classroom practices of power use and their perceptions of how power strategies influence learning.

The students acknowledged the teachers' privilege to exercise power, e.g. command and questioning to facilitate instruction. Interrupting was welcome to augment response or correct mistakes, but not while engaged in dialogue or a presentation.

The students tolerated endured unconstructive criticism and unwarranted coercion with silent resistance. Whereas excessive anti-social power discouraged contribution, teachers with low power risked losing students' respect. Teachers should therefore balance their act of power in such a way that it is not too anti-social to trigger anxiety and discourage participation, nor should it be highly pro-social to lose control.

#### **14. Implications**

Libyan EFL teachers and educators are encouraged to undergo a shift in attitudes from traditional and inefficient teacher-centred approaches to learner-centred pedagogy that is based on "students' needs and shared power relations" [47]. Since teacher power strategies are critical to effective teaching [6], teachers should employ them consciously to facilitate learning and advance learner cognitive development. Accordingly, teachers must self-monitor their teaching styles and how they exercise power in order to facilitate not dominate.

According to the notion of affective filter hypothesis [48], factors such as anxiety, motivation, and self-confidence influence learning. Therefore, teachers are advised to minimise anti-social power, e.g. unnecessary interruption, unconstructive criticism, and unwarranted coercion, which hinder learner motivation and self-confidence. Using command softening techniques to mitigate power also reduce anxiety and contribute to creating positive affective learning. It is not how frequent anti-social power occurs that is consequential; it is the impact on students' emotional state of well-being that is at stake. Silent resistance, commensurate with Libyan Arab culture, in response to unconstructive criticism or unwarranted coercion, is a point in case.

Notwithstanding the apparently frequent mistakes reflected by the students' verbatim quotations, a tolerance for error in EFL teacher education is an issue of concern since the objective is to produce competent language teachers. While error tolerance has been shown to encourage stress-free engagement in speaking lessons, it may be argued that tolerance for grammar errors, particularly in the teaching of grammar, can be counterproductive since the student–teachers are expected to teach grammar after graduation.

Therefore, a skill-oriented error tolerance approach could be tuned to harmonise with certain teaching activities. For example, in teaching speaking, students are infrequently interrupted, but not so in teaching grammar or writing. In the latter case, students are often required to respond in short target-structure form; hence, teacher interruption does more good than harm.

#### **15. Limitations**

The authors acknowledge the fact that the case study is based on a small number of teachers (six). Arguably, a case study typically entails a small sample of participants within a reasonably controlled environment [49], where "the experiences, features, behaviours, and processes of a bounded unit" are understood in context [50]. More specifically, case study research pursues to answer questions of "how a phenomenon is influenced by the context within which it is situated" [51], an issue that cannot satisfactorily be answered through quantitative enquiry. Additionally, this study investigates, for the first time as it happens, how teacher power is truly manifested through Libyan EFL teacher educators discourse. Research is invited to expand the scope and reliability of the current findings to encompass other faculties of education and/or pedagogic contexts within Libya or beyond.

*Teacher Power and Gender in Libyan Language Teacher Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110578*

#### **Author details**

Reda Elmabruk1 \* and Nesrin Etarhuni2

1 Faculty of Education Tripoli, University of Tripoli, Tripoli, Libya

2 Faculty of Education Janzour, University of Tripoli, Tripoli, Libya

\*Address all correspondence to: r.elmabruk@uot.edu.ly

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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### *Edited by Dennis S. Erasga and Michael Eduard L. Labayandoy*

By focusing on "new materiality," this edited volume offers new optics on the affordance of women's physical and objective body. The interdisciplinary essays assembled in the book interrogate the concepts of corporeality and embodiment by interpreting them as material enactivism of a woman's physical body geared toward performance and demonstration, respectively. The book situates body/ bodily movements as agentic initiatives to make sense of women's bodies (in) motion. Although flesh in its constitution, a woman's body is the very material entity that does not only perform what it is expected to do (for its many audiences as in spectacle) but also its corporeality imputes a demonstrative kinetics hitherto associated with the objective body in recent social theorizing.

Published in London, UK © 2023 IntechOpen © Connel\_Design / iStock

Feminism - Corporeality, Materialism, and Beyond

Feminism

Corporeality, Materialism, and Beyond

*Edited by Dennis S. Erasga* 

*and Michael Eduard L. Labayandoy*