Feminism is a political methodology that can help us name the structural, interpersonal and otherwise murky forces which make up a social landscape. It does so by enabling an examination and analysis of the material conditions which underpin social organisation, it helps us understand the ways that capitalism’s operation is specifically gendered and racialised in its arrangement of labour, social relationships, the economy as well as prisons and the police.

abolitionist strategies, if given support, would be able to address some of the complex root causes of sexualised street harassment which include misogyny, patriarchy, economic inequality, and intersecting forms of marginalisation. It is these structures and norms that render some women more vulnerable to harm, particularly since that harm reflects entrenched norms emerging out of histories of “heterosexism, colonialism, and slavery.”

Mainstream feminism in Britain is commonly preoccupied with the desire for a seat at the table of power; for a stake in the empire, for legislative wins and more women in board rooms and on parliamentary benches. Yet multiple, competing feminisms exist—arguably, feminist work has always been characterised by fragmentation and internal dissent. The halcyon years of the women’s liberation movement (WLM) in the 1970’s is also wrought with dissent and disagreement.

As “carceral feminism” has become ever more distilled, rigidly individualised ideas around what – and who – the “carceral feminist” is have also emerged. A process which has been accelerated with the growing interest in anti-carceral perspectives following calls to defund the police in 2020 in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests.

Gender Based Violence Series launch will draw on some of the focus of the Abolitionist Strategies to Gender Based Violence resource, while also teasing out some of the problems found in our current ways of conceptualising responses to gender based violence.