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Love and Punishment: A Feminist Theo-Ethical Analysis of Gender Entrapment, Carceral Resistance, and the Incarceration of Women ‘Behind a Man’ By Alexandra Elizabeth Chambers Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Religion January 31, 2021 Nashville, TN Approved: Date: Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, Ph.D. Ellen Armour, Ph.D. Juan Floyd-Thomas, Ph.D. Lisa Guenther, Ph.D. Copyright © 2021 by Alexandra Elizabeth Chambers All Rights Reserved For survivors in their struggle to be free from prisons in all their forms and for all who dream of a world where women can both be loved and be free ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this project was made possible by communities of love and care that have helped me to remain open to new possibilities while also urging me to finish the work that is before me. I am exceedingly grateful to each member of my Dissertation Committee who have all informed and encouraged my development as a student and scholar. Dr. Ellen Armour first introduced me to religious studies and feminist theology when I was an undergraduate student. I have been most fortunate to have also been her student throughout my pursuits in graduate education. Dr. Lisa Guenther has shown me through her teaching and commitments what it means to be a scholar-activist and that it is possible to speak of prison abolition in the academy. Dr. Juan Floyd-Thomas was an early supporter of my doctoral studies and one of the first to critically engage and respond to early versions of arguments that came to be included here. I would like to thank most especially, my advisor and committee chair, Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas whose influence on my formation as an ethicist is incalculable. I am grateful for her continued investment in me and in this work. Her personal and professional guidance—grounded in the womanist wisdom of the late Rev. Dr. Katie G. Cannon to “do the work your soul must have”— is a gift that I have been fortunate to receive and will do my best to share with others. I am also immensely grateful for the women of Free Hearts who work tirelessly for justice, centering the leadership, needs, and experiences of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and girls in Tennessee and for the numerous incarcerated survivors that share their stories in hopes that they will help others. They are helping to show us the way toward another world that is possible. Their enthusiasm for this project has helped to ground me in the everyday accountability and care work necessary for community and movement building. iii Finally, I am infinitely grateful to my family whose generous hearts have helped form in me a commitment to loving-kindness. Thank you to my parents, Ray and Carlene, for their persistent love and unyielding support; my sister, Brittany, and brother-in-law, Alex, for their untiring encouragement; and my niece, Chloe, and nephew, Noah, who bring boundless joy to this world and inspiration for imagining and creating a more loving and just one for all. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION................................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................... iii Chapter I. Introduction: ‘Finding the Air to Begin to Speak’ ...................................................................1 Social Problem .........................................................................................................................8 Background and Rationale .....................................................................................................12 Methodology ..........................................................................................................................14 Central Tasks and Chapter Outline ........................................................................................19 II. ‘In love and trouble’: The Moral Problem of the Entrapment and Incarceration of Women ...................................................................................................................................24 Introduction ............................................................................................................................24 The Incarceration of Women ‘Behind a Man’ in a Prison Nation .........................................27 A Feminist Abolitionist Approach to the Moral Problem......................................................42 Conclusion..............................................................................................................................65 III. ‘You do it to survive’: Moral Agency and Carceral Gender Entrapment in the Context of Intimate and State Coercive Control ......................................................................................67 Introduction ............................................................................................................................67 ‘The Fantastic Hegemonic Imagination’ and the Criminal Punishment System ...................68 ‘Survival as a Sphere of Moral Life’......................................................................................78 Domestic and State Prison Regimes, Power, and ‘The Art of Punishing’ Women ...............95 Conclusion............................................................................................................................107 IV. ‘Who loves well, punishes well’: The Christian Moral Tradition and the Carceral Logic of Misogyny .........................................................................................................................108 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................108 ‘Patriarchal Circuits’ of Punishment from the State to the Home........................................110 The Christian Theological Tradition in Blaming Women for the Sins of Men ...................125 Conclusion............................................................................................................................138 v V. ‘That I May Own Myself’: Feminist and Womanist Love-Politics as Ethical Praxis and Carceral Resistance ..............................................................................................................139 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................139 The Co-optation of Love for the Cultural Production of Evil..............................................141 Feminist Love-Politics as Moral Praxis ...............................................................................153 Conclusion............................................................................................................................163 VI. Conclusion: ‘Another World is Possible’.............................................................................164 Conceiving of Safety............................................................................................................164 The Moral Imagination and Prison Abolition ......................................................................167 Refashioning Our Communities, Ourselves.........................................................................175 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................181 vi INTRODUCTION ‘Finding the Air to Begin to Speak’ She must learn again to speak starting with I starting with We starting as the infant does with her own true hunger and pleasure and rage. –Marge Piercy, “Unlearning to Not Speak”1 Our sisters are suffocating every day. They cannot find the air to begin to speak. It is caught in their lungs, in their throat just below the vocal folds. –Teresa L. Fry Brown, “Avoiding Asphyxiation”2 At an early age and in subtle ways, girls are discouraged from speaking. They are commended and rewarded for being quiet—and at times punished when they are not—while raucous or aggressive behavior from boys is generally tolerated and waved off as “boys being boys.”3 In the classroom, teachers spend more time talking with boys, call on them more frequently, and are more likely to interrupt girls when they are speaking while they let boys talk over them.4 This early devaluing of female speech in the classroom reflects a larger history in which women and girls have been disciplined to silence so as to be “seen and not heard.” There is perhaps nothing more effective in disciplining women to silence than restricting our ability to breathe. The early nineteenth century beauty practice of tight lacing exemplifies the insidious ways in which throughout history women’s breathlessness has been made desirable. The tight 1 Marge Piercy, “Unlearning to Not Speak,” Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women’s Spirituality, Edited by Marilyn Sewell, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), 21. 2 Teresa L. Fry Brown, “Avoiding Asphyxiation: A Womanist Perspective on Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Transformation,” Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation and Transformation, Edited by Emilie M. Townes, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997), 75. 3 One cited study found that Black girls are disproportionately punished among girls in school for being assertive. Soraya Chemaly, “All

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