Victimhood in the carceral culture of women's prisons

This article is a cultural analysis of how sexualized violence in the United States penal system is mediated by neo-conservative configurations of victimization that work to obscure gendered and racialized dimensions of violence against women in prison. I argue that the meanings of the term 'victim' over the last decade have undergone significant rhetorical and ideological developments that affect imprisoned women along gendered and racialized lines. Special attention will be given to the position of victim and victimhood in US culture following the terrorist attacks of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. I argue that a renewed socio-cultural shift towards neo-conservatism initiated in the 1980s has retrenched the view that the US has been emasculated and its sovereignty rendered vulnerable to attack. In this discursive space, victimhood is no longer a political category aimed at the mobilization of policy and law reforms but rather provides the context through which sexual violence inside women's prisons gets obfuscated despite national efforts to address the prevalence of (male) prisoner rape. I suggest that the rape of women in prison is eclipsed by an anti-feminist backlash.