WOMEN, PRISONS AND FEMINISMS

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the various feminist perspectives on the processes of criminalization, imprisonment and everyday life in prison of women prisoners. It is a theoretical work but at the same time it is contrasted with references to empirical researches and field works in women's prisons and/or with incarcerated women. The different stages of these reflections and research by Anglo-Saxon, European and Latin American authors are referenced, providing their main results and debates. The approaches of the different feminisms, as a whole, have made it possible to delve more and more deeply into the reality of this group of women, historically and academically so invisible to the social sciences. Likewise, feminisms have been prioritizing and emphasizing various aspects that they consider most urgent to address, in order to preserve and ensure the exercise of the rights of women prisoners and their demands. Women's prisons are a clear reflection of the discriminations, oppressions and inequalities that women suffer in our communities, and consequently, an excellent feminist watchtower to understand patriarchal oppression, to fight and resist it.