Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

In 1974, women imprisoned at New York’s maximum-security prison at Bedford Hills staged what is known as the August Rebellion. Protesting the brutal beating of a fellow prisoner, the women fought off guards, holding seven of them hostage, and took over sections of the prison.

drawing by "RJ," La Vista Correctional Facility, ColoradoWhy do activists know about Attica but not the August Rebellion? The Invisibility of Women Prisoners' Resistance documents collective organizing and individual resistance among women incarcerated in the U.S. and challenges the reader to question why these instances and efforts have been ignored and why many assume that women do not organize to demand change. It fills the gap in the existing literature, which has focused mostly on the causes, conditions and effects of female imprisonment.

Women have significantly disrupted the daily operations of their prison to protest injustices and demand change. More often, however, they have employed less visible means such as forming peer education groups, clandestinely organizing ways for children to visit mothers in distant prisons and raising public awareness about their conditions.

By emphasizing women's agency in resisting individually as well as organizing collectively against their conditions of confinement, Invisibility will spark further discussion and research on incarcerated women's actions and also galvanize much-needed outside support for their struggle.

book forthcoming from PM Press, February 2009