Text by Eve Stowe

No Cages in Our Feminism

“We – who are not one and the same – are in this troubled world, in this painful moment, together” (Braidotti, 2022)

This poster, created by the Trans Liberation Assembly in 2019 as part of the Women’s Strike, is demonstrative of the necessity for radical change – the need to break down binary oppositions, and to dismantle the patriarchal, capitalist, anthropocentric, white supremacist and colonial systems which structure society. It is this infrastructure that upholds the culture of containment in which we are living – a culture in which those who do not conform to a white, middle-class, able-bodied, cis-het, Eurocentric and state-cooperating ideal are dehumanised and imprisoned. The Women’s Strike is an international movement centred around solidarity and collective systemic action – it is through such affective entanglements, transversal alliances, care and empathy that we can question the culturally pervasive complicity with the carceral system, reimagining and building a future in which dominant perceptions of justice are not limited to revenge fantasies or confined to a continual cycle of police-sustained violence.

In the words of Audre Lorde, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (1984) – aligning the feminist project with the interests of an inherently violent and unequal institution will only serve to deepen inequalities, privileging white middle class women whilst disempowering and re-stigmatising those living along multiple axes of inequality – trans women, queer and non-binary people, Black and Indigenous women, women of colour, sex workers and immigrants. Collectively, we need to uncover the deep structural societal wounds that are being concealed by practices of containment and detainment, and to rethink our perceptions of justice beyond the parameters of mass incarceration.