Fierce Mamas’ Rising: Navigating the Terrain of Motherhood As Formerly Incarcerated/Convicted Women

• In Event: Convict Criminology 1: Feminist Perspectives: Women of Convict Criminology

Abstract

The criminal punishment system structures potentiality as one’s “marked status” extends beyond the completion of
any imposed sentence. In my research, I found that formerly incarcerated/convicted mothers respond to the extralegal
nature of their punishments, by adapting pre-existing skills that allow them to survive, and challenge commonsense
notions around “ideal” mothering. I named their adaptations, fierce mothering/motherhood. Fierce mothering is
both a social position and social practice, and is characterized by the emotionally and socially complex experiences
they encounter; however in the process their sense of self evolves, they become empowered in their roles as mothers,
and in the situated knowledge they possess of the criminal punishment system. My presentation, titled Fierce Mamas
Rising, will focus on the concept I developed “fierce mothering”. Fierce mothering moves beyond reproductive rights
as reproductive health care, and complicates how we understand the idea of “choice”. As argued in Undivided Rights
(2004) “choice implies a marketplace of options” where women have the right to decide what happens to/in their
bodies (p. 6). Furthermore, choice suggests that women have options regarding how, if, or to what extent, they
perform their roles as mothers. I found that fierce mothers respond to the absence of choice through creative
insurgence, they generate possibilities in the absence of institutional reproductive liberty; and claim both their rights
and identities as mothers.

Author

• Grace Gamez, American Friends Service Committee