When We Talk About Racial Profiling We Need to Talk About Gender

• In Event: Voices of Criminalized Young People of Color: Intersections of Race, Sexuality, Gender, Immigration, and Silence

Abstract

Has the dominant paradigm of profiling which places young men of colour at the centre of its analysis harmed women? Do gendered and racial stereotypes render some women more vulnerable to police misconduct? Women of colour who have spoken on behalf of their male family and community members are often at the forefront of the debate surrounding police violence. These same women also have their own experiences as targets and victims of racial profiling; experiences that have largely gone unnoticed. From the public outcries over the videotaped arrest of Illinois’ Sandra Bland to Ottawa’s Stacy Bonds, there has been greater recognition that the discourse on racial profiling has failed to advance an intersectional approach in its analysis. As a result, the issue of police misconduct against women of colour is an under-studied and under-litigated area. This project contributes to the literature by exclusively exploring a women centered perspective on the implications of race and gender in crime and punishment in Canada. By situating profiled women’s experience within a larger context of racialization in the criminal justice system, this research critically examines the treatment of women of colour bodies, and issues of inequality, power relations, police accountability, and equal access to justice.

Author

• Andrea S. Anderson, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University