Femicriminalization: Liberation Theology Challenges Liberation Theory

• In Event: Roundtable: Penal Abolition Research and the Politics of “Crime” and Justice

Abstract

Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father (1973) explores systemic sexism within institutions (specifically the church) and Christian based patriarchy that is manifested in objectification of the female body. Freda Adler’s Sisters in Crime: the Rise of the New Female Criminal (1976) develops ‘Liberation Theory’ to prognosticate that the social liberation cultivated by the gender equality movement results in increased deviancy by women. This paper places feminist liberation theology and ethics in dialogue with black feminist liberation theory in criminology during the era of hyper-incarceration (1970s-present). It will focus upon the feminist theological scholarship of Ruether, Copeland, and Althaus-Reid, placing them in dialogue with black feminist criminologists Roberts and Richie. The criminalization of females, the fastest growing segment of our hyper-criminalized culture (compounded by extreme racial disparities), results in an injustice that not only impacts the majority of our population but the next generation that is traumatized (and criminalized) by the collateral consequences of a ‘carceral’ state. In this climate liberation theology can influence regressive powers and principalities that create criminals, subjugate women, and devastate the most vulnerable of people and communities. This paper positions religious liberation theology as best situated to deepen an understanding of both sexism and deviancy.

Author

• Fernando E. Linhares, Drew University