Romantic (In)Justice: Criminal-Legal System-Impacted Black Women’s Romantic Relationship Status and Quality

Abstract

This study of working class, heterosexual, criminal-legal system-impacted Black women described the women’s romantic histories and current romantic relationship statuses in terms of commitment, exclusivity, and perceived quality. Using intersectional research methods, qualitative interviews were conducted with 31 Black women between the ages of 18 and 65 years who were working class, resided in Southern California, and were impacted by the criminal-legal system. Data were analyzed using an intersectional Black feminist criminological framework and findings revealed six types of relationship statuses. These relationship statuses did not live up to the women’s aspirations and yielded disparate levels of emotional and psychological strain across relationship statuses.

Mapping Coercive Violence

“…Participants were recruited through local non-profit organizations which centered advocacy for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and their families, and via word-of-mouth. The methodology used is detailed in Monterrosa (2021). Hattery conducted interviews with both members of 50 couples who were living with intimate partner violence.…”

“…Farmer described structural violence as "deeply embedded ordinary, mundane, day-to-day interactions" (Farmer, 1996;Henderson, 2022). Specifically, intimate partner violence is structured both because it takes place in the every-day, mundane actions of everyday life (Monterrosa, 2019(Monterrosa, , 2021 and because the structural roots of gender-based violence-heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and modern capitalism-are also deeply embedded in the state and its institutions and impact literally every aspect of daily life (Acker, 2006;Collins, 2000;Crenshaw, 1991). Symbolic violence functions to reproduce systems of domination through various modes of discourse and language (Bourdieu, 1999), and it is also a mechanism for abusers to channel the use of coercive violence.…”

“…Managing their criminal legal involvement can become a full-time job for the partners of Black men. Elsewhere, Monterrosa explores the emotion work that the partners of Black men with criminal legal involvement perform in attempts to keep their relationships intact (Monterrosa, 2021). Here we focus on the ways in which criminal legal involvement can produce conditions for coercive violence.…”

“…Extant literature (Davis, 1983; Luna, 2020; Roberts,1997) documents the ways in which low-income and poor women who are forced to rely on medicaid are subjected not only to surveillance but also to violence. For example, during most of the twentieth century, many state colleges of obstetrics and gynecology advised physicians that when pregnant women on “welfare” arrived at the emergency room to deliver their babies, especially if this was not their first child, the physician should strongly encourage women to “consent,” while in labor and prior to the birth of their child, to a tubal ligation to be performed during the delivery.…”

Feminist Lecture: (Re) Imagining Gender-Based Violence as a Strategy for Enforcing Institutional Segregation and Reproducing Structural Inequalities

“…Though inarguably feminism is the ideal lens for examining gender-based violence (De Coster and Heimer 2021; Sweet 2020), white feminists and feminisms have sometimes ignored and often neglected the reality that gender-based violence is not just about gender , but is also intersectional, as Black feminists (Crenshaw 1991; A. Y. Davis 1981; hooks 2014; Monterrosa 2021; Potter 2006; Roberts 1999) have well documented. Despite “mainstreaming” the argument that gender-based violence is intersectional, feminist movements to define, research, and address gender-based violence continue to be led primarily by white women whose status as white often obscures the intersecting nature not just of identities but more importantly of systems—specifically white supremacy and heteropatriarchy.…”