Pink Punishment? Women’s centres and punishment

by Dr Gemma Ahearne

‘Women empowering women’ screams the headline. An alternative would be ‘Our Sisters’ Keepers’ given that organizations are competing for funding in order to punish women.

We cannot punish women in the spaces we are trying to heal them. Services must be trauma-led by qualified professionals. Painting something pink and calling it empowerment is disingenuous and ignores that the criminal justice system is a space of trauma for women. If you want to end the cycle of ‘offending’ then we need to give women the critical tools to push back against structural inequalities and offer them authentic opportunities.

Provide women with an education, courses that are accredited and that can help them acquire a career. Raise women’s voices, provide them with a platform. The narrative does not have to be sanitized by the middle-class agenda, the raw voices of women who have endured multiple traumas and layers of oppression can speak for themselves.

We need to allow women to be angry and not coerce them into being compliant and docile. Wearing orange tabards and cleaning litter does nothing to address complex issues of abuse, trauma and poverty, and everything to humiliate and stigmatize women.

My experience of working in a women’s centre and now liaising with former staff, researchers and volunteers has ignited me with a commitment to the women harmed in such spaces. There are some fantastic women’s centres, and there are those who harm. We need robust monitoring of women’s centres, and clear policies for those who wish to complain about their treatment.

I have previously written about this issue here: https://plasticdollheads.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/the-problem-with-womens-centres/

Dr Gemma Ahearne

@princessjack