The Personal is Political and so is Discomfort: Intersectional, Anti-Racist Praxis in Feminist Criminology

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Jane E. Palmer,Marian Duggan,Valli Rajah
• DOI: 10.1177/21533687221101793
• Subject Matter: Articles

The Personal is Political and so

is Discomfort: Intersectional,

Anti-Racist Praxis in Feminist

Criminology

Valli Rajah

1

, Jane E. Palmer

2

,

and Marian Duggan

3

Abstract

The phrase “the personal is political”is commonly associated with 1970s feminists,

for whom it denoted the relationship between personal experiences and broad

systems of inequality. However, considering bell hooks’argument that feminists

have lost the power analysis fundamental to the relationship between the personal

and the political, we assess the relevance of the notion the ‘personal is political,’to

our work as feminist criminologists. Building on hooks’insight, we argue there is a

need to take up an intersectional and anti-racist feminist praxis that centers multiple

forms of oppression in scholarship and seeks greater accountability for sexism,

racism, and transphobia both within and beyond academic spaces. We elaborate

our ideas by, f‌irst, outlining the intellectual history and evolution of feminist criminol-

ogy. Second, we examine how the relationship between the personal and political f‌ig-

ures in the work of minoritized scholars. Third, we discuss the necessar y discomforts

associated with working towards an intersectional and antiracist feminist criminology.

Keywords

Intersectionality, feminism, feminist criminology, anti-racism, academia

1

John Jay College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

2

American University, Washington, DC, USA

3

University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

Corresponding Author:

Valli Rajah, John Jay College, City University of New York, New York, NY, 10019, USA.

Email: vrajah@jjay.cuny.edu

Article

Race and Justice

2022, Vol. 12(3) 548-568

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/21533687221101793

journals.sagepub.com/home/raj

Over the past several decades, the phrase “the personal is political”has appeared in

countless activist texts (Heberle, 2016). The term is most often associated with

1970s feminists, for whom it denoted the relationship between personal experi-

ences and broad systems of oppression (Balfour, 2006; Lutze, 2021). In drawing

this connection, feminists notably expand the concept of the “political”to encom-

pass power in various forms. Political power is commonly thought of in terms of

voting inf‌luence and the like, but 1970s feminists argued that, for example, the

control that men exercised over their wives was also political (Renzetti, 2013;

Rogan & Budgeon, 2018). By demonstrating the political nature of everyday

life, feminist research and theory contests orthodox perspectives on political

action.

This idea was not new, even then. The connection between the personal and

political was a prominent feature of the testimonial activism of Sojourner Truth

in the 1850s, Ida B. Wells in the early twentieth century, and Rosa Parks in the

1960s. These women drew an explicit connection between racial oppression and

everyday experiences of physical and sexual assault (Heberle, 2016; Phipps,

2016). In 1970, the phrase the personal is political appeared in print for the f‌irst

time. In an essay of the same name, the feminist Carol Hanisch connected the

notion with “consciousness-raising,”which occurred when women of varying back-

grounds came together to discuss their experiences with oppression (Whittier,

2017). As they saw it, this process entails considering how social forces shape

one’s personal experiences, generating theory that recognizes these connections,

and working with similarly situated others to stimulate change (Whittier, 2017;

Yu, 2011).

Some argue, however, that feminists are no longer politically effective. For

instance, bell hooks (2015) asserts that although contemporary feminists readily artic-

ulate their private troubles, they have lost the power analysis germane to understanding

the relationship between the personal and the political. Without a commitment to polit-

ical action, feminism loses its relevance (hooks, 2015). Building on hooks’insight, we

join others in arguing that there is a need for feminist criminologists to take up an inclu-

sive, intersectional, and anti-racist (IAR) feminist praxis that centers multiple forms of

inequality in scholarship and seeks greater accountability for manifestations of oppres-

sion both within and beyond academic spaces. In our discussion, we recognize the

pains associated with change and reject “comfort feminism,”a term that Dowler &

Bartos (2021) use to describe feminism that does not account for systems of oppression

like white supremacy.

We begin with an intellectual history of feminist criminology. This section exam-

ines pioneering conceptions of feminism and the relevance of feminism to criminol-

ogy and criminal justice (CCJ). We then consider the relationship between the

personal and political for the work and status of scholars of color and LGBTQIA

(which we refer to as queer and trans) scholars. We conclude by discussing how fem-

inists’perspectives on the personal and political need to evolve to incorporate anti-

racist, intersectional, and trans- and queer-inclusive orientations in criminological

work. We also discuss the feelings of discomfort we experienced as part of this

Rajah et al. 549