Identity, Strategy, and Feminist Politics: Clemency for Battered Women Who Kill

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of activism by feminists in the Ohio battered women's movement on the decision by Governor Richard Celeste to grant clemency to 26 women who were incarcerated for killing or assaulting abusive intimate partners or stepfathers. Drawing on post-modern, critical, and feminist critiques oftheories of liberal democracy, I expand the definition of activism and identify the strategy and tactics used by feminists in this movement. I find that feminists used their careers and personal relationships to establish consciousness raising groups in prison. Through these newly created democratic spaces, they established a social movement community within the women's prison and expanded incarcerated battered women's access to authorities and the public. I conclude by discussing how feminists created an opportunity structure that resulted in clemency, and I suggest strategies and tactics social movements will need to consider in political and cultural settings hostile to their goals and constituents.