Lipstick, Lace, and Longing

Constructions of Femininity inside a Russian Prison

Bibliographic Data

ID4476345
AuthorsDominique Moran (0000-0002-6537-3591, University of Birmingham), Judith Pallot (0000-0003-1604-6858, School of Geography, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, England), Laura Piacentini (0000-0003-3817-6012, Strathclyde Law School, University of Strathclyde, Lord Hope Building, 141 St James Road, Glasgow G4 0LT, Scotland)
Year2009
Volume27
Issue4
Pages700-720
Publication date2009-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/d7808
OpenAlexW2124670205
LanguageEN
Citations received29
References cited31

This paper examines the construction of femininity within Russian women's prisons. On the basis of fieldwork carried out in three women's prisons in the secure and restricted penal zone within Mordovia, Russian Federation, we present unique and original qualitative data, as well as a critical engagement with contemporary Russian press sources. Starting from the assumption that the (free) female body is a particular target of Foucauldian disciplinary power, in that gender is a discipline which produces bodies and identities and operates as an effective form of social control, we examine the ways in which this disciplinary power of gender is compounded by bodily imprisonment. Criminal women are often considered not only to have broken the law but also to have offended against their culturally specific gender role expectations, and punishment applied to women prisoners is grounded not on what women are like, but on how women 'ought' to behave in a particular cultural context, with interventions coercing or persuading women to reintegrate into a recognisably 'feminine' form. We uncover Russia's exceptional and exclusionary geography of women's imprisonment, and rehabilitative and educational processes, including a beauty pageant, which seek to rescript criminal women toward a predetermined 'ideal' of Russian womanhood, and also explore the ways in which women seek to resist

Beauty · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Discipline · Femininity · Imprisonment · Political science · Power (physics · Prison · Social science · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Gender Studies · History · Law · Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies

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