I mainly just want to highlight this specific passage from Angela Davis's "Are Prisons Obsolete?"
In contrast to the nineteenth-century reform movement, which was grounded in an ideology of gender difference, late-twentieth-century "reforms" have relied on a "separate but equal" model. This "separate but equal" approach often has been applied uncritically, ironically resulting in demands for more repressive conditions in order to render women's facilities " equal" to men's. A clear example of this can be discovered in a memoir, The Warden Wore Pink, written by a former warden of Huron Valley Women's Prison in Michigan. During the 1980s, the author, Tekla Miller, advocated a change in policies within the Michigan correctional system that would result in women prisoners being treated the same as men prisoners. With no trace of irony, she characterizes as "feminist" her own fight for "gender equality" between male and female prisoners and for equality between male and female institutions of incarceration. One of these campaigns focuses on the unequal allocation of weapons, which she sought to remedy:
Arsenals in men's prisons are large rooms with shelves of shotguns, rifles, hand guns, ammunition, gas canisters, and riot equipment ... Huron Valley Women's arsenal was a small, five feet by two feet closet that held two rifles, eight shotguns, two bullhorns, five handguns, four gas canisters, and twenty sets of restraints.
It does not occur to her that a more productive version of feminism would also question the organization of state punishment for men as well and, in my opinion, would seriously consider the proposition that the institution as a whole - gendered as it is - calls for the kind of critique that might lead us to consider its abolition. Miller also describes the case of an attempted escape by a woman prisoner. The prisoner climbed over the razor ribbon but was captured after she jumped to the ground on the other side. This escape attempt occasioned a debate about the disparate treatment of men and women escapees. Miller's position was that guards should be instructed to shoot at women just as they were instructed to shoot at men. She argued that parity for women and men prisoners should consist in their equal right to be fired upon by guards. The outcome of the debate, Miller observed, was that
escaping women prisoners in medium or higher [security] prisons are treated the same way as men. A warning shot is fired. If the prisoner fails to halt and is over the fence, an officer is allowed to shoot to injure. If the officer's life is in danger, the officer can shoot to kill.
Paradoxically, demands for parity with men's prisons, instead of creating greater educational, vocational, and health opportunities for women prisoners, often have led to more repressive conditions for women. This is not only a consequence of deploying liberal- that is, formalistic- notions of equality, but of, more dangerous, allowing male prisons to function as the punishment norm. Miller points out that she attempted to prevent a female prisoner, whom she characterizes as a "murderer" serving a long term, from participating in graduation ceremonies at the University of Michigan because male murderers were not given such privileges. (Of course, she does not indicate the nature of the woman's murder charges-whether, for instance, she was convicted of killing an abusive partner, as is the case for a substantial number of women convicted of murder.) Although Miller did not succeed in preventing the inmate from participating in the commencement, in addition to her cap and gown, the prisoner was made to wear leg chains and handcuffs during the ceremony. This is indeed a bizarre example of feminist demands for equality within the prison system.
End quote. If you'd like to read the entire book, you can here: https://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Angela-Davis-Are_Prisons_Obsolete.pdf
I think this excerpt is quite relevant with Biden and Harris now in the White House, their histories with regards to criminal "justice", their response to both the BLM protests and the storming of the US capitol, the Democrats' push towards a sort of Patriot Act 2.0 and aggression towards China, and liberals' obsession with Biden/Harris's relationship with various identities. I've seen some people on here argue that the worst that can happen with a Biden presidency is simple stagnation, but his absolutely despicable history (and his apparent opposition to do anything about the destruction it's still causing) has been weighing on my mind a lot recently.
I was reminded recently of this section of the book from some comments here recently and people seemed interested when I brought it up. I originally had a much longer post but I don't have a lot to add, but maybe some interesting discussion can come from this.
As an addendum, here's a good video that used this passage as an example and reminded me of it: https://youtu.be/pzQZ_NDEzVo