Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/30780
The major newsweeklies wouldn’t put Nancy Pelosi on their covers, but Ms. proudly did. ies minor in college, I always felt that there was an unnecessary dichotomy between leadership and feminist scholarship on my campus. Young women should be given the tools and the confidence to take what they’ve learned and apply those prin- ciples to anything and everything that they do. The gender gap will not be bridged, nor social justice achieved, if young feminists feel that it is more desirable to remain amidst circles of like-minded thinkers, or if they lack the skills or the encouragement to in- sert themselves into communities, companies or organizations where their ideas are most needed. —Karyn Bruggeman San Francisco WISDOM BEHIND BARS I read your Winter 2011 Backtalk column [“Behind Bars,” by Donna Brazile] with extreme interest and complete agreement. Presently I reside at the Beacon Correctional Facility, a minimum-level-security prison for women. While Beacon is the least oppressive women’s prison in the New York State Department of Correctional Services, there still are multiple problems here that men are unlikely to encounter when they are imprisoned. The criminal justice system fails women at the very onset of a criminal investigation. Poor minority women are less likely to have the stable living situations judges prefer when releas- ing a defendant on her own recogni- zance. What judges fail to realize is that even $500 bail is insurmountable to many of these women. Thirty days in county jail between the arraign- ment and initial court appearance of- ten is enough time for children to become embedded in the foster-care system, for apartments and all her personal possessions to be lost, for desperation to segue to despair. Once in prison, there is a marked difference in the number of programs www.msmagazine.com available to men and women. Since men have more programs available, they have more opportunities to make parole sooner. Then there is the chronic harassment [in prison]. Many women are accustomed to giving up pieces of themselves—trading their integrity for survival—and that dy- namic continues in prison. I confess I believed anyone in prison must be a terrible person be- fore I came here. I have used this time to heal the pieces of myself that were shredded by years of being a person who lived to please others. Ms. has had a tremendous impact on me. My heart did a little jump when I read this column. Thank you so much for not forgetting your sis- ters behind the razor wire. —Stacy Lyn Burnett Beacon Correctional Facility Beacon, NY I have been here at York Correctional Institution for slightly more than three years and I can attest to the truth in all of Donna Brazile’s points. She speaks of “daily realities and degrada- tions” of prison life; one of the most prominent I witness here is misogynis- tic name-calling of the inmates. Guards routinely refer to inmates as “bitches,” “whores,” “crack whores” and “sluts.” When this is…reported as [abuse], inmates have no proof that the guards made these comments. In the house that consequences-for-one’s- actions built, these guards walk away consequence-free. This is not to say that the same guards do not suffer derogatory name-calling; they do. Those inmates usually are, and always should be, is- sued a disciplinary report for their behavior because it, too, is abusive. These reports, or “tickets,” are met with instant credence; there is no is- sue of necessary proof or he said/she said analysis. —Chandra Bozelko York Correctional Institution Niantic, CT Editors’ note: You can donate a gift membership to the Ms. magazine Prison and Domestic Violence Shelter Program at http://store.msmagazine.com/donate msmembershipstowomeninneed.aspx. STALKED BY CELL PHONE I have always believed life would be better without some technology devices such as cell phones. “High- Tech Stalking” [Winter 2011] has just given me another reason to dislike them. I was extremely disgusted by the idea that something that should be used as a tool of protection would be used as a tool of intimidation. —Itzel Hernández Lane Tech High School Chicago AFGHAN SISTERS RISING I sponsor a woman in Afghanistan through the Women for Women organization. I found that the article “Afghan Women Rising” by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon [Fall 2010] was very helpful in picturing the life of my “sister.” With this month’s letter to her I have sent the article. I hope she is as pleased with it as I was. —Dinah Utah Casper, WY SPRING 2011 | 7