Review
“In Abolition. Feminism. Now., Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie—four visionaries whose longstanding abolitionist work is inseparable from their feminist principles—brilliantly show how abolition feminism has always offered the radical tools we need for revolutionary change. Feminist approaches to the carceral regime reveal the connections between state violence and intimate violence, between prisons and family policing, and between local and global organizing. By illuminating the genealogy of anti-carceral feminism and its vital struggles against all carceral systems, the authors compel us to see the urgent necessity of abolition feminism now.” —Dorothy Roberts, author, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build A Safer World “In this powerful, wise and well-crafted book, filled with insight and provocation, Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie make it patently and abundantly clear why abolitionist feminism is necessary. Offering vivid snapshots from a political movement, the book explains how organizing to end violence without turning to violent institutions such as prisons and the police as remedies, is how we learn what we need to do to make change possible. Abolitionist feminists, they teach us, in taking up the slow, practical and painstaking work of campaigning, also expand our political horizons and create imaginative tools for world building. Attentive to histories of organising that are too quickly erased, and alive to new possibilities for working collectively in the present time, this book is as capacious and demanding as the abolitionist feminism it calls for. It gives us a name for what we want. Abolitionism. Now.” —Sara Ahmed, author of Willful Subjects “This little book is a massive offering on where we have been, where we are right now, and what we are imagining and organizing into being as abolition feminists. Breaking us out of every container and binary, Abolition. Feminism. Now. invites us to be in the complexity and contradictions of our humanity in the massive intersectional work of structural change. The ideas of abolition and feminism are rivers moving through us towards a liberated future which we can already feel existing within and between us. Invigorating and rooting, this text is instantly required reading, showing us how everything we have done and are doing is accumulating towards a post-punitive, transformative future - our lineage is bursting with brilliance! And we are prefiguring this possibility - wherever we are is a site of practice, a place where we are collectively becoming accountable to a justice infused with humanity, compassion and the belief that we can change. This book is a lineage of words and visuals, showing us the beauty of our efforts, and gently reminding us that we are not failing - we are learning, and we are changing.” —adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice “Neither manifesto nor blueprint for revolution, this extraordinary book makes the most compelling case I’ve ever seen for the indivisibility of feminism and abolition, for the inseparability of gendered and state violence, domestic policing and militarism, the street, the home, and the world. Combining decades of analytical brilliance and organizational experience, Davis, Dent, Meiners, and Richie offer a genealogy of the movements that brought us here, lessons learned, battles won and lost, and the ongoing collective struggle to build a thoroughly revolutionary vision and practice. A provocation, an incitement, an offering, an invitation to a difficult struggle to which we must all commit. Now.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination “This is the book we’ve all needed for a long, long time.” —Robyn Maynard, author of Policing Black Lives “Abolition. Feminism. Now. is a demand in every way. It pushes readers not to accept simple stories but to embrace complexity and new ways of thinking. But it is also a celebration of feminist agitators and freedom fighters who undermine the carceral state while building new sources safety, repair, and accountability. Of an ever-changing, growing, and evolving movement that puts survivors at the center of its analysis, not the periphery. And of a historic political struggle that considers freedom worth the fight. And, in the end, the authors make it clear that abolition feminism isn’t on its way; it’s already unfolding all around us.” —Nia T. Evans, Boston Review
About the Author
Angela Y. Davisis Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. An activist, writer, and lecturer, her work focuses on prisons, police, abolition, and the related intersections of race, gender, and class. She is the author of many books, fromAngela Davis: An AutobiographytoFreedom Is a Constant Struggle. Gina Dentis associate professor of feminist studies, history of consciousness, and legal studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the editor ofBlack Popular Culture, and lectures and writes on African diaspora literary and cultural studies, postcolonial theory, and critical area studies. Her current project “Visualizing Abolition” grows out of her work as an advocate for transformative and transitional justice and prison abolition. Erica R. Meinersis a professor of education and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Northeastern Illinois University. A writer, organizer, and educator, Meiners is the authorFor the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State, coauthor ofThe Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence, and a coeditor ofThe Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Toward Freedom. Beth E. Richieis Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, Professor of Black Studies and Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and author ofArrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation.
