Reconceptualizing Women's Agency
and Empowerment: Challenges to Self-Esteem Discourse and Women's Lawbreaking
Shoshana Pollack
ABSTRACT. This paper examines various understandings of "empowerment" and provides a critique of the way it is currently being adopted to describe the needs and experiences of women who break the law. Specifically, this paper examines the implications of a predominantly psychological notion of empowerment on how we conceive of women's agency and women's choices. In an effort to expand approaches to women's empowerment and women's agency beyond an individualistic analysis, the theoretical perspective of relational autonomy is suggested as an alternate way of understanding women's law-breaking. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: <getinfo@haworthpressinc.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress. com >]
KEYWORDS. Empowerment, women's empowerment, women's law-breaking
The notion of "empowerment" is now a commonly used concept within much of the human services literature (Young, 1994; Guitierrez et al., 1995; Browne, 1995; Townsend, 1998). Within the field of criminology empowerment discourse has also gained momentum, particularly in relation to women's lawbreaking (Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women; Sommers, 1995; McClellan, Farabee, & Crouch,
Shoshana Pollack is a doctoral candidate, Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto.
Women & Criminal Justice, Vol. 12(1) 2000 © 2000 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
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1997; Henriques and Jones-Brown, 1998). This paper examines various understandings of "empowerment" and provides a critique of the way it is currently being adopted to describe the needs and experiences of women who break the law. Specifically, this paper examines the implications of a predominantly psychological notion of empowerment on how we conceive of women's agency and women's choices. In an effort to expand approaches to women's empowerment and women's agency beyond an individualistic analysis, the theoretical perspective of relational autonomy is suggested as an alternate way of understanding women's lawbreaking.
NOTIONS OF EMPOWERMENT: INDIVIDUAL VERSUS SOCIAL
Within the social service literature there is little consistency in how the concept of "empowerment" is understood. As Iris Marion Young
(1994) states "every one is for it, but rarely do people mean the same thing by it" (48). In her review of the social work literature Browne
(1995) found three main ways that empowerment is understood. Perhaps the most common method of understanding empowerment is as a psychological quality that provides individuals with the feeling that they can control the direction of their lives (also see Townsend (1998) for critique of the limitations of this approach). A second way that empowerment is used refers to a set of practitioner skills that when correctly employed, lead to client empowerment. This notion of empowerment refers to the desired outcome or product of a social service intervention. A few authors add a social or community dimension to empowerment, claiming that individuals are empowered through sharing experiences, raising consciousness, collective action and advocacy (Browne, 1995:359). This empowerment model advocates for an equal distribution of material resources and often refers to legislative, policy and organizational changes as paths towards empowerment (Townsend, 1998:10).
Several authors have found that, with a few exceptions, most models of empowerment prioritize an individualistic or psychological notion of empowerment, thereby minimizing the importance of social influences and oppression (Young, 1994; Browne, 1995; Townsend, 1998). When empowerment is viewed as predominantly a psychological characteristic-as an individual's subjective sense that she can de-
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termine her own life's course-personal struggles risk becoming privatized and individualized. This is particularly problematic in terms of addressing the effects of oppression. Individualizing social issues can result in blaming individuals for problems that arise from being oppressed in various ways and may be further disempowering to them. As Townsend writes "we are victimizing unempowered individuals if we say that they alone are the makers of their misfortunes" (1998:10).
However, as both Young (1994) and Townsend (1998) point out, psychological and social aspects of empowerment need not be understood as mutually exclusive but rather as intimately related. The degree to which an individual experiences social conditions that are empowering inevitably influences the degree to which she possesses a sense of her own personal or psychological empowerment. Psychological empowerment, in turn, can influence an individual's ability to work towards changing her social circumstances. The relationship between social and personal empowerment is thus dynamic and reciprocal.
A further tension within this literature pertains to the relationship between the individual and the social and how individual agency is theorized within this context. An analysis that views individuals as inherently autonomous and self-determining is likely to favour an understanding of empowerment that is individualistic and psychological. This type of analysis will tend to view empowerment as residing within the individual herself and lead to services and policies that are thought to enhance her feelings of self-worth and autonomy. Conversely, perspectives that assume that an individual's autonomy is in large part determined by her social relationships and environment, are more likely to adopt a social or political analysis of empowerment, advocating social change and critical social reflection as methods of obtaining empowerment.
The tension inherent within the individual/social dichotomy can also be found in discussions about the experiences and needs of women who break the law. Generally, notions of empowerment adopted in this literature take an individualistic and psychological perspective. As a result of this perspective, there tends to be a heavy emphasis on women's self-esteem as the locus of psychological empowerment and personal responsibility. The following section discusses some of the problematic aspects within the self-esteem and empowerment discourse that currently frames many discussions about the needs of women who break the law.
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EMPOWERMENT, SELF-ESTEEM, AND WOMEN'S LAWBREAKING
Recent studies with women in prison have identified women's low self-esteem as a relevant factor in contributing to their lawbreaking behaviour (Prendergast et al., 1995; Gray et al., 1995; Carp and Schade, 1992; Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women, 1990; Chandler and Kassebaum, 1994). For example, A Canadian Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women makes an implicit link between women's lawbreaking behaviour and having low self-esteem. The Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women write:
Low self-esteem reduces a woman's ability to cope. It increases self-destructive behaviour ... It can contribute to violence against others. Low self-esteem reduces a person's ability to plan for the future, to take responsibility for her actions, and to believe she can make meaningful choices that will help her live with respect and dignity. (Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women, 1990:107)
It should be pointed out that this type of analysis is not exclusive to women in conflict with the law, but rather, has become part of a common social policy discourse. The idea that lack of self-esteem lies behind social problems is implicit in many programming and policy initiatives with a variety of client populations. Policy and programming for welfare recipients, pregnant teens, young offenders, abuse survivors and substance abusers have stated as their primary goals, strategies to empower participants and raise their self-esteem (Cruik-shank, 1993:331; Young, 1994). Some governmental social policies have also adopted the notion that low self-esteem is to be blamed for a myriad of social problems. For example, a California Task Force report states that:
Self-esteem is the likeliest candidate for a social vaccine, something that empowers us to live responsibly and that inoculates us against the lures of crime, violence, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, child abuse, chronic welfare dependency and educational failure, (quoted in Cruikshank, 1993:328)
This quote employs a disease metaphor for low self-esteem, some of the symptoms of which are crime, violence, use of welfare, lack of
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formal education, and addictions. The obvious "cure" to this disease are interventions aimed at improving individual morale and feelings of self-worth. The fact that many people within the United States and Canada are denied opportunities and resources, live in poverty, and experience racial and sexual oppression, does not find space in this analysis of the causes and cures for social problems.
One of the problems with linking low self-esteem so directly with women's criminal behaviour is that it decontextualizes women from the social and political parameters of their lives. This type of approach individualizes the experiences of women in conflict with the law by locating the cause of lawbreaking within women's psychology. As such, forms of oppression such as racism, classism and sexism are ignored and escape being understood as contributing factors in the lives of women in conflict with the law. Instead, the problem and the solution to the problem, lie within the individual woman herself.
The following section discusses in greater detail two problematic aspects of self-esteem discourse as it relates to women's lawbreaking.
PSYCHOLOGIZING WOMEN'S CRIME
During the recent years there have been many developments in understanding the gender biases inherent within the criminal justice and legal systems (Heidensohn, 1985; Smart, 1995) the gendered nature of criminology as an academic field itself (Rafter & Heidensohn, 1995) and some of the gendered causes and influences on women's lawbreaking and criminalization (Adelberg & Currie, 1987; Arnold, 1990; Daly, 1992; Gilfus, 1992; Faith, 1993; Richie, 1996). One of the significant contributions feminist criminologists have made towards better conceptualizing women's lawbreaking is in acknowledging and exposing the world of violence in which many women who find themselves incarcerated have lived. By exposing this violence we have been able to provide a context, a social meaning, for how and why some women themselves are also violent or violate socially sanctioned legal behaviour.
However, one of the less positive outcomes of this progress has been an increasing emphasis on the psychological effects of abuses and violence against women. We have seen this in the development of the Battered Women's Syndrome which, while originally aimed at contextualizing women's actions in cases where women have killed
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their abusers and at exposing the seriousness of the effects of male violence on women, became through the discourse of therapy and psychology, a type of female mental illness. In a sense, the violent actions of a woman are made somehow palatable if we can understand her behaviour as a result of mental instability rather than as a self-pre-serving and rational response to life threatening circumstances.
Similarly, feminist researchers and activists have documented and exposed the fact that well over the majority of women in prisons have experienced childhood physical and sexual abuse in addition to violence in their adult relationships with men (Shaw, 1995:125). Again, this is an important and necessary contribution towards better understanding the social contexts from which many women come and the possible relationship these experiences have on women's lawbreaking behaviour. One of the things that tends to happen, however, is that rather than exposing the context or actions that resulted in a victimizing experience, this experience is sometimes turned into a victim identity. Typically, qualities associated with being a victim are dependency, passivity, weakness, and low self-esteem. Thus women's identity becomes reified as that of victim.
In terms of women in prison, many of whom have survived sexual/ physical victimization, low self-esteem has been termed, in correctional lexicon, as a "criminogenic need." A criminogenic need is a factor deemed to be directly related to a woman's reason for committing her crime. Thus, raising a woman's self-esteem is considered an important part of reducing her risk for recidivism. Programs are developed within women's prisons, generally under the rubric of "empowerment" programming, to help lift women's self-esteem. Again, this notion of "empowerment" is not only an oxymoron within a prison setting, but is also very individualistic. Prison programs premised on these notions of self-esteem reflect the idea that one can feel empowered even if one is not empowered.
I recently interviewed a woman in prison who was charged with importing narcotics, as part of the research for my doctoral dissertation. This doctoral research examined the relationship between mar-ginalization and lawbreaking, with a focus on issues of autonomy. When talking about one of the programs this woman was mandated to take she said: "I don't have low self-esteem just because I did this. I love myself, that's why I did this. I wanted money that's why I did this." This particular woman related her refusal to live in poverty as
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"loving herself"; as in fact, taking steps to ensure that she would not succumb to the assaults on self-esteem that being black and poor can bring.
An exclusively individualistic and psychological model of understanding women's crime, then, risks obscuring the social conditions and contexts, such as sexism, racial marginalization, and poverty, that may impact on the reasons some women break the law. It also ignores the ways in which gender oppression intersects with racial and class oppression, an intersection that compounds and complicates the experience of being, for example, female, poor and of colour. In addition, this perspective simplifies approaches to crime control, social policy and programming, by locating the sole cause of women's criminal behaviour within her own psyche. As such, it allows social inequities, including violence against women and children, to go unscrutinised, unchallenged and thus unchanged. And lastly, a further problem with the reification of a victim identity, as many feminist theorists have pointed out, is that it denies the possibility of women acting as agents (Shaw, 1995: 120; Kendall, 1994:5; Hannah-Moffat, 1997).
INDIVIDUALISTIC NOTION OF AGENCY
Another problematic aspect of the individualizing nature of self-esteem discourse relates to the way that women's agency tends to get conceptualized within the psychological paradigm. One of the difficulties with conceptualizing victimization and women's responses to it, is that within Western liberal thought the concept of victim and the concept of agent are seen as mutually exclusive (Mahoney, 1994:64; Abrams, 1995:363). That is, in traditional concepts of autonomy and the individual, one is either a victim or an agent. This dichotomy poses problems for understanding both women's victimization experiences and for conceptualizing women's agency. In terms of understanding victimization, this dichotomy renders women's active attempts to resist, cope with or stop abuse and other oppression invisible. In terms of understanding women's agency, the notion that agency is incompatible with victimization can render invisible the oppressive contexts in which many women are acting. As Martha Mahoney writes:
In our society, agency and victimization are each known by the absence of the other: you are an agent if you are not a victim,
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and you are a victim if you are in no way an agent. In this concept, agency does not mean acting for oneself under conditions of oppression; it means being without oppression, either having ended oppression or never having experienced it at all. (1994:64)
Feminist theorists across academic disciplines have challenged and redefined dominant notions of what it means to be an agent; that is, they have challenged the idea that an agent is one who is not oppressed, who is not victimized, by exposing some of the ways in which women act as agents under oppression (Hoagland, 1988; Abrams, 1995; Mahoney, 1994; Austin, 1995; Richie, 1996).
However, in some feminist and non-feminist works discussions about the social aspects of women's victimization are often superceded by a therapeutic discourse that focuses on the psychological aspects of being abused. Within this psychological paradigm the concept of women's agency also becomes individualized. This is particularly evident within discussions about incarcerated women (Sommers, 1995; Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women, 1990; McClellan et al., 1997; Henriques and Jones-Brown, 1998). The notion of agency has come to refer to an internal or psychological quality from which a woman derives a sense or feeling that she can function as an autonomous, self-determining individual. It is self-esteem that provides her with this feeling. Low self-esteem is understood as a feeling that one is not empowered to make positive choices and direct the course of one's life; that is, a sense that one is not capable of being an agent. The problem with this approach is that by adopting a notion of agency that is only subjective or psychological, one ignores or denies the fact that there are many interpersonal, systemic and structural obstacles that impede women's abilities to function as agents in their lives. Although possessing a healthy dose of self-esteem may assist some women in coping with various aspects of life, this does little to address the realities of social, economic and political marginalization. When this perspective is applied to women in conflict with the law, the further implication in this analysis is that feelings of disempowerment, rather than actual disempow-erment, lead to women's lawbreaking behaviour.
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RELATIONAL AUTONOMY: TOWARD AN ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING WOMEN'S AGENCY, VICTIMIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT
Equating victimization experiences with a victim identity perpetuates the notion "once a victim always a victim" and reifies women's personality as weak, passive and helpless. One of the ramifications of victim identity discourse is that the site of inquiry becomes the victim herself-her behaviour and her psyche are viewed as the "cause" of her criminal activity. The reification of a victim identity fits nicely into an increasingly familiar discourse that denies women's agency if she experiences victimization, and denies victimization if she experiences agency (Mahoney, 1994:64), thereby excluding the possibility of a dynamic between them.
In contrast, a definition that describes victimization as a dimension of experience, rather than as an individual identity, might circumvent the problem of reifying the experience of victimization into a permanent state. Moreover, such a conceptualization would shift the focus from the individual to the social conditions that produce victimizing experiences. Understanding victimization as a dimension of experience might allow us to focus upon the social conditions, rather than the individual, as a site of investigation.
Furthermore, understanding victimization as a dimension of experience provides space for the possibility of women's agency. Our concept of agency needs to be redefined and moved beyond an individual analysis via the language of self-esteem and personal empowerment. It might better be understood as comprised of two aspects-an individual sense, which might be termed subjective agency and an external condition, or political agency. Political agency, the opportunity for effecting change in women's lives, provides the context in which subjective agency evolves. Notions about women's agency should not be limited to subjective agency but should also incorporate an analysis of the ways that limited political agency (due to race, sexuality, class and gender oppression) circumscribe women's lives and of women's active responses to these limitations. This analysis helps to highlight the effect of social conditions upon women's identity, experiences, and choices thereby exposing inequities, not low self-esteem, as a significant influence in lawbreaking.
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The concept of "relational autonomy" (Nedelsky, 1989; Sherwin, 1998) provides a helpful theoretical framework in which to explore the space between women's victimization and oppression and women's active responses to these conditions, and in so doing helps to dislodge the victim/agent dichotomy. Relational autonomy counters the liberal notion of personhood that views autonomy as an inherent quality of all individuals, regardless of social location. This theory argues that individuals, by virtue of living within social contexts in which material resources, safety, relationships, and opportunities are inequitably structured, must develop autonomy. Although all individuals possess the "capacity" to be autonomous, this capacity is either fostered or undermined through various types of relationships (Nedelsky, 1989:24-25). As stated above, I have made a distinction between subjective and political agency in order to examine the social and political context in which subjective agency develops. In other words, this distinction was made in an effort to make space for an exploration of a dynamic between subjective and political agency. Nedelsky writes that:
To be autonomous a person must feel a sense of her own power (which does not mean power over others), and that feeling is only possible within a structure of relationships conducive to autonomy. (1989:24-25)
Thus, relationships are central to this analysis of how one experiences and develops subjective and political agency.
I am using a definition of relational autonomy that attends to both interpersonal and political relationships. Attending to political relationships allows space to analyse how oppression interferes with the opportunities and the ability for individuals to exercise autonomy. As Sherwin (1998) states, this conception of autonomy highlights the fact that:
. . . material restrictions, including very restricted economic resources, on-going fear of assault, and lack of educational opportunity (i.e., the sorts of circumstances that are often part of the condition of being oppressed), constitute real limitations on the options available to the agent. (1998:37)
This perspective on relational autonomy subjects "the society, not just the agent" (Sherwin, 1998:37) to critical scrutiny and reflection. It
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examines the individual's relationship to power structures, laws, policies and dominant ideologies as well as her access to educational opportunities, material resources and safety. Autonomy is thus understood as being either fostered or enhanced by one's relationship to sources of political and social resources and power.
A further significance of relational autonomy is the implication it has for how we conceive of choice. Sherwin writes that the centrality of social conditions in a relational theory of autonomy helps make visible "the impact of oppression on a person's choices" (Sherwin, 1998:33). This conception of autonomy:
. . . has the advantage of allowing us to avoid the trap of focussing on the flaws of the individual who is choosing under oppressive circumstances . . . for it is able to recognize that such choices can be reasonable for the agent. Instead, it directs our attention to the conditions that shape the agent's choice and makes those conditions the basis of critical analysis (italics added). (Sherwin, 1998:33)
Relational autonomy acknowledges that even under conditions of oppression individuals function as agents; they make choices. It is the conditions that circumscribe and delineate the options and nature of the choices, that relational theory allows us to examine. This distinction emphasizes the scope and nature of available choices, rather than focussing exclusively on the particular decision.
This is not to say that there is no place for assisting women to heal from and better understand the effects of abuse on their lives, including the impact it might have had on their self-esteem. For, of course, there is. I am suggesting however, that in terms of a broader conceptualization of how and why women come into conflict with the law, the self-esteem and victimization paradigm relies too much on the individualization of social problems. An alternative analysis such as the theoretical framework offered by relational autonomy, that theorizes the impact of oppression on women's choices, identities, and actions helps to avoid a purely psychological approach to women's lawbreak-ing. Within this paradigm, there is room for both an analysis of the impact of oppression and of how women respond to it.
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IMPLICATIONS OF RELATIONAL AUTONOMY FOR WOMEN'S PRISON PROGRAMMING
There are several implications that this interpretation of relational autonomy has for women's prison programming and policy. The notion of empowerment that relational autonomy reflects is one that recognizes the social aspects of disempowerment and adopts such concepts as "participatory democracy, critical self-reflection, and collective action" (Young, 1994:50).
This definition of empowerment acknowledges the social em-beddedness of individual experiences and advocates for the equitable distribution of resources, collective support and advocacy, the provision of information and education, freedom from violence, and increased access to sources of institutional power (Browne, 1995: 362-363).
With any programming that aims to "empower" women within an institution, the punitive and involuntary nature of the setting limits the feasibility of any true efforts at increasing autonomy. Nonetheless, relational autonomy does point to some directions that may move somewhat away from the current individualistic approaches to programming.
One implication pertains to the relationship between program facilitators and program participants. The inherent power imbalances between prison workers and prisoners present challenges to the provision of empowerment programming. For example, Sherwin, paraphrasing Babbitt (1993; 1996), writes that increased autonomy comes from the "making of choices that are not influenced by the wishes of those who dominate them" (Sherwin, 1998:37). One method of increasing women's autonomy in prison and providing opportunities to develop skills and gain support is through the use of peer support groups. These groups have been found to be an effective means of increasing feelings of self-worth, promoting change in women's individual lives, and involving women in some form of collective action (Boudin, 1998:107-108). In addition, non-professional peer groups help to create an autonomous space for women in prison (Boudin, 1998:122) and may also provide an infrastructure for advocacy and support within the prison setting (Pollack, 1993).
Another implication relates to the importance of enhancing community links. Relational autonomy presupposes the capacity for self-determination but requires that individuals be given the opportunity to
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exercise this capacity. Such opportunities are rare in prison and can be provided by fostering connections with community resources. Programming that emphasises community links through job skill training and apprenticeships and provision of educational material offer such opportunities. Community linkages are particularly important given that prison dramatically increases isolation and disconnection from community support and may aggravate many of the problems, such as inadequate employment opportunities, that women had prior to imprisonment.
In terms of more therapeutic programming, such as trauma and addictions counselling, relational autonomy points to the importance of uncovering the impact that trauma and substance abuse has on women's sense of themselves as autonomous agents. It also points to the significance of bringing forth the many ways that women have functioned as agents, despite limited opportunities and/or limited belief in themselves as agents. These approaches, particularly in a group format with women who share common experiences, provide a space for critical reflection on the "social sources of individual pain" (Young, 1994:52).
These are all of course short term suggestions for addressing what are fundamentally a result of lack of opportunities, safety and resources for many women. Nonetheless, within the limitations of a women's prison, there are some programmatic opportunities for providing a challenge to individualistic/psychological approaches and the liberal conception of autonomy and agency that underlie them.
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