Cadence Kupfner (she/her) is a future public defender studying at the Law Center, where she is a student attorney in the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic, Co-President of Abolition Advocacy Project, and Co-President of the Disabled Law Students Association. Ever since her own arrest, she has been possessed by the project of human emancipation and haunted by the prevalence of government overreach.
Project: Shaming Women, Caging Men: The Permissible Limits of State Intervention to Combat Societal Harm
The United States government has historically employed gendered modalities to combat what government officials denounce as harmful: by moralizing behaviors more likely to be promulgated by women, and criminalizing behaviors more often undertaken by men. One need look no further than the contrast between societal responses to the sale of sex – which is dominated by women – and the sale of illegal drugs – which is dominated by men. Women and femme-presenting individuals who engage in sex work are subjected to more public shaming; men and masculine individuals who sell illegal drugs spend more time behind bars. This paper is meant to explore and explain that discrepancy; to question the productiveness of either form of social isolation; and to offer alternatives to this dichotomy which has become so deeply ingrained in our society.