Pussy Riot and feminist cultural criminology: a new ‘Femininity in Dissent’?

Abstract

This comment considers the mainstream, online Western news media’s reaction to the imprisonment of three members of the Russian feminist punk band, Pussy Riot, in August 2012. Of particular concern is the band’s style of feminist political protest; it argues that their case is of significance to feminist cultural criminology. Drawing on Young’s analysis of media censuring of feminist political protest as deviance, the contrasting, positive representation in this case of Pussy Riot as dissidents is explored. This positive representation can be understood with regard to Western geopolitical concerns, but also stresses the effectiveness of Pussy Riot in communicating their political message.

Keywords:

• cultural criminology
• dissent
• feminism
• media
• protest
• Pussy Riot

Notes

1. Translated on the Free Pussy Riot! website as ‘the private is political’.

2. Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp was established by a group of feminist women in 1981 outside the perimeter fence of the RAF Greenham Common Airbase in Berkshire, England. The women were protesting against the housing of 96 Cruise nuclear missiles at the base. The camp lasted until 2000, although was at its most high profile in the mid-1980s. At its peak, thirty thousand women lived in the camp. They staged anti-nuclear protest actions, such as cutting the airbase’s fence and lying down in front of arriving lorries. They also decorated the fence with artwork and slogans for peace.

3. Searches for stories and commentary specifically in response to the verdict were performed of the following news websites: CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Fox News, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, MailOnline, Reuters, ABC News, USA Today and BBC News. These were identified from the 15 most popular news websites in August 2012 listed on eBizMBA (2012), excluding news aggregation sites such as Yahoo News and Google News. This was so that a sense of the tenor of particular news sources could be gained. USA Today, Fox News and MSNBC websites carried Associated Press stories on the Pussy Riot verdict. Although the Fox and MSNBC cable news channels are avowedly conservative and liberal, respectively, their websites contained the same reports on the Pussy Riot verdict.

4. ‘Sixth form’ is an old-fashioned term for the final stages of English secondary schooling. It is equivalent to the American eleventh (junior) and twelfth (senior) grades of high school. To describe something as ‘sixth form’ implies it is juvenile and immature.