In prison, the act of “lacing up” means you’re putting your shoes on and preparing for a fight. It’s effectively shorthand for: a fight is about to go down. There can be several reasons for fights in prison, but so many of them boil down to respect — letting others know you will not be pushed around.
For women supporting wrongfully incarcerated loved ones, this resonates. Brothers, lovers, husbands, sons. We go to war for these men every day. But on the outside, we are fighting for more than respect. We are fighting for our lives. Every morning when we wake up, we make a choice — a choice where worth and tenacity must be demonstrated again and again to a system too entrenched to change without pressure from the outside.
A Brief History of Corseting
As a woman, the concept of lacing up makes me think of corsets. One of my best friends introduced me to modern corseting when I began having back problems. Many people would argue it’s an antiquated practice. I was a skeptic too.
But corseting has real benefits: improved posture, reduced anxiety, improved body image. There is something fascinating and genuinely comforting about putting on a garment and sitting taller — like a beautiful coat of armor preparing you for battle.
In the corseting community, there is a practice called “stealthing.” Even the most vocal corset wearers do it: they wear their corsets hidden under regular clothing, and no one would ever know. The discipline and the armor are present — they’re just not announced.
As it is in advocacy work, sometimes it pays to be silent. Covertly pulling the strings, tying and tucking them away. Observing first, not letting the opposition know who just walked into the room. Taking notes on who is who. Recognizing the gaps in the armor, the places where a well-aimed shot can bring the whole thing down. When government entities are working against you, strategy is not optional — it is survival.
The Demand Women Cannot Afford to Accept
Within the wrongful conviction community, there is an ingrained, patriarchal expectation that women sacrifice themselves on their loved one’s altar. Support him. Be there for him. No matter the cost. Give until there is nothing left.
This is already coming at a tremendous price — to health, to careers, to financial stability, to children who need a present parent. Women supporting incarcerated loved ones are expected to raise children alone, keep phone cards paid, spend money on visits, pay for vending machine food, navigate communication systems designed to extract money from families at every step.
Judges, prosecutors, and corrections administrators implement policies that make it functionally impossible to maintain a relationship with an incarcerated spouse without sacrificing income, health, and attention that children need. The communication systems — JPay, Securus, Keefe — are built to profit from that obligation. The financial burden is not incidental. It is structural.
And many of the policymakers responsible know exactly what they are doing. They know the extra demands placed on incarceration-impacted families. They either do not care or actively benefit from the political optics of being “tough” while leaving families to absorb the real costs.
Society wants incarceration-impacted women to be silent. To shrink. To accept the conditions imposed on them as the price of loving someone the system has decided to punish. That is not a reasonable demand. It is not one that needs to be honored.
It’s Time to Lace Up
Some of us are louder and more confrontational in our advocacy. Others are quieter, more strategic — like stealthing. However we approach it, the decision to lace up is the same: a commitment to fight, to refuse to be bled dry, to demand that the system treat families as human beings rather than revenue streams and political props.
Incarceration-impacted women have every right to tell the Department of Corrections, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and every elected official responsible for this system that we are done accepting policies built on the assumption that we will absorb whatever damage is inflicted on us without complaint. That assumption is wrong. And we are going to keep proving it wrong.
We are taxpayers. These officials work for us. Every single one of them.
