As an expat from the so-called Land of the Free (another nice example for distinguishing names from descriptions), I mostly feel pretty good about living in the UK. But then I learn of the reforms being contemplated to murder law. The reforms themselves are thoroughly good– not allowing one to get away with light charges for murdering one’s partner by claiming “provocation” (where this means things like nagging, teasing, or having an affair); and allowing victims of domestic violence who kill their abusers to claim self-defense. (Note that being beat up repeatedly does not count as provocation.) But oh, how sad that these reforms are yet to be made. (In the US, I assume, some states are worse and some states better than this.)
Deadly crush continued… June 7, 2008
Readers may remember the Iraqi teenager who was beaten to death by her father for having a crush on a British soldier (- see this post). It has now emerged that her mother - Leila Hussein - has been shot dead after denouncing and divorcing her husband for their daughter’s murder. Leila Hussein received support from a small NGO in Basra who campaign for women’s rights. They were trying to smuggle her to safety in Jordan when she was shot. People involved in the organisation regularly receive death threats, and some have been killed. Here is the Guardian report.
Silencing and Forced Marriage March 28, 2008
A deeply depressing story. 12 year old Ruksana complained to UK police when her parents said they were going to force her into an unwanted marriage. They came to her house to discuss it with the whole family, and told her not to worry– thus alerting her parents that she had talked to the police, whereupon they moved her elsewhere. She complained again, with a similar response, and eventually was forced into a marriage, forced out of education, and raped. As she says:
“White kids can call Childline and they get listened to - but for Asian children it’s thought of as wrong to complain.”
Ruksana is, however, hopeful (let’s hope she’s right):
Because of the publicity about forced marriages I think they would take you a bit more seriously now.
For the nerds among you, there’s arguably both locutionary and perlocutionary silencing going on indicated in Ruksana’s first quote. Asians don’t think they should complain (locutionary), and they aren’t taken seriously when they do (perlocutionary). Depending your views on felicity conditions for complaining, there may also be illocutionary silencing going on. For a quick intro to these silencing issues, see here. (Thanks, Jender-Parents!)
Women in Kosovo March 15, 2008
Women in newly independent Kosovo face serious problems, despite having some excellent laws apparently on the books.
A United Nations study in 2000 estimated that one-fourth of the female population of Kosovo suffered physical or psychological abuse; Kosovo police last year recorded 1,077 cases of domestic violence…Like much of the surrounding, rugged Balkans, Kosovo has long served as a notorious transit point for the international trafficking of women, mostly from Eastern Europe, who are forced into prostitution or slavery.
After a brutal crackdown by Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, Kosovo came under the stewardship of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations. During the years since, Kosovo evolved from a transit point into both a source of and destination for trafficked women. Often, Kosovo officials and former guerrilla commanders were complicit in the lucrative trade — and the resident international community, including peacekeepers and civilian consultants, its market.
Problems have been exacerbated by the violence and dislocations of war:
Roughly half of Kosovo’s generally young population is out of work; the World Bank and other experts believe it could take a decade to dramatically reduce unemployment. Poverty strains Kosovo’s families, which tend to be large. Add to that the dislocations of war: Thousands of people were killed and entire villages razed, their residents forced to move to urban areas. There, many live in cramped conditions, disoriented, unsettled in an unfamiliar environment.
The article draws attention to an interesting contrast between pre-war and post-war conditions for women:
Women used to be relegated to restrictive lives at home, guarded behind the high-walled compounds that traditionally housed extended ethnic Albanian families, or clans. It wasn’t freedom, but it was out of the reach of outside exploitation. Traffickers brought women from elsewhere, such as Moldova and Romania, initially to be shuttled to Italy or other parts of Europe and, after the war, to remain in Kosovo to “service” a growing international population.
Eventually, more and more Kosovo women, ripped from their traditional home life, also fell prey to traffickers and found themselves lured by promises of work, marriage or their own cellphone, only to end up in seedy bars, strip joints and brothels.
This, taken on its own, may seem like the article is minimising the problems faced by women within their own households. But it isn’t– significant attention is devoted to domestic violence (rather than “outside exploitation”), and one victim in particularly is profiled with depressing vividness.
Still, at least some advocates are hopeful of change:
Igballe Rogova, head of the Kosova Women’s Network, an umbrella coalition of about 40 groups, said she was hopeful the government, with the independence issue more or less settled, could put into practice laws that exist on paper.
“Today we have really incredibly good mechanisms on gender equality,” she told a European Parliament committee on women’s issues in Brussels late last month. “We have a law on gender equality, we have an office on gender equality at the prime minister level and, in every ministry, gender equality officers. We are not happy with the implementation of these mechanisms, but we are very optimistic.”
Sherifa said laws grant women the rights to own and inherit property on the same terms as men. But it often does not happen that way.
For the full article, go here. If you’d like to learn more about the Kosova Women’s Network, go here. (Thanks, Shelley, for alerting us to this important story.)
Bob Herbert: Politics and Mysogyny January 16, 2008
Gender issues are suddenly in the news, and Bob Herbert is wondering where we’ve all been. As in, could people in the US possibly just be beginning to think about these issues? If so, what’s the big deal?
If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media, it’s the dark persistence of misogyny in America. Sexism in its myriad destructive forms permeates nearly every aspect of American life. For many men, it’s the true national pastime, much bigger than baseball or football.
The pervasive violence against women is not even reported as revealing the mysogyny:
The cable news channels revel in stories about women (almost always young and attractive) who come to a gruesome end at the hands of violent men. The stories seldom, if ever, raise the issue of misogyny, which permeates not just the crimes themselves, but the coverage as well.
The media is perfectly aware that there are hate crimes that occur against racial and sexual minorities, even if its record of accurate reporting leaves much to be desired. But crimes against women don’t seem to count as hate crimes, Herbert is telling us.
We’ve become so used to the disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous and even violent treatment of women that we hardly notice it. Staggering amounts of violence are unleashed against women and girls every day. Fashionable ads in mainstream publications play off of that violence, exploiting themes of death and dismemberment, female submissiveness and child pornography.
If we’ve opened the door to the issue of sexism in the presidential campaign, then let’s have at it. It’s a big and important issue that deserves much more than lip service.
Given the mysogyny that so many women face every day, let’s forget about who’s playing the gender card. What is much more important is that a wise parent may well feel that girls need to be brought up to be wary and fearful.
16 Days November 25, 2007
Today, 25 November, is the first day of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.
The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.
The International Red Cross is one of many groups to be a part of this campaign. One of their initiatives is to give a voice to women who are suffering from violence.
The IRC is in war zones around the world, helping many thousandsof women and girls every day. We know they have much to say andwe know how easily their voices are lost, so we’re working withwriter, photographer and long-time women’s advocate Ann Jones togive them an opportunity to speak, loudly and clearly.With digital cameras, women who have survived conflict,displacement, discrimination, sexual and domestic violencevividly document their own lives. Through these personalphotographs, stirring portraits are revealed and women cometogether to tell stories of strength, reclaim their rights andmake their voices heard.Be a part of this powerful exchange, which begins tomorrow,November 25th to kick off “16 Days of Action against GenderViolence.” Over the course of the 16 Days, you’ll be inspired bythe extraordinary changes these brave women make with the boldclicks of their cameras.Just sign up for our 16 Days e-mail list, and on each of thosedays you’ll get a special e-mail with one woman’s photo, anamazing story and a chance to add your own voice. Afterward,you’ll get occasional updates from Ann and the IRC about newstories, IRC programs empowering women, and the many ways YOUcan help.
To sign up for the IRC 16 Days list go here. Thanks, Jender-Parents!
Awareness November 1, 2007
Cara has an excellent post on Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Domestic Violence Awareness Month, both October. Yet somehow the breasts get all the attention. And, as Cara points out, it’s not necessarily the right kind of attention.
When was the last time you saw awareness of prostate or testicular cancer accompanied by photos of bulging pant fronts or hot guys in their underwear? Hopefully never. How screwed up are we that we will objectify women’s body parts even when those parts are harboring a grave illness?
She also points out that black women and older women, who are most likely to die from the disease, are not much noticed in these campaigns.
How far gone are we that we will ignore the bulk of victims — black women and women over 50 — to create a marketable story? Do we really only care about women’s health when we get to look at thin young white women while talking about it? How do “ideal” perceptions of sexiness and womanhood permeate even this?
Really useful and interesting reflections on what is reported, which fit nicely into discussions of how knowledge is created.
Document the Silence TODAY October 31, 2007
Go grab something red to wear to show your support for ending the silence about violence against women of colour (especially if you’re in the US). And check out this website for more things to do.
Document the Silence: 31 October October 26, 2007
The Document the Silence Project aims to end the lack of attention to crimes of violence against women of color in the US. They have an important event coming up on October 31, and I’d urge you to participate:
Recent events in the United States have moved us to action. Violence against women is sadly, not a new phenomenon in our country or in the world, however, in the last year women of color have experienced brutal forms of violence, torture, rape and injustice which have gone unnoticed, received little to no media coverage, or a limited community response. We are responding to:
The brutal and inhumane rape, torture, and kidnapping of Megan Williams in Logan, West Virginia who was held by six assailants for a month.
Rape survivors in the Dunbar Housing Projects in West Palm Beach, Florida one of whom was forced to perform sexual acts on her own child.
A 13 year old native American girl was beaten by two white women and has since been harassed by several men yelling “white power” outside of her home
Seven black lesbian girls attempted to stop an attacker and were latter charged with aggravated assault and are facing up to 11 year prison sentences
In a Litany of Survival, Audre Lorde writes, “When we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.” These words shape our collective organizing to break the silence surrounding women of color’s stories of violence. We are asking for community groups, grass-root organizations, college campus students and groups, communities of faith, online communities, and individuals to join us in speaking out against violence against women of color. If we speak, we cannot be invisible.
Join us and stand up to violence against women!
Be bold, be brave, be red. Wear red on October 31, 2007. Take a picture or video of yourself and friends wearing red. Send it to: beboldbered@gmail.com. We’ll post it!
Take Your Red to the Streets! Know of a location where violence occurred against a woman of color? Have a public location where you feel women of color are often ignored? Make violence against women of color visible by decorating the space in red. Be sure to send us pictures and or video of your display!
Rally! Gather your friends, family, and community to rally. Check out the Document the Silence website for the litany we’re asking participants to read together on October 31st. Be sure to send us pictures and/or video of the event! You could even gather where you created a display!
For more Information on how to Host a RED Rally, please click on the page “How to Host a Red Rally.”
Share your story of silence. Share your own story of silence by uploading it to the Document the Silence website (http://documentthesilence.wordpress.com/). You can send a story in any form you’d like – as a written statement, video clip, movie, documentary, or visual art.
For more information, go here.
Rape in Congo October 7, 2007
There’s an important and horrifying story in the NY Times on systematic rape by militias in the Congo, which seems to be on an even greater scale than such rape elsewhere.
No one — doctors, aid workers, Congolese and Western researchers — can explain exactly why this is happening.“That is the question,” said André Bourque, a Canadian consultant who works with aid groups in eastern Congo. “Sexual violence in Congo reaches a level never reached anywhere else. It is even worse than in Rwanda during the genocide.”
Some suggest that these rapes have led to wider tolerance for violence against women in Congolese society.
While rape has always been a weapon of war, researchers say they fear that Congo’s problem has metastasized into a wider social phenomenon.“It’s gone beyond the conflict,” said Alexandra Bilak, who has studied various armed groups around Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu. She said that the number of women abused and even killed by their husbands seemed to be going up and that brutality toward women had become “almost normal.”
But why should Congo have such a horrific epidemic of brutal rape by soldiers?
Impunity may be a contributing factor, Mr. Bourque added, saying that very few of the culprits are punished.Many Congolese aid workers denied that the problem was cultural and insisted that the widespread rapes were not the product of something ingrained in the way men treated women in Congolese society. “If that were the case, this would have showed up long ago,” said Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu.Instead, she said, the epidemic of rapes seems to have started in the mid-1990s. That coincides with the waves of Hutu militiamen who escaped into Congo’s forests after exterminating 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda’s genocide 13 years ago.Mr. Holmes said that while government troops might have raped thousands of women, the most vicious attacks had been carried out by Hutu militias.“These are people who were involved with the genocide and have been psychologically destroyed by it,” he said.
Thanks, Mr Jender, for the depressing but important link.
More Good News September 27, 2007
Some companies are setting up programs to help employees in abusive relationships. Good for them! (Thanks Jender-Parents, bringers of good news.)
From abuse to murder September 17, 2007
As we think about addressing the leniency abusive men have gotten, it is worth reminding ourselves that men who murder their wives are not fine blokes having a really bad day. Pendagon has a review of Why Do They Kill?: Men Who Murder Their Intimate Partners by David Adams. As feminists have long realized, murder of a women by her partner is not done by a basically good person who just snapped. Without exception, the men studied had a history of using violence to gain control, and a lack of control was met with escalating violence.The fact that murder occurs within a history of violence does not show that violence will lead to murder. But it gives us a very different context for seeing domestic violence, one that locates it squarely in pervasive attitudes:
across the board Adams paints a picture of men who feel that women are their property and who try to control their property through violence.
The picture of violence as coming from the perpetrators’ objectification of their partners provides an alternative to the judge’s view that it was the circumstances of the marriage that had provoked Colin Read and that now those circumstances had gone, sending him to prison would “help no one”. Pendagon’s reviewer reports that the book is well worth reading. One other interesting facet is what comes out about the victims, who are realists dealing with an impossible situation:
the women mostly report staying in the relationship out of a rational fear that their abusers would try to kill them or family members if they left.
Domestic Violence Sentencing: What To Do September 17, 2007
Remember those posts (linked below)on the pathetically lenient domestic violence sentencing in the UK? I’ve been trying various avenues to figure out who to complain to, and I’ve finally met with some success. The Sentencing Guidelines Secretariat has responded to my letter, and they say that they are undertaking a review of domestic violence sentencing in light of all the negative publicity. I’m sure a little more pressure on them would be a good thing, so I urge you to email them, as I did. the For ease of writing, Colin Read is the man fined £2000 for burning his wife with an iron and slashing her with a knife; and Stuart Brown is the one fined £500 for puncing his wife at least 24 times. Even if you’re not in the UK, please do write– the government needs to be made aware that this is an international embarrassment.
More on Prosperity, Sex Selection and Language August 26, 2007
Jender relayed the dismal news that sex selective abortions have risen with the rise in prosperity in India. According to a report in MS, there may also be a mitigating trend.
Cable television may promote gender equality and reduce domestic violence in rural India, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper. Women who were exposed to cable television over a 6- to 7-month period in India were less likely to report a preference for sons or complacency with domestic violence, and more likely to report autonomy in household decision-making, according to the working paper. In addition, more girls enrolled in school and fertility rates dropped.
The NBER working paper, based on surveys conducted in 2,700 households in the years 2001, 2002, and 2003, indicates that television alters behavior by exposing individuals to a new set of worldviews and lifestyles.
The researchers register the worry that part of what they are seeing is just a change in what the respondents think they are supposed to say, but they think that’s still progress. This observation may remind one of Jender’s comments about the language used to report the original finding. Is changing the language - or what counts as the right thing to say - progress?
My vote is “yes.” To make years or centuries of denigrating language publicly impermissible is a way of problematizing issues. My reasons for saying that are based on experiences with political-geographical areas where racist and sexist language and comments have not been disallowed, and the underlying attitudes remain relatively unexamined.
Changing what one will say to an interviewer may then be a start in the reexamination of views. It is a small change, but, according to the NBER working paper, one accompanied in this case by positive changes in both girls’ schooling and fertility rates.
What do you think?
24 punches? That’ll be £500. August 24, 2007
It’s been a bad week for domestic violence prosecutions in the UK. First Colin Read gets off with a £2000 fine for branding and slashing his wife. Now an anesthesiologist is fined a whopping £500 for hitting his wife 24 times after dragging her out of bed. The defense from the Sentencing Guideline Secretariat:
“[You need to look at] what you are trying to achieve when you sentence someone,” says Kevin McCormack, head of the Sentencing Guideline Secretariat. “It can be punishment but you’re also trying to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. If the court reached the view that, in a particular case, there was little risk of it happening again because the relationship had ended, and if there were other things … in the defendant’s favour, then that could persuade the court to use financial penalty instead of a community or custodial sentence.”
When setting fines, he says, “it is a balance between the seriousness of the offence and the financial resources of the individual … £500 is quite a high fine in terms of the average level. It depends on the individual’s income.”
Apparently the goal of looking at the individual’s income is to make sure they don’t even notice the fine.
Here’s contact information for the Sentencing Guideline Secretariat, just in case you think they may not be getting it right.
Loving Wife Spanking? August 24, 2007
Ok, so this is probably not what the folks advocating ‘Christian Domestic Discipline’ , as discussed over at feministing, have in mind…
Here’s what the CDD have to say about it:
- ‘A Christian Domestic Discipline marriage is one that is set up according to Biblical standards; that is, the husband is the authority in the household. The wife is submissive to her husband as is fit in the Lord and her husband loves her as himself. He has the ultimate authority in his household, but it is tempered with the knowledge that he must answer to God for his actions and decisions. He has the authority to spank his wife for punishment, but in real CDD marriages this is taken very seriously and usually happens only rarely. CDD is so much more than just spanking. It is the husband loving the wife enough to guide and teach her, and the wife loving the husband enough to follow his leadership. A Christian marriage embodies true romance and a Christian man a true hero.’
For those interested, this publication will be informative, no doubt: chapters include ‘How much is Enough’, and ‘Uncooperative wife’.
Perhaps you’d rather peruse this, an excerpt from which reminds us:
’Just as a parent would never stop to ask permission to chastise his child, a husband should not have to obtain consent to discipline his wife; however, our legal system has put him in the position of having to do so… our culture is turned upside down in so many other things’
There is in fact a chapter on ‘the meaning of consent’, which I’d love to read. Interesting issues about autonomy raised: one might hold that women who choose this do so autonomously, and so all’s well. Indeed, there’s a blog where one woman writes of her being ‘disciplined’, on which she writes:
‘ My submission is quite voluntary. I have had a few that said they don’t know why women need it. Well I think I could have been single and led my life just fine but in order to be a couple someone has to be in charge and someone has to follow.’
Of course, voluntary does not mean autonomous. And if those involved - including these women - hold that women’s status is like that of children, then interesting issues about consent raised: there are (many) circumstances under which children’s consent is not valid.
It puts me in mind of Hill’s (1985) article, ‘Servility and self-respect’, in which he claims that certain deferential and servile behaviours involve a misunderstanding of one’s agential status, or a failure to care properly about it…
Slash and Burn, BUT with provocation. August 21, 2007
Sadly, analysis not needed. This is just another good example of…
Actually, what is this an example of? The way in which a patriarchal system understands its own? Is it just a matter of such cliches?
In among reports about stretch marks on iconic bodies, The Daily Mail reports:
“Executive who branded wife with iron freed with a £2,000 fine“
A management consultant branded his wife with a hot steam iron because she had failed to press his shirt.
Cambridge graduate Colin Read, 25, also slashed her with a knife because she had forgotten to make his sandwiches.
The judge’s reason for a light sentence? It’s a bit complicated, but presumably this is the bottom line:
But the judge said it was the circumstances of the marriage that had provoked Read and that now those circumstances had gone, sending him to prison would “help no one”.
His wife, of course, “had been so frightened of him that she had to be compelled to give evidence in a three-day trial which ended in her husband being convicted of three counts of causing actual bodily harm. “
More battered women in ads August 14, 2007
Ok, so there was the hoax Benetton ad issue. But this one is, as far as I can tell, for real: computer ads featuring the victims of ‘computer attacks’.
There’s also a promotional video as part of the ad campaign. The campaign includes both men and women with ‘computer inflicted’ injuries.
There’s discussion of it here, by a blogger who finds it offensive, and a response from the makers of the ads. The maker insists that the adverts are simply too ’absurd’ to be offensive, but the blogger at ‘F-words’ (not to be confused with the F-word) writes that she finds the way that the ads appear to parody the domestic violence awareness adverts offensive.
I have to say, I don’t find the pictures, or the videos, particularly funny.
Related, news here of a Body Shop survey that suggests that attitudes amongst young people to violence in relationships are troubling -for instance, “1 in 10 teens think saying sorry makes it ok after they’ve hurt or forced a partner to do something. “
No laughing matter.
Women and Voting August 14, 2007
Not voting and not having one’s vote properly counted are two of the most important ways of being silenced (Hornsby, Langton, Maitra, McGowan) that there could be. This is true of both women and men, as has been far too amply demonstrated recently. But, according to this fascinating AlterNet article, there may be causes of such silencing particular to women that are worth looking at. These reasons provide excellent examples of the ways that various issues interact, including language, race, domestic violence, disability and childcare:
-Women may not realise that they need to re-register if they change their names upon marriage.
-Asian women are often neglected in voter registration drives.
-Women fleeing domestic violence may not want to appear on publicly accessible voter rolls.
-Women with children may not be able to get the babysitting that would enable them to wait in line to vote.
-Women are especially likely to be elderly, disabled, and in assisted living, and vulnerable to someone “helping” with their ballot in ways that they wouldn’t actually approve of.
If we want to get both women and men voting in the sorts of numbers that might make us feel like we’ve got a democracy, we need to pay attention to factors like these. We also need to pay attention to factors specific to men, who vote in even lower numbers.
Domestic abuse epidemic June 19, 2007
Following from Jender’s post on the focus of domestic violence responses, have a look at this article, reporting on an ‘epidemic’ of domestic abuse in the UK, and this report from a woman who was herself abused.
Many philosophically relevant issues:
The first report stresses the need for ‘urgent attention and … for doctors to be trained to spot victims and help them’. Little is said about the form that help might take - clearly, the view one takes about the autonomy, rationality, of the victim’s choice - or even whether (see comments on Jender’s post) there is a choice - would make a difference here.
The thought that it is fruitful to look at the abuser’s behaviour rather than focus on the victim’s psychology seems to be echoed in the first person report, and her perspective on how she considered her situation: ‘I kept asking myself if I still loved this man… I should have been asking myself why I was subjecting myself to this profound humiliation, with or without love’.
Back in the first article, some interesting epistemological issues and silencing issues also raised - one of the problems being that ’some victims were not believed [concerns about lack of epistemic credibility, perlocutionary silencing] while others did not realise the abuse they suffered was a crime [locutionary silencing]‘.
Finally, in the first person report, it struck me that there was a similarity between the response of the woman:
‘My sincere but perhaps feeble act, which I doubt the children remember, was to apologise to them for their father’s behaviour every time they heard or observed him hitting me’
…and the response Jender noted of the victim in the De Anza rape case - to apologise. Although the earlier post on domestic violence considers refocusing responses, away from the moral psychology of the victim, I couldn’t help but wonder: is there a documented phenomena of ‘victim-apology’? Is this something more often found in women than men? Just wonderings - any help?
