November 27, 2006

• Like many ills that afflict most of the world, gender violence is in direct correlation with economic development.
• Disclaimer: I think violence is a horrible thing. I think there is no excuse for rape or genital mutilation. I think domestic violence is and should be a crime. Sexism is bad. That said I find it odd that "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence" seems to include only topics concerning women, and no topics concerning gender violence against men, including prison rape, sexism in employment, and domestic violence against men. October’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month Ignores Many Victims By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks October is the 12th annual Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and activists, politicians and the media are focusing the nation's attention on violence against women. However, October's events only tell part of the story. Research clearly establishes that women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat, often employing the element of surprise and weapons to compensate for men’s strength. According to the Centers for Disease Control, men comprise over 35% of all domestic violence victims. A meta-analytic review of 552 domestic violence studies published in the Psychological Bulletin found that 38% of the physical injuries in heterosexual domestic assaults are suffered by men. The National Institute of Mental Health funded and oversaw two of the largest studies of domestic violence ever conducted, both of which found equal rates of abuse between husbands and wives. California State Long Beach University professor Martin Fiebert maintains an online bibliography summarizing 174 scholarly investigations, with an aggregate sample size exceeding 160,000, which conclude "women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners." Nevertheless, many states still define domestic violence as a crime only committed against women, and exclude male victims and their children from receiving state-funded DV services. Much more at the link. I think there is gender violence against both genders and I would like to stop it. I find it troublesome that 16 Days appears to take the term Gender Violence and apply it discrimately to female gender violence. Sexism much?
• From the link: 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. Your point is a valid one, MonkeyFlitter, but it appears the purpose of this event is entirely about violence against women, and is just inappropriately named in a gender-neutral fashion. I see no evidence of sexism. Their focus on women victims only is open and intentional. I agree that gender-based violence against men is a serious issue, but it's a separate one to what this group is promoting.
• "...gender violence is in direct correlation with economic development." Much violence against women is also, if not encouraged, at least condoned or justified by perverse interpretations of religion.
• Islander I am a Cultural Materialist, which means religion itself is built on the foundation of the economics of an area.
• Oh sweet Jesus, only one post in and a men's rights activist comments. Show me where there is a shred of evidence that violence against men (because of their gender) is in any way proportional to that against women (because of their gender), especially when we start talking about this from a global perspective. The two are not equivilant in scale and it is dishonest and lame to try and make it so.
• I think part of the problem here is that gender politics has become an issue instead of violence in general being the issue. When we talk about violence against women because of their gender, meaning it was perpetrated just because they were women, or violence against an individual regardless of gender where the violence itself only takes its form because of their gender. To be more specific. It is normally reported say in Rwanda of crimes against women, where women are raped. Now the rapes themselves are a form of violence against a populace that has taken shape specific to the gender of the victim, but the violence is still just violence against the populace. How does the man that gets chopped to death with a machete suffering any differently then the women that gets raped, or say the boy that is made into a drug addict and is made to fight. But I think gender politics is just another form of identity politics which obfuscates the real issues. I think this is either due to the general liberal intelligentsia not wanting to deal with the real issues, because it threatens their position in the hegemonic system, or it is a product of post Lutherian protestantism gone a muck. This is not to say gender is not and always be an issue, but it does mean one should not turn suffering of the whole into suffering of a portion of the whole.
• By the way this is my problem with race relations in America. Black's are just as stratified as White's and "white trash" is regarded with the same disdain that "N*" are. Of course I am a Marxist, what do I know.
• gender violence is in direct correlation with economic development I'm not sure this is true over time. Perhaps there are historical forces that make this relationship more or less strong, but my impression is that some political organizations have valued women (e.g. Ireland under the Brehon Law) more than several centuries of more economically developed societies that followed.
• You might want to back up for a second glamajamma, and start by putting into perspective who has the power, and how that power is used to control others. The world is not an equal playing field when it comes to gender, and yet when something like violence against women is brought up, there is this attempt at equivalance. Violence against women is directly related to the desire to assert dominance over the female body, to strip the woman of her autonomy (often related to reproduction, obviously)--being a woman has specifically put her at risk of these things.
• Yes the power is the person with the gun, and just because that violence has taken a different form for women versus men does not mean the violence is less because it is a man. I do believe that there is violence specifically against women just because they are women, but I also know there is violence against women because of their ethnicity/politics/status and that violence gets conflated specifically to violence against women, which it is not. Case in point, I recently read a study of violence against women in the occupied territories. The paper covered access to health care etc. Issues that were a problem for all Palestinians, but it was conflated to issues for women, which it was not. To me it was bogus identity politics bullshit. This is a serious problem because it diverts from the real issues. The problem of Palestinian women is not just a woman's issue, it is a Palestinian issue. To illustrate the point further. I am so disgusted when well to do privileged women talk about gender discrimination when class discrimination is the real issue in America. The violence against the poor to me is more of an issue then the privileged woman moving from 75,000 a year to 100,000 a year. Basically what I am trying to say is the topic has been twisted into identity politics and victim hood, which hurts dealing with the real gender politics in a culturaly sensitive and realistic way, for the people that are really suffering. I also have issues with Western women looking down on the rest of the under developed world, when we are putting calogen/botulism/silicon in women in our own backyard, and regardless of what even the most liberal minded women thinks, she tends to marry into or above her income level. Which is not that far off from an arranged wedding. Oh sure you get to choose your mate, but your family and friends would frown on you marrying joe the garbage man. The good thing is that contemporary thinking is moving away from identity politics. The people who truly do care, realize that many of the identity politics they did care about, were a counterproductive. Of course some institutions still employ many sophists that still espouse this self serving garbage. I am getting off topic. I could go on and on though. This topic of identity politics/Derrida/the reformation have had a huge impact on the American psyche and I have been studying it for a few years now.
• Violence in general is an immense topic. Not sure one small thread can deal with it very adequately. But here are some Wikipedia links on causes of violence. A profoundly hateful and disheartening aspect of violence directed against another person is that it not only damages the victim, but also the perpetrator and any witnesses to it, as well as, to lesser degree, family, friends and community of the participants. Like throwing a stone in a pool, ripples keep spreading well after the initial act.
• gender violence is in direct correlation with economic development I too think this is patently false. If you look at foot-binding in China, the practice developed and became institutionalised in the wealthy urban culture of the Han in what was at the time one of the most economically developed parts of the world. Within the Chinese polity, certain class groups didn't practice it, such as the boat people of the Xiang or the Hakka, and non-Han ethnic groups didn't either - poorer people on the margins. Far from obfuscating "real issues", I think the women's movement of the last century or so has made an enormous contribution to a more sophisticated analysis of power and its abuses. Crude economic reductionism is more likely to obscure problems that need to be addressed to achieve genuine human liberation.
• "Gender violence" strikes me as an unfortunate term, and it's not clear to me that they're looking at cases where women were abused, etc., because they were women rather than in equal opportunity violence. What I think we're seeing is the residual of generations of women in our western societies being treated as children, at best, chattel in the middle ground, and Jezabels who need to be kept from displaying their wares at the worst. Those attitudes still exist in a lot of places around the world. I came of age in the US when women were thought of as children until the feminism that peaked in the late 1960s made a real, if gradual, change. (I can't say that the US is gender neutral in some important areas, but it's a hell of a lot better than it once was.) The current tack of feminists seems misdirected to me, and the "16 days" ineffective in a sort of hippie, tree-hugger way. Can't we just say what we mean? If the difference between circumcision and female genital mutilation intended to banish a woman's sexual pleasure because she'd be a Jezabel otherwise is the issue, let's not cloud that with side issues. If we object to the Islamic temporary marriages and unilateral screwing around in the west by men that puts women in the position of children whose opinion is disregarded, make it specific. If 70% of domestic violence is directed at women there may be reasons for the disparity that have to do with percieved manly power vs. female weakness, and that's an issue that needs in depth attention. (If 30% of domestic abuse is female against male, the majority is still male against female Or, are guys just so much more annoying that women feel justified in trashing them 30% of the time? Or, were the women reacting to male against female violence and just lost it?)
• Why was this not called "16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women"? gen·der (jĕn'dər) pronunciation n. 1. Grammar. 1. A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms. 2. One category of such a set. 3. The classification of a word or grammatical form in such a category. 4. The distinguishing form or forms used. 2. Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture. 3. 1. The condition of being female or male; sex. 2. Females or males considered as a group: expressions used by one gender. If you want to have a conference and organization that discusses violence against women, no problem. Hijacking the word "gender" to mean "women AND NOT MEN" is manipulative, and sexist. If you want to discuss women's health issues, and female circumcision around the world, you will find many friends and lots of supporters both male and female. If within that discussion you want to claim that domestic violence against men is NOT a serious issue in our own, American society, than you have a hidden agenda and can expect a discussion. There are plenty of legitimate well respected, studies, and their researchers and scientists both female and male that understand that domestic violence against men in our society is a real, and significant problem. And way too much anecdotal evidence as told by women (social workers, lawyers, judges, daughters, wives and mothers.) Naming this "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence" and refusing to include topics about men is dishonest, sexist, demeaning, disrespectful, and just a blatant way to assert a lie as the new truth. It is pure doublespeak. What would have been wrong with naming this, "16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women"? If you want peace, fight for justice. If you want justice, fight for peace.
• Please don't hijack an interesting thread over a single word? After all "We're not here to bandy words or quibble over their meaning." - DUNE.
• I'm not unsympathetic in one sense MonkeyFlitter, as you have a point about the misnomer, nor to glamma's earlier point about 'identity politics'. But it does set off alarm bells, as I see reading about issues like this and having a first reaction akin to 'what about me' as a failure of priorities. The tradition of constructive solidarity I was brought up in says that you save those tactical critiques for appropriate venues like planning meetings, unless you really think it's so egregious as to be counter-productive to the campaign at hand.
• Gender is a word that is neutral with respect to male or female use. It is purposefully being manipulated to mean something else, and to mask the realities of violence against men. I think the hijacking and implications of such of this "single word" is very germane to a discussion of gender violence. I am not trying to be "what about me", I think the use distortion here is in fact so "egregious as to be counter-productive to the campaign at hand." I know, frankly I know as a victim of domestic violence myself, that while I am eager to support efforts to bring gender equality (mostly meaning women up to the levels that men "enjoy"), and reduce attacks on women due to religion or whatever, well, when I see this level of distortion against me and others like me, due to ignorance and sexism, followed by the name calling and dismissal by the mandymen of the world, that I think, this is nothing but good intentions killed off by someone's power agenda and you can leave me out of it, and you can expect me to raise my hand and say "no thank you". And I suspect I am not alone in that. So yeah, in that sense, the name of this campaign along with its stated agenda (because I did read the materials at the site) is so egregious as to be counter-productive. We have an Administration that uses newspeak, and doublespeak on a daily basis to suppress the rights of others and commit atrocious acts. Kidnapping = Rendition. Torture = Aggressive Interrogation. Words matter. I say let's leave the doublespeak out of Monkeyfilter. Ape shall not kill Ape.
• It is interesting you brought up foot binding, because that is at the other end of the spectrum of what I was referring to in regards to violence and women. Foot binding, an albeit incredibly painful practice, was symbol of beauty and wealth. As debilitating as it is, it was usually practiced by the matriarchs of the family. Is this that far off from the wealthy getting their little girls breast implants and nose jobs (relatively speaking it ended around 100 years ago, I like to think we have made some serious progress in 100 years). Acts such as these are more cultural fetishes and as wikipedia points out still economically driven: Foot binding was a status symbol, since only the wealthy could afford to keep women unproductive The smaller the feet were, the more beautiful she was; thus the more likely she would be chosen as a bride of a nobleman. I was referring more to unconventional violence against women, such as rape, which in most cultures, may be over looked but not institutionalized, like female castration a culturally driven practice. The unconventional practices I find to be more prevalent in poverty driven nations. Interesting topic female castration. As an anthropology student I dealt with this topic exclusively in a class. On one side it is a barbaric practice against women, on the other side you have women coming from that culture that are getting it done by gynecologists, adult women. So as a culture do we condemn the practice or the manner in which it plays out. How much do we respect their culture, and are we hypocrites when we circumcise so many young boys needlessly in this country. Typically female castration is performed by women on women. Do we classify this as violence against women? What about male adult circumcision? Can we address one without the other? Lets talk about violence against men though, there has always been this sexist belief that men start and propogate wars, even though there are many women leaders in history that didn't mind starting a fight, but who was always the cannon fodder for those battles? Men. Has being the "warrior" really been a boon to the male sex. Yet historically this has been the responsibility of the male sex. One thing I do know about the cannon fodder, historically they tend to be the poor, and that is still the case.
• I would like to add I love this topic and think any criticism brought against any aspect of it, is productive. I have no agenda personally. I do think their is oppression of women, but I also think this has been hijacked by a personal agenda of those that advocate it, but where the line is drawn is still up for debate for me. I also believe that some issues of gender will never be resolved with mankind, until we all become post nuclear holocaust neutered freak babies. Some differences between men and women will never be circumvented because we are built completely different, and part of that revolves around sex and sexual attraction, which has taken on a weird twist with the advent of technology and people's relation to sex.
• Well, I'll concede it's been counter-productive in the sense that it elicits a response like yours from someone of goodwill. I've had occasion to work with and write about a number of UN agencies (including the UNFPA) in the past and they do seem to have an institutional tendency to well-meaning doublespeak; I suspect it comes in large part from being products of an unwieldy bureaucracy representing such a broad church of interests. But globally and historically it's obviously the case that women are and have been on the receiving end of violence because of their gender far more frequently than men, and I welcome initiatives that address that, because it is something that can't be subsumed into broader campaigns as far as I can see. On preview: but then doesn't the question become why mutilating women was a status symbol glamma? It's not the way you or I would choose to flaunt our wealth. There's obviously gender issues at the core.
• why mutilating women was is a status symbol I think one of the hardest issues when dealing with other cultures is understanding what they find beautiful and putting it in perspective of what we find attractive.
• I grind my teeth and bite my tongue every time I see wee baby girls with pierced ears. WTF? Why hurt this baby for a fashion statement she may not want to make in 10 years?
• But the aesthetic with foot-binding was quite explicit if you look at the literary sources. This is the latest bit of English-language scholarship on the practice. I've not read it, but I understand it's fairly revisionist and looks at the nuances and women's agency and so forth, going off this review here. If this passage from there is a fair representation:

  Women did this, in part, to make their daughters into acceptable wives: bound feet symbolized the submissiveness and tractability considered appropriate in a bride. Footbinding also empowered women, however. The bound foot was intended to control women's sexuality; instead, it concentrated it. The three-inch lotus foot was an erotic obsession for Chinese men, and it was through their feet that the heroines of novels such as The Carnal Prayer Mat and The Golden Lotus were able to dominate and eventually sexually destroy the men who supposedly controlled them. Rather than marking women as inferior, footbinding was proof of women's self-discipline and self-cultivation. The late-imperial cult of exemplary women revolved around their ability to control their desires and their bodies in the name of virtue, above all, if widowed, by avoiding remarriage. Widows gouged out their eyes, cut off their noses, ears, or arms, hurled themselves into fires or over cliffs to avoid the shame of remarriage. Through drastic acts like these and through the everyday act of footbinding, the female body became, literally, a model of virtue; women used their bodies to demonstrate their morality.

  I think we end up with a lot of questions begged. "Submissiveness and tractability" make for a good wife; "exemplary women" "control their desires and their bodies in the name of virtue". Sometimes the reactions of activists like Liang Qichao who were contemporaries of the practice strikes me as better than the sophistication of our later understanding.
• glammajamma: but look, if the physical differences between men and women can't be overcome when it comes to domestic violence, what's the solution? And, if women trash men in 30 percent of the cases, is that gender violence,or just pissed-offed-ness in face of the physical stature of men, or just pissed-offed-ness in a non-gender orientation? People get angry at real or percieved transgressions by other people and react physically. Some of the problem may be on not being able to other options I think I tried to point out that not all domestic violence is based on gender. i know that when I smacked my (now ex-) husband across the face all those years ago it may have been domestic violence but it wasn't because he was a man. I was just driven beyond my non-violent principles by assholery. Where's the boundry between gender violence and just neutral violence?
• if the physical differences between men and women can't be overcome when it comes to domestic violence I never said that, and I don't believe that. Where's the boundry between gender violence and just neutral violence? like I said: I do think their there is oppression of women, but I also think this has been hijacked by a personal agenda of those that advocate it, but where the line is drawn is still up for debate for me.
• How about debating it, then?
• I can see the connections between things like foot binding and some modern cosmetic surgery. Both assert that one is able to afford a wife who is decorative rather than functional, in a way. The bound foot meant that a woman couldn't perform any physical labor, and that the man didn't need her to contribute economically to the family. I fail to see the connection between rape and economics, though. I would argue that rape is just as prevalent in the US as in other less economically developed nations who are not currently at war. An argument can be made for a higher prevalence of rape in war zones (I think this has always been the case), but I don't directly connect this to the level of economic development present.
• "Gender-based violence manifests itself in different ways in different societies. It may range from psychological abuse and physical harm within the family to early marriage and other harmful practices. As noted in a major report issued by the UN Secretary-General, all forms of violence against women represent unnacceptable violations of human rights and together they form a major impediment to gender equality."
• I would argue that rape is just as prevalent in the US as in other less economically developed nations who are not currently at war That's my appreciation too. In less developed areas, customs like bride kidnapping and ritual mutilation/raping are still prevalent; on the more affluent ones this might not be the case anymore, but harassment on the workplace and date-rape might make up for it, statistically-wise.
• I'm a big supporter of 16 Days. Cheers, Sly.
• If within that discussion you want to claim that domestic violence against men is NOT a serious issue in our own, American society, than you have a hidden agenda and can expect a discussion Nobody made that claim. Look, MF, you're absolutely right from a semantic sense. The event should have been named "16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women". But it wasn't...and not because of doublespeak or some "hidden agenda" (their agenda is very much in the open). If you want to discuss violence against men, find an organization that's planning similar activism for your cause and post about it. Just stop the derail.
• I can't spend a lot of time arguing my point on poverty and rape, but I have many things to do today. Let me throw this out. Modern warfare is not the warfare of WWII. The powers that be no longer fight wars on their own soil, it is fought on the impoverished and manipulated soil of third world countries. Mostly this had occurred in the easter bloc nations of the former Soviet Union, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and portions of Asia. There is definitely a correlation between warfare and rape, but rape only tends to be one of a myriad of atrocities enacted in these areas. Once again just because an atrocity takes the form of rape towards women it should not be conflated to a woman specific issue. It is an issue that effects the people of the area. Then there are those that are not in a warfare position, but those women that are in near destitute positions that have to put themselves in high risk situations where rape is much more probable. This includes illegal activities such as prostitution, drug dealing, and illegal immigrants. Some may even argue that prostitution itself is a form of rape, in which those that have the power and resources demand sex in return for basic sustenance. Then in general the poor in most third world country lack the protection from the police force, if those are not the perpetrators of the rape, and the outlets of a fair justice system. Most of the countries also have severe social stratification, in which the powerful exert full control over the lives of the disenfranchised. So yes I think it is a poor issue. I found this interesting article that points out the Risk Factors for Perpetration Community Factors * Lack of employment opportunities *poor* * Lack of institutional support from police and judicial system *poor* * General tolerance of sexual assault within the community * Settings that support sexual violence * Weak community sanctions against sexual violence perpetrators *poor* Societal Factors * Poverty *poor* * Societal norms that support sexual violence * Societal norms that support male superiority and sexual entitlement * Societal norms that maintain women’s inferiority and sexual submissiveness * Weak laws and policies related to gender equity * High tolerance levels of crime and other forms of violence *poor* Some of the other factors, such as patriarchy tend to be a result of their third world status. I think the status of women in a society tends to be congruent to the economic development within the society. I think many times class is drawn out of discussions because it brings some ugly truths with it. I also threw that together pretty quick because I have other shit to do.
• Islam Outlaws Female Mutilation!Why isn't this all over the news?
• English link ici. Grand Mufti Professor Ali Goma’a, the most senior judge of Islamic law, acted as patron of the conference. The sensational result: “Female genital mutilation contravenes the highest values of Islam and is therefore a punishable crime.” Does this only apply to Sunnis as per this wiki article about the title "Grand Mufti"?
• And it sounds like this isn't binding on the local level either. Still, it sets a great precedent.
• Dang! We need a preview button.
• Amazing. Thank you fishtick and petebest. Anyone else getting borked 2nd + 3rd pages? Also: the French has an extra paragraph in between the intro and the body that's not in the English stating that currently 8,000 young Muslim girls are "circumcised" every day--1 every 11 seconds. For real??? (I should probably go back up and read up on my own links again...)
• Another brief mention.