Ungendering Vulnerability: Rescripting the Meanng of Male Male Rape (original) (raw)
2016
L'auteure assure que Ia preuve de Ia rbsistance &S femmes au viol continue de jouer un rble central dam les accu-sations en dPpit des changernents de Ia IPgsIation obtenus par le mouvement des femmes et les protestations de Ia justice qui afirment le contraire. Historically, the law of rape reflected women's inequality, in both its substance and process. It is the theme of this paper that proof of a woman's great resistance to rape continues to play a pivotal role in the adjudication of criminal charges despite the many changes in legal doctrine achieved
STJ | Stellenbosch Theological Journal, 2023
South African men have declared war on women, a statement expressing the fight against gender-based violence (GBV). Some argue that such a statement is unfair towards men who still respect the right to health and safety of women in society, while others argue that the roots of this war find their basis in disaster patriarchy. Disaster patriarchy is a process whereby men exploit a crisis to reassert control and dominance, erase women's rights, women lose their safety, economic power, autonomy, and education and are pushed to the frontlines unprotected. The question is, what does the term "war" have to do with the fight against GBV; how does it find its roots in patriarchy; what can be done to bring this war to an end; and what are the practical theological tools needed to fight and end this war? The study is done from a Classical Pentecostal perspective, focusing specifically on the position of the Apostolic Faith Mission on war, their deliberations on patriarchy and GBV, and what role Pentecostal congregations can play to end this war. The study offers an analysis of patriarchy that serves as a basis for the war on women, engagement with the national GBV plan and its implementation by religious actors, especially Pentecostal congregations, and proposes a humanizing pneumatological approach that recognizes the human rights of those affected by the war and how to strengthen their agency and resilience. The study follows a comparative literature approach and is done using an interdisciplinary lens, consulting literature from the fields of theology, sociology, law and philosophy.
Women Protection within Responsibility to Protect Doctrine
Responsibility to Protect in Theory and Practice (Conference Papers), edited by Vasilka Sancin and Masa Kovic Dine, Ljubljana, 2013, pp. 891-915
Regarded as an inevitable consequence of wartime violence against women has for a long time been considered as a traditional form of masculine dominion. Furthermore, it has been denoted as a determinative method and mean of the conventional warfare. The raise of awareness about the enduring suffering of females shifted the traditional paradigm toward the need of feminine protection and security. One of the methods to eliminate the violence and achieve female protection is to be observed within the concept of the Responsibility to protect adapted to suit the special needs of feminine protection. Namely, as a female logic is allotted in the discourse of care and solidarity, the standard application of R2P envisaged in the use of force as a form of masculine logic, is not to be considered as an adequate method. Its inadequacy is especially alarming, as women rights are additionally endangered during the forcible application of R2P and similar methods. Female issues, therefore, cannot be administered in the masculine way. On the contrary, only with the systematic concern and methodological administration of women protection, due analysis of feminine victimization and intensive responsibility in regard to all aspects of violence against them, the protection of feminine population could be achieved. Referring to R2P doctrine, the first and third pillars of the doctrine, that is responsibility to prevent and responsibility to rebuild, might be professed as a solid theoretical and practical grounds. For those pillars to be functional, few elements have to be satisfied. Sex and gender crimes more visible, principles of communal concern developed and female position in patriarchic society re-questioned. In this article, the author discusses about those elements, and questions the possibility of renewing the concept of R2P doctrine in regards to feminine protection.
00 ISE Gender Religion War March 28th 07 Edited Version
[EXT]The problem is that when the father refuses to allow the mother her power of giving birth and seeks to be the sole creator, then according to our culture he superimposes upon our ancient world of flesh and blood a universe of language and symbols that has no roots in the flesh and drills a hole through the female womb and through earth in order to mark out the boundaries of the sacred space in many patriarchal traditions. It defines a meeting place for men that is based upon an immolation. Women will in the end be allowed to enter that space, provided that they do so as non-participants. The fertility of the earth is sacrificed in order to establish the cultural domain of the father's language (which is called, incorrectly, the mother tongue). But this is never spoken of. Just as the scar of the navel is forgotten, so, correspondingly, a hole appears in the texture of the language. . . . If we are not to become accomplices in the murder of the mother we also need to assert that there is a genealogy of women. 1 [/EXT] Over the past thirty years, theorists have analyzed the disturbing relationship between gender and warfare. In the early days, some espoused theories based on male aggression and female peacefulness. However, several scholars quickly exposed the simplicities in such a position, and challenged this correlation as academically sloppy and politically unhelpful.
social constructions – the core of our biased and inequitable reality, Part Two: Rape, Patriarchy, and Genocide, 2024
Social constructions are the framework of the established order and its myriad traditions. They are the basis of the subjective reality within which we live, and include gender, male supremacy, race, religion, disability, competition, beauty, and ethnic identity. Social constructions and traditions enable othering and oppression without even having to think. Never questioning anything ensures that the sorry current state of affairs remains unchallenged. Humans as a species have a fear of everything, are supremely insecure, and indiscriminately destructive. The first social constructions were fabricated in order to allay fears, to feel better about themselves, and to justify any wrongs committed against humans, non-human animals, and nature in general. In order to “justify” pretty much anything, they appointed themselves “masters of everything,” through the social construction of anthropocentrism, as expounded upon in Part One. Even so, to relieve their ever-present fears, at least momentarily, men/males needed to relentlessly instill fear in others. Through the killing of non-human animals (and human animals,) men/males get to feel “real macho,” but non-human animals can not cry out with human-like howling, they can not shed tears, and they can not beg, no matter how sadistically they are tortured and killed. Men/males needed utter human agony and unmitigated human fear. Nothing short of sheer terror! This, combined with the fear and hate that most men/males had (and still have) of women/females, led to the most horrendous discovery in human evolution: rape. Each rape builds on every rape ever committed, starting with the first rape. Through rape, other forms of sexual violence, and brutality, men/males maintain an intimidation-based control and oppression of women/females. This control and oppression results in male dominance/female subjugation. Male dominance/female subjugation leads to male supremacy/female subordination. Male supremacy/female subordination results in male privilege/female disempowerment. Each of these fosters the others, and vice versa, with each element feeding on the next in an endless loop, whose outcome is a patriarchal society, one in which patriarchy reigns supreme. Patriarchy is the social construction fabricated to ensure that males have the power. In a patriarchy, females are subjugated from the liberty, moral, cultural, social, educational, sexual, reproductive, legal, religious, leisure, labor, political, economic, ownership, psychological, and linguistic perspectives. It is no easy task to be a female in a patriarchal society. The absolutely unfair established order of males over females is maintained in these ways, and there never has been, there is no, and there never will be any justification for the existence this disgusting inequity. Every last aspect of patriarchy is based on social constructions, brutality, and above all, abject cowardice. Nevertheless, the established order still requires ever more power, in the fewest possible hands, so that ideally anybody that is not a part of the ingroup lives miserably or is killed off. The most ruthless and effective way to concentrate power is to obliterate Others en masse, by committing genocide. Genocide is the ultimate manifestation of othering, oppression, brutality, plundering, rape, murder, cultural erasure, and theft of land. Perpetrators of genocide “justify” their raping, enslaving, pillaging, and murder on account of their god, religion, and “empire building,” along with the dehumanization and demonization of their victims, whom they designate as “animals,” “savages.” or the like.. Genocide is perpetrated with brazen impunity, as Israel is currently proving, yet again, with the “international rules-based order” making certain that genocide, capitalism, neocolonialism, and globalization charge forward, with the concomitant destruction of anything and everything in their path. The ultimate objective of social constructions is to deny Others peace, health, happiness, wellbeing, safety, food and water security, good medical care, quality education, a safe and healthy environment, infrastructure, comfort, living without constant fear, freedom of movement, freedom from arbitrary detention and imprisonment, freedom of expression, agency in their own lives, a secure and salubrious place to live, and so on.
2007
Historically, the law of rape reflected women's inequality, in both its substance and process. It is the theme of this paper that proof of a woman's great resistance to rape continues to play a pivotal role in the adjudication of criminal charges despite the many changes in legal doctrine achieved by the women's movement and judicial pronouncements to the contrary. The rape law passed in 1992 (Bill C-49) requires that men take "reasonable steps to ascertain consent" when they assert that they honestly believe that a woman consented to sexual contact (Criminal Code S. 273.2 (b)). This section must be interpreted through a public and relatively explicit discourse on sexual relations in legal argument and factfinding by judges and juries in rape trials. In the oral argument of one of the first cases in which the Supreme Court began to grapple with the meaning of this law, Ewanchuk (1 membersofthe Benchstruggled to find familiar yet seemly language in which to addr...
Sexual violence has been a hot issue since the ‘70s. Several analyses from different frameworks have been done to address the status of rape in our society. Our aim is to focus on the most general aspect about rape and grasp what notion of power is at stake. In order to do that, we will focus on sexual violence and the patriarchy system from the perspective of several feminists such as Brownmiller and Despentes. As far as the notions of power are concerned, a special emphasis will be made on Spinoza, Hobbes and Luhmann. If rape is understood as a mechanism of control and power over women, different conceptions of power can be identified as to state with accuracy what is at stake when we talk about the role of rape in our patriarchal society.
A politics of the female body Final version.doc
The South African society can be described as a society infested by rape and violence against female persons. Although nearly eighty percent of South African citizens see themselves as Christian, female rape and violence against women is a common occurrence. The question posed in the article is whether religious texts can be of value in healing the South African society. The paper argues that an uncritical reading of the story of Susanna (Additions to Daniel) in the Septuagint does not change negative attitudes and behaviour of males towards women. To articulate the argument, the article utilizes insights of Michel Foucault on the relation between power and knowledge, the submission of human bodies and the objectification of the subject. Furthermore, Peter L Berger’s understanding of the social construction of reality and the role of religion within societies is employed to examine the relationship between religion based gender biases and rape.