Group items tagged

This is a video regarding rape as a weapon of war from the voice of a Sudan soldier. This is extremely helpful because it verifies the rape that is going on in Sudan and allows me to gain the perspective of a soldier. He claims that he didn't want to do it and was forced or he would be killed. This video gives me a little more insight into who is commanding the war rape and how the soldiers actually feel about doing it. Here, structural violence is seen through the eyes of the perpetrator.

Recent murder of a woman victim of domestic abuse in the Boston area. This was the sixth killing of the type in the last month.

I found this article/sound bite to be very interesting. Women in Baghdad are beginning to reclaim femininity (although a more western view of what femininity is) in fashion and appearance. Women describe their ability to wear western clothing as freedom; many say it is more about the freedom than the fashion itself. One has to wonder though, will the violence specifically against women be provoked by these women who are contradicting the male ideal of what a woman should wear and act like? I certainly hope not, but it does make me nervous. Woman have drastically come from abaya's and hijab's to low rise jeans and snug shirts. At times even, if a woman was seen without one of these (hijab or abaya), she may be kidnapped or even killed. However, we should hope that this freedom continues for these women, in more ways than one. Relates to past readings like Narayan and Sylverstein, or the film "Killers Paradise."

This is Amnesty Internationals page dedicated to the movie "Bordertown" and the killing in Juarez, Mexico. It has a lot of interesting links connected with these issues. 

This is a horrific story that exemplifies one of the many different forms of femicide that exists throughout the world. The child marriage that commonly occurs in Yemen is motivated by dowry payment; the young girls' lives are continually jeopardized for monetary gain. Though the minimum marriage age was changed to 17 in 2009, it was repealed due to conservative pressure, further proving that social change often cannot happen without men's approval. This needs to be changed.

This story is horrendous. I often find it difficult to critique other cultural practices that are not my own because I do not want to be insensitive to their traditions and customs. However, when it comes to child welfare laws I am always disgusted that such antiquated practices are permitted in contemporary times. It's ironic because some may even view this child bride as a child who was a victim of legalized rape and made to live with her rapist/murderer. I wish there was more information regarding such practices because than I could make a stronger argument.

This story brings me back to the Economist article link i bookmarked on Gendercide today. I think the Economist makes a great overview of the problem using examples from China and India,but I think it would be interesting to add Yemen to the mix, since this is such a recent ocurrence that exemplifies the current world crisis. In China they kill baby girls who are born to have a chance at having a boy, because having a girl means that she is only good to be married off and you need a dowry for that. In Yemen, the problem is not that they are killed at birth or before birth, but that they are being married off underage and become victims of violence and in this case of murder as a result of the violence.

I wanted to bookmark the recap because this latest episode of Criminal Minds involves so many elements of the articles we have read, as well as the class discussions. It's about a white male police officer at the Texas border who was killing illegal immigrants who were trying to cross into the US. The female sheriff was doing her best to end the murders but wasn't getting any cooperation from her deputies or the government. She ends up getting killed by the police officer because she was getting too close to solving the crimes. The deputies in the town kept wasting time by trying to pin the murders on a local gang instead of trying to find the actual murderer. Throughout the episode there was talk about how things like this are allowed to happen with little action taken by the government, which coincides with many of the articles that we have read. There was also an illegal immigrant woman who was separated from her family by the person who was helping them get across the border and he raped her, which is what the border rape article was all about.

This essay focuses on how the violence in Guatemala has become to be understood as a " cultural fact". The author explores how the naturalization of political violence intro cultural violence was produced and how it was patterned.The author explores this through the exploration of the period of " La Violencia" where descriptions and public displays of cadavers and public assasinations were portrayed in newspapers.Through media the goverment was sucessfull in the creation of generalized fear.

This is an article from the newest edition of "Our Bodies Ourselves" regarding self-defense. The article discusses what self-defense is and the controversy behind it. Self-defense is explained as a way to effectively protect ourselves against violence. This web page is useful because it provides links to other articles from "Our Bodies Ourselves" that discuss violence against women.

I really enjoyed this articles discussion on what self defense is, and the fact that it didn't seem to place the responsibility for prevention on the woman, but rather focused on empowerment. So many sites dealing with violence protection/prevention engage in victim blaming and make it seem as if it's the woman's fault that she was raped/hit/killed if she did not follow these tips and techniques, so it was really refreshing to read one that doesn't engage in these practices

report

This is article was on the front page of the Economist on March 4th, 2010. This article has a great deal of information on the current phenomena seen on how "technology, declining fertility and ancient prejudice are combining to unbalance societies" This article focuses on China, India and South Korea but touches on the general issue a lot. This article is a good resource to understand how violence against women can start even before they are born. Furthermore, you can see the political prejudices that go into it.

I think that this issue relates a lot to violence against women and cultural perceptions of women around the world. By choosing not to keep, or evening killing a child simply because it is a girl you are putting forth the image that girls are not as important as boys, and have less worth. I know that in many cultures this is believed to be true at all ages, but it especially hits home when those involved can't in any way defend themselves.

This article is very important because it shows how economical factors, cultural factors, technology and the goverment contribute in some way to "gendercide" and how they also sustain the hatred against women. This factors help us understand that violence against women, even when they havent been born yet is connected to other factors beyond culture. This article is important in the aspect that it shows that hatred and violence against women may take place even before they are born and it is also important because it discusses a number of factors that contribute to it. This article conncts to my articles on Guatemala because the goverment and other social factors also perpertuate inequality and violence against women.

"The simple statement, 'I Am an Emotional Creature,' becomes a challenge to the myriad ways in which girls are looked at but not seen, talked about but not listened to, used, discarded, violated, exploited, maimed, and at the extreme killed. Like a woman claiming her body, a girl claiming her emotions breaks a silence and unleashes a vast resource of clean energy, an energy that can inspire all of us to transform and heal the world."-Foreword Excerpt This new book is part of a bigger movement that seeks to end violence against women worldwide. This book is from the same author of the Vagina Monologues and seeks to raise awareness on the current state of the lives of girls and the, sometimes horrific, experiences girls around the world have growing up. I bookmarked this book's site because this book is one of many creative ways in which people are seeking to contribute to solving the problem of violence against women. By writting this book she is appealing to masses of girls that are more prone to reading this book than doing research on the phenomena of Femicides. It is reaching out to a different demographic and empowering them by raising awareness on this issue.

This report combines quantitative measurements during the civil war of the number of people killed, the types of violence commited and other factors with historical information on how institutionalized violence was perpertuated during the civil war in Guatemala. It is useful to my research because it provides quantitative results on which I can support my arguments.