![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
IWHHR - Thought Question, Week 5, 6
Aug. 23rd, 2014 01:47 pmweek 5
Do you think that violence is a “natural” part of being human? If so, why do you think this? If not, why do you think violence, particularly against women, is so prevalent? Please write a response in three to five thoughtful paragraphs.
Violence is NOT a natural part of human behavior; it is learned behavior and thus it can be corrected.
Violence against women is so prevalent because over the centuries in every culture it became a strategy for men to uphold their supreme social and economic position in society. Existing gender hierarchy and social inequality support the relations of exploitations, which benefit men of elite groups, who are thus securing their preferential access to various resources.
Violation of women human rights and physical integrity is a widespread strategy of imposing power: be it economic subordination, physical submission, psychological denigration, denying women access to education, to adequate health services, control over her fertility, or over public spaces. Feminism has been working on different theoretical approaches dealing with the problem of violence against women. Radical feminism confronts violence against women addressing it in terms of patriarchal norms that violate human rights of women. Socialist and Anarchist trends of the feminism focus on the social and economic forms of violence against women, which it sees as a foundation for all other forms of violation of women integrity and in contemporary societies. Eco-feminism articulates the metaphorical similarities of violations of the Earth ecology and violations of female bodies in domestic violence and a widespread social and cultural complicity towards brutalizing women on mass scale.
Criminal justice approach is addressing violence against women as a crime, which has to be prosecuted.
Unfortunately the scale of domestic violence and intimate partners brutality with the women is do gigantic, that penal systems resources would not be able to sustain the task. Thus a search of alternative methods supported by research is continues, funded by respected international agencies including United Nations Organization, various NGOs and a number of research and educational institutions.
Some of the preventive strategies, that are formulated as a result of research and community engagement work include:
1) education of both male and female, teaching schoolchildren the strategies of cooperation and negotiating skills, enabling women to articulate their rights, to make groups with the other women and together stand for their dignity and human rights;
2) structural intervention – providing state support and community support to the NGOs and social services which assist women in cases of domestic violence, offering them shelter, safety psychological and legal support;
3) disseminating local and culturally sensitive strategies which women are practicing in confronting domestic violence;
4) lobbying the city architectural committees, so that the concerns regarding women’s’ safety in the city public spaces would be taken into account in developing public spaces;
5) changing legislation to punish every case of violence against women whether it occurred in public space or in “private” home settings – any case of violence against women should become public, visible and never be left to avoid prosecution.
These measures are some of what is necessary to be practiced routinely and everywhere on the globe, in order to eradicate these epidemic crimes against women.
week 6
do you think that it is inevitable that conflict will result in increased violence against women? Do you think that anything short of eliminating war will eliminate the problem of violence against women in conflict and refugee circumstances? Is peace possible? Share your thoughts in three to five thoughtful paragraphs.
The conflicts between big and small communities always affect women more than men. This is no surprise as the enemies are trying to make the biggest harm to the adversary and achieve the biggest advantage over the enemy. The easiest way to make harm is to attack those without weapons or those who are the least able to fight back. Thus, there are women that taking care for the children and the elders in the community, who are the primary target.
People wage wars to win, not to follow the humanity principles. This is why we have to fight not for the enemies to follow some “humanistic principles of war”, but for the elimination of wars and weapons. This may sounds stupid and idealistic. But if we take this as our goal and make a concerted effort to achieve this, then we’ll see how inventive, resourceful and successful people can be united in a joint effort. The work of Zainab Bandura is significant in this respect: demonstrating that almost unthinkable tasks can be achieved: arranging negotiations with the armed male groups, and making them to stop routinely raping women, and making them to learn that rape is a crime against their own humanity (explaining them that raping a woman they establish a norm according to which somebody else could rape their mother, sister, or significant other).
Peace is possible, which again sounds like a stupid mantra for the most helpless, knowing the reality of endless armed conflicts of today’s world. But we must remember that many norms which we take for granted today, long time ago were invented and thought about as a guiding star, as a utopia or a stupid fantasy. Logic of war presupposes one true standpoint and the rest are wrong. Logic of peace should follow communicative rationality. Yes the humanity can exterminate itself. And this point of ultimate power should become a starting point to turn to rationality of negotiations and communication. None of us have right to exterminate another being – a victim or a criminal. We will have to live together – criminals and victims. I think South African Republic’s experience on organizing Truth Commission can be further developed to reconcile and reconstruct the ways the victims and the criminals are living together; with the aim to stop reproducing violence, instead to start creating social mechanisms for negotiations, developing strategies for resisting aggressive habits and teaching these at schools, at colleges and universities, in community centers, at kindergartens, practicing these , making tournaments in negotiations and reconciliations.
Do you think that violence is a “natural” part of being human? If so, why do you think this? If not, why do you think violence, particularly against women, is so prevalent? Please write a response in three to five thoughtful paragraphs.
Violence is NOT a natural part of human behavior; it is learned behavior and thus it can be corrected.
Violence against women is so prevalent because over the centuries in every culture it became a strategy for men to uphold their supreme social and economic position in society. Existing gender hierarchy and social inequality support the relations of exploitations, which benefit men of elite groups, who are thus securing their preferential access to various resources.
Violation of women human rights and physical integrity is a widespread strategy of imposing power: be it economic subordination, physical submission, psychological denigration, denying women access to education, to adequate health services, control over her fertility, or over public spaces. Feminism has been working on different theoretical approaches dealing with the problem of violence against women. Radical feminism confronts violence against women addressing it in terms of patriarchal norms that violate human rights of women. Socialist and Anarchist trends of the feminism focus on the social and economic forms of violence against women, which it sees as a foundation for all other forms of violation of women integrity and in contemporary societies. Eco-feminism articulates the metaphorical similarities of violations of the Earth ecology and violations of female bodies in domestic violence and a widespread social and cultural complicity towards brutalizing women on mass scale.
Criminal justice approach is addressing violence against women as a crime, which has to be prosecuted.
Unfortunately the scale of domestic violence and intimate partners brutality with the women is do gigantic, that penal systems resources would not be able to sustain the task. Thus a search of alternative methods supported by research is continues, funded by respected international agencies including United Nations Organization, various NGOs and a number of research and educational institutions.
Some of the preventive strategies, that are formulated as a result of research and community engagement work include:
1) education of both male and female, teaching schoolchildren the strategies of cooperation and negotiating skills, enabling women to articulate their rights, to make groups with the other women and together stand for their dignity and human rights;
2) structural intervention – providing state support and community support to the NGOs and social services which assist women in cases of domestic violence, offering them shelter, safety psychological and legal support;
3) disseminating local and culturally sensitive strategies which women are practicing in confronting domestic violence;
4) lobbying the city architectural committees, so that the concerns regarding women’s’ safety in the city public spaces would be taken into account in developing public spaces;
5) changing legislation to punish every case of violence against women whether it occurred in public space or in “private” home settings – any case of violence against women should become public, visible and never be left to avoid prosecution.
These measures are some of what is necessary to be practiced routinely and everywhere on the globe, in order to eradicate these epidemic crimes against women.
week 6
do you think that it is inevitable that conflict will result in increased violence against women? Do you think that anything short of eliminating war will eliminate the problem of violence against women in conflict and refugee circumstances? Is peace possible? Share your thoughts in three to five thoughtful paragraphs.
The conflicts between big and small communities always affect women more than men. This is no surprise as the enemies are trying to make the biggest harm to the adversary and achieve the biggest advantage over the enemy. The easiest way to make harm is to attack those without weapons or those who are the least able to fight back. Thus, there are women that taking care for the children and the elders in the community, who are the primary target.
People wage wars to win, not to follow the humanity principles. This is why we have to fight not for the enemies to follow some “humanistic principles of war”, but for the elimination of wars and weapons. This may sounds stupid and idealistic. But if we take this as our goal and make a concerted effort to achieve this, then we’ll see how inventive, resourceful and successful people can be united in a joint effort. The work of Zainab Bandura is significant in this respect: demonstrating that almost unthinkable tasks can be achieved: arranging negotiations with the armed male groups, and making them to stop routinely raping women, and making them to learn that rape is a crime against their own humanity (explaining them that raping a woman they establish a norm according to which somebody else could rape their mother, sister, or significant other).
Peace is possible, which again sounds like a stupid mantra for the most helpless, knowing the reality of endless armed conflicts of today’s world. But we must remember that many norms which we take for granted today, long time ago were invented and thought about as a guiding star, as a utopia or a stupid fantasy. Logic of war presupposes one true standpoint and the rest are wrong. Logic of peace should follow communicative rationality. Yes the humanity can exterminate itself. And this point of ultimate power should become a starting point to turn to rationality of negotiations and communication. None of us have right to exterminate another being – a victim or a criminal. We will have to live together – criminals and victims. I think South African Republic’s experience on organizing Truth Commission can be further developed to reconcile and reconstruct the ways the victims and the criminals are living together; with the aim to stop reproducing violence, instead to start creating social mechanisms for negotiations, developing strategies for resisting aggressive habits and teaching these at schools, at colleges and universities, in community centers, at kindergartens, practicing these , making tournaments in negotiations and reconciliations.