GD2501 Gendering Violence

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GD2501 Gendering Violence

• Lecture 2 Theorizing gendered violence
• 1 February 2007

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First tutorial week 2

• Sign up for one of the tutorial slots if you
  haven't already - https//www.abdn.ac.uk/diss/ltu/
  booking/
• Read the readings listed in the course outline
• Have something prepared on each of the tutorial
  questions nothing too lengthy just to start
  thinking about the topics
• Power-point slides of lectures will be posted on
  the Gender Studies web site
• ESSAY QUESTIONS WILL BE PROVIDED SEPARATELY

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Lecture outline

• Liberal feminist perspectives justice
• Radical feminist perspectives patriarchy
• Contemporary Masculinity Studies
• Postfeminist views

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Liberal feminism

• Draws on traditions of liberalism rationality,
  reason, equality, justice, legal and political
  redress, democracy, meritocracy
• Sees femininity (and therefore gender) as
  violating womens ability to participate fully in
  the public realm work, education, politics etc
• This is simply unjust
• Susan Moller-Okin Justice, Gender and the
  Family (1989)

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Susan Moller-Okin

• We live in a society that has over the years
  regarded the innate characteristic of sex as one
  of the clearest legitimizers of different rights
  and restrictions while the legal sanctions that
  uphold male dominance have begun to be eroded in
  the past century the heavy weight of tradition
  still works powerfully to reinforce sex roles
  (5-6).

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Justice and false gender neutrality

• Moller-Okin examined theories of justice (e.g
  John Rawls) arguing that many of these theories
  are falsely gender neutral
• Do not take into account the ways womens lives
  are structured
• She takes the family as her main example and
  argues it makes women vulnerable long cycle
  of vulnerability (poor exit option) a
  gendered violence
• Lower pay, poorer old age, double work-load
• Describes the traditional family as lynch-pin of
  gender

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1998 EOC poster
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Radical feminism

• Believe patriarchy is responsible for much
  violence against women
• Violence is used by men to control women
• Not all men have to be violent to all women all
  of the time for this to be achieved fear of
  violence is key
• Male control of womens sexuality key factor in
  women's oppression
• Compulsory heterosexuality (Adrienne Rich)
• Are men innately violent? Greer - men assault
  women because they can
• Offer many descriptions to make their claims

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Worldwide Statistics (McKie 2003 Radford and
Tsutsumi 2004)

• 1 in 3 women in Japan have suffered gendered
  violence 1 in 20 life-threatening
• 50,000 rapes reported every year in South Africa
• A woman is beaten in USA every 9 seconds
• 250,000 women from former USSR and Eastern Europe
  have entered sex trade
• Rape now recognised as a war crime massive
  incidence of rape in conflict/war

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UK Statistics (McKie 2003 Radford and Tsutsumi
2004)

• A quarter of all violent crime in the UK is
  domestic abuse
• On average a UK woman will be assaulted 35 times
  before reporting it to police
• 30,000 rapes are recorded in Britain every year.
  Police estimate that is 15 actual total.
  Statistics suggest roughly half of 1 rapes in
  Britain end in conviction
• http//www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2003229
  ,00.html

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Scottish Statistics (McKie 2003 Scottish
Executive 2005)

• A quarter to a third of all women in Scotland
  will experience domestic violence at some point
  in their lives
• 92 of domestic violence occurs in the home
• Violence perpetrated by 16-18 yr old men towards
  16-18 yr old women up 66 in last 4 years
• 10 increase in domestic violence in recent years
  overall

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Individual Structural?

• Liberal feminism not structural as such but
  believes in power of traditional and
  socialization
• Also believes in power of legal redress sex
  equality laws etc
• Gender Equality Duty April 2007
• http//www.eoc.org.uk/default.aspx?page17686
• http//www.eoc.org.uk/default.aspx?page19302

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Structural

• Racial feminism is clearly a structural theory
  believes in systemic practices
• Harder to change embedded sometimes difficult
  to see often because normal
• Structural violences poverty, hunger
• Practices of everyday violence where suffering
  is routinised and normalised (Scheper-Hughes)
  (In your Reader)

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Masculinity studies and violence

• Problem of seeing male sexuality and/or male
  personality as violent
• Underplays womens agency?
• Underplays womens violence?
• Overplays mens agency?
• Underplays the social construction of masculinity
  and the violence of that
• Masculinity is dangerous risky behaviours (car
  driving in Scotland?)

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Postfeminism

• Dont want to think of women as eternal victims?
• Dont want to think of women as (always) in need
  of protection?
• Radical feminism as constructing women as weak
  and sexually vulnerable?
• Constructs women as a-sexual?
• Postfeminism mostly accepting successes of
  liberal feminism and rejecting excesses of
  radical feminism (see Karen Boyle Media and
  Violence page 163).

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Brief Summary

• Different ways to theorize gendered violence
• Different causes given ---
• Different solutions offered
• Next weeks lectures on violent women an
  aberration of their gender?