Award-winning journalist Lauren Wolfe asks a simple question that demands serious thought.
The mass rape of women in war is as old, and horrific, as war itself, and men are almost exclusively the perpetrators. But what if we were to step back and ask how men can actually be part of the solution? It requires a couple of basic assumptions.
First, that not all men can (or would) rape women in war. The second is that we’d have to think of “men as actual and potential agents of change for gender justice.” That’s what Dean Peacock, executive director of the South Africa-based Sonke Gender Justice Network says.
In a paper presented at the end of January 2011 to the Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation, Peacock (who is also the co-chair of the Global MenEngage Alliance) asserted these ideas and more. In fact, he names power imbalance as a root cause of sexualized violence in conflict, as do we here at Women Under Siege.
“Whether in war or peacetime, the perpetration of sexualized violence is driven by socially sanctioned male dominance over women—and over socially weaker men, and children—by notions of manhood and power that valorize sexual conquest and give powerful men a sense of entitlement with no consequences, as many male politicians have shown us,” Peacock says.
Compare that with Gloria Steinem’s words in a Q&A I recently did with her about founding Women Under Siege: “Even in peacetime, the ‘cult of masculinity’ is so powerful that men commit crimes in which they have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose: ‘senseless’ killings like those in schools and post offices, serial murders, domestic violence, stalking, killing their wives and children and then killing themselves. They’re not hate crimes because they don’t hate the people they kill—but those people symbolize their lack of control, and so are killing the ‘masculinity’ on which their whole sense of self depends. In interviews, such men often describe themselves as victims because they believe they should have been allowed to have control. I think we should call such crimes ‘supremacy crimes.’”
Continue reading here at WMC’s Women Under Seige.
–Photo: A One Man Campaign protest against violence against women in Khayelitsha, a township in Cape Town, on March 21, 2011, Human Rights Day in South Africa. (Eric Miller/Sonke)
About Lauren Wolfe
Umm, what can men do? The trouble is those who have the power usually have this thing called an ak-47, machette, a weapon and since this power is so vast one man alone will be cut down with bullets or blades. We can try educate people to stop raping but those in power may or may not listen, the only real option is probably overpower them somehow. Why would they want to change? We can try our best to remind them that their victims are humans but if they themselves grew up in a world of violence it will be a tough sell. We can try our best to weed out the violence that often begets violence, this is a cycle that has been around since the dawn of time. The more powerful being can and often does eat the lesser, or in human’s case enslave them, take them by force.
But do remember that often in conflict the men re not free from rape themselves, at times the dominant group will come in and KILL EVERY MALE whilst taking the women. This constant cycle of violence can breed some extreme hatred for another group, if you are in group A and group B commits attrocity after attrocity against you and one day you get the power, would you view group B as humans or animals to be culled? Mix in some xenophobia, bigotry, ignorance, add the spice of a violent history and you make for some extreme situations that can be very very very hard to educate against.
If you draw blood against my family, I will hate you, if your family hurts my family, I will hate your family. It’s extremely difficult to break this cycle of hatred and eye for an eye often arises. So things like rape, torture, violence in general are used against another group as a way to dominate n control them and stopping that means somehow making the aggressor see them as human. Luckily in many parts of the world we have international rules of engagement, hague convention, etc governing warfare (such as outlawing flamethrowers, not torturing prisoners of war, etc afaik) but many areas don’t follow those rules. How do you get through to them? Social media? What would they care when they’re fighting wars that have battled for millenia, group vs group, back n forth fighting over land, resources, holy lands, religions, etc.
It’s like asking American’s 10 minutes after the twin towers fell to love Al Quaeda members, stop the hate n fighting, to see them as human vs “raghead” terrorist monsters and other language to separate them from us, to other them as the enemy, and at times a lesser race/group/being that isn’t deserving of forgiveness, human rights in prisons (as evident in Abu Ghraib prison). The dehumanization of your enemy and their people is a very powerful and extremely dangerous weapon of war. Who cares if that “raghead” get’s tortured? Who cares if they’re treated like dogs in prison? They’re the enemy right? They bombed us, they attacked our village, last year they raped our women n men, last month they killed OUR people so we are gonna go fuck up their village, we’re gonna go rape n kill their people. Hatred is a MOFO of a terrible thing to overcome, so any ideas how to start?