Search Results

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the problem of violence against women identified by women's movements, states, and international organizations. It explores prevailing definitions of violence against women, including the increasingly common term gender-based violence, and introduces the political economy approach of this book, which seeks to understand the broader context of violence and insecurity experienced by many women. The chapter also reviews the available assessments and data on the prevalence of violence against women and the many methodological and political challenges with measuring this violence globally.

This chapter explores understandings and experiences of gender-based violence and argues that GBV should be located along a broad, socio-culturally entrenched continuum of violence against women and girls, men and boys. Violence is so embedded within our cultural productions of masculinities and femininities that experiencing some form of GBV – be that through sexually objectifying images, sexual harassment, physical, domestic or emotional violence – is almost an ordinary rather than extraordinary life experience for many women and men in our society. Here the chapter returns to the framework set out in chapter one: the triad of violence played out along a continuum, considering how directly visceral violence intersects with Bourdieu’s (2001) symbolic violence which simultaneously works alongside Farmer’s (2004) structural violence. This chapter locates women’s experiences of violence both through their own narratives and through contemporary statistical and contextual data. The authors argue that women are situated knowers who articulate the impacts of overt and covert forms of gender-based subordination on the material conditions of their lives as well as on their sense of self and mental wellbeing. Recognising and identifying a problem, however, does not automatically equip us to eliminate that problem, especially when those problems have structural rather than personal roots

The introduction examines the context of gender-based violence in postapartheid South Africa. Democratization brought remarkable political gains for women electorally and legislatively, yet rates of gender-based violence continue unabated. Set within the backdrop of several high-profile cases of sexual assault and intimate-partner violence, this chapter argues that efforts to address gender-based violence have centered on legal responses, policy making, and carceral approaches. While policies and prosecutions are necessary, they are incomplete strategies for addressing interpersonal violence in the home, family, and community. The service providers, street-level bureaucrats, and community leaders in this study argue that gender-based violence is nested within interlocking systems of racism, sexism, and inequality.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global problem, causing injury and mortality, as well a range of physical and mental health problems, including HIV infection, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse, and miscarriage. This chapter evaluates interventions to reduce men's use of violence and shows how mixed-method approaches are necessary to understand the full impact of the intervention on gender-based violence.

Explanations for gender-based violence often lead to myopic discussions of an elusive, almost mythical “culture” that implies that gender-based violence has always been and may always be part of society. These problematic notions of culture eclipse the very real material conditions and power structures that shape contexts of violence. This chapter stands in contrast to the idea that gender-based violence is “cultural.” South African service providers instead understand gender-based violence as existing within larger contexts of power and inequality. Service providers argue that gender-based violence is ensconced in the violence of poverty and inequality that were fostered by apartheid, in the slow violence of neoliberalism, and in the contemporary climate of xenophobia, substance abuse, and sexual entitlement.

The chapter discusses the tension that exists between three separate UN agendas, those relating to CEDAW and WPS; the fight against trafficking in human beings; and the Security Council’s broader agenda for the maintenance of international peace and security. It considers in particular how the securitisation of WPS and human trafficking by the Security Council has diluted and fragmented the discourse of women’s human rights. It argues that as a form of gender-based violence, human trafficking is subject to the human rights regime that has evolved to combat such violence and that human rights mechanisms should be engaged to hold States responsible for their failure to exercise due diligence to prevent, protect against and prosecute those responsible – in the widest sense – for human trafficking. The incidence of human trafficking (as a form of gender-based violence) in armed conflict means that it comes naturally under the auspices of the WPS agenda. The Security Council’s silence in this regard constitutes of itself a form of violence that weakens the potential of the WPS agenda to bring structural transformation in post-conflict contexts. In agreement with the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children and cognisant of some of the downsides, we argue that ‘in order to ensure more efficient anti-trafficking responses, a human rights-based approach … should be mainstreamed into all pillars of the women and peace and security agenda’. In turn this would provide a new direction for the WPS agenda.

Numerous cases of sexual harassment in French higher education institutions led to the creation in 2002 of a student association dedicated to anti-sexist action against sexual harassment in higher education (Collectif de Lutte Anti-Sexiste Contre le Harcèlement Sexuel dans l’Enseignement Supérieur, also known as CLASCHES). More recently, the French minister for higher education introduced a policy requiring universities to take steps to eradicate sexual harassment and commissioned a survey of violence and gender relations in universities. Focusing on one of the universities where the survey was conducted, this chapter presents key findings from the survey and discusses the university’s responses. Although the university governing body set up a Victim Support Unit and organized activities annually to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, it has not used the survey to develop a specific policy but has, in fact, tried to obscure the results. Students criticize the university’s governing body’s discourses for blaming victims and making perpetrators invisible.

Apartheid recharted the South African landscape through its control and restructuring of place and space. The separation of races through the Group Areas Act divided populations and created pockets of extreme wealth adjacent to areas marked by overpopulation, poverty, and structural violence. While apartheid laws have been repealed for decades, inequality continues to structure the daily lived experiences of South Africans. This chapter examines a range of different communities in order to map the networks, institutional actors, and resources that address gender-based violence in the new South African geography. Efforts to end gender-based violence appear to be most successful when they are embedded in initiatives to strengthen community networks that address the larger structures of inequality and abuse.

This book examines how social inequality functions within Peru's transitional justice process by focusing on the gender-based violence that occurred during the internal armed conflict of 1980–2000. It considers how Peruvian human rights and feminist movements, the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Committee (PTRC), and a feminist nongovernmental organization—the Estudio por la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer, or Study and Defense of Women's Rights (DEMUS)—negotiated between implementing international human rights law and holistically addressing gender-based violence. It also explores how gender norms influence what violations the Peruvian human rights movement, and later the PTRC, prioritize; how gender norms influence dominant representations of women in the PTRC public hearings and sexual violence legal cases; and how the temporally bound nature of transitional justice exists in tension with the continuum of violence. Finally, the book discusses the influence of other social factors, such as ethnicity, language, class, and culture, on gender-based violence during the internal armed conflict.

Three ingredients underpin feminist campaigns against violence against women in universities: research, public activism, and political lobbying. Often discussed as if they are separate activities, this chapter demonstrates that conducting research constitutes activism resulting in and/or requiring lobbying and other activist activities. The chapter analyzes qualitative data collected in a UK national multimethod study exploring barriers and facilitators to implementing the recommendations of the 2016 Universities UK report on violence against women. Interviews with academics reveal how, in becoming cognizant of the power structures within their universities, participants identified how power operated to stall or block the gender-based violence agenda and pointed to transformative measures to circumvent barriers. These measures involve the three ingredients listed here. Collective action is apparent throughout their accounts with alliances being developed with students, external partners, and key individuals, as well as committees and services within their institutions. Cumulatively, the activism of these participants can be seen as transformative.

During the democratic transition, the South African women’s movement focused on creating governmental institutions for women’s empowerment. However, these institutions have not been sufficient to ensure social change. This chapter examines the stories of community leaders who are attempting to fill in the gaps and to address gender-based violence, as well as the stories of community organizers, religious leaders, and tradition leaders who challenge patterns of violence in homes, relationships, and communities. Relying on individual leaders and policy advocates is a tenuous model, given that success is linked to people rather than institutions, and people are not permanent. Similarly, while many community leaders break with “traditional” ideas of male superiority, others continue to deploy these norms to the detriment of women’s empowerment.

The South African police are widely critiqued for their institutional failures and widespread corruption, but the communities in this project point to the importance of the police in efforts to address violence, punish perpetrators, and protect survivors. This is a chilling finding, given the wide discretion the police exercise in cases of abuse and violence. This chapter examines some of the factors that help police stations become positive community leaders, including sector policing, visible policing, community policing, and victim support. The chapter also reveals their overreliance on contracting out key service delivery to volunteers. Volunteers and police also expressed a high level of burnout and secondary trauma working in this sector.

In the past several years, the U.S. feminist anti-violence social movement’s reliance on criminalization has weakened under the weight of mounting criticism of what is now known as “carceral feminism.” This recent shift towards the consideration of explicitly anti-carceral practices and policies within the mainstream feminist anti-violence movement signals a significant break in what has been a steady progression toward a solid pro-criminalization stance since the 1970s. This Chapter provides a timeline outlining some key moments contributing to the pro-criminalization position of the anti-domestic violence movement as well as countervailing events and initiatives that have constructed an anti-carceral alternative. The timeline demonstrates that the anti-carceral turn that is now redefining the mainstream movement is the result of two decades of resistance and counter-hegemonic movement building led primarily by women, gender non-conforming, and trans people of color.

This chapter critically discusses the importance of coalition-building in challenging gender-based violence (GBV) in universities and for laying the groundwork to facilitate and support cultural transformation in the complex and risk-averse environment of higher education. Drawing on the example of a cross-institutional, multipartner coalition initiated by student organizations in collaboration with security, service, and academic staff in two Scottish universities, local service providers, and police, this chapter critically discusses the tensions encountered and challenges posed in creating a “whole-university” approach to preventing and responding to GBV. In so doing, it highlights the centrality of student leadership for developing an informed response and driving forward meaningful change and the importance of internal/external partnerships for prevention work, root and branch reform of university policies and practices, the provision of training and awareness-raising, and the delivery of a thorough institutionalized response to tackling GBV.

This chapter focuses on efforts to engage men and boys in preventing gender-based violence (GBV). We examine violence prevention efforts at the individual, family, community, and global levels. We highlight a range of innovative approaches from around the world, including restorative justice practices, online programs, culturally focused counseling, working with fathers and their children to recognize and prevent intergenerational violence, enhancing men’s capacity to support their pregnant partners, and involving men as allies in the effort to prevent violence against women.

This chapter examines young people's understandings of gender based violence (GBV) and the ways in which they talk about the acceptability of violence. It reviews research on secondary school pupils' views and experiences of gender based harassment and violence, showing the pervasive normalisation and acceptance of GBV by young people as well as the centrality of heteronormativity to their justifications of violence. Building on the concept of a continuum of violence, the chapter argues that we need to re-theorise young people's views on violence in terms of a ‘continuum of acceptability’. Finally, it considers how young people's acceptance of sexual harassment, coercion and sexual violence can be used to understand why some women engage in, or normalise and accept, ‘lad culture’.

The final chapter corrals common themes from the insights and lessons in the array of leaders, strategies, and places included in the book. With religion, spirituality, and antiracism as the focal points for the kaleidoscope of ideas gleaned throughout, it dwells on the process of how defiant Africana spirituality births hope for transnational solidarity. Offering particular cautions for U.S.-American Christian participation, the chapter outlines methodological characteristics of defiant Africana spirituality that enables hope for ending gender-based violence.

Private military and security companies (PMSCs) have rapidly increased in size and rate of deployment since the 1991 Gulf War, notably during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars of 2001 and 2003 respectively. This growth of PMSCs in the last two decades has not been accompanied by an effective legal regulatory framework, and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda does not include any provisions related to the escalating threat that private contractors hired to provide military and security services in conflict settings pose to international peace and security and human rights. This chapter argues that UN institutions, scholars, advocates, and practitioners should incorporate the privatization of war as a new challenge within the WPS agenda, intending to plant a seed in touching upon different ways in which the privatization of war should be addressed in order to prevent gendered human rights violations in conflict scenarios.