Lesson Notes - Violence Against Women

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Today

• Main book:
• 52. "Policing the National Body: Sex, Race, and Criminalization," by Jael Silliman.
• 53. "The Color of Justice," by Michelle Alexander.
• 54. "Rape, Racism, and the Law," by Jennifer Wriggins.
• 55. "Interpreting and Experiencing Anti-Queer Violence: Race, Class, and Gender Differences among LGBT Hate Crime Victims," by Doug Meyer.
• PDFs
• Nagel, Joane. "Sex and War: Fighting Men, Comfort Women, and the Military-Sexual Complex." [pdf] pp. 494-506.
• Martin, Patricia Yancey and Robert Hummer. "Fraternities and Rape on Campus." [pdf] pp. 471-479. • Think about recent attacks on women and reproductive control.

Learning Objectives

• To be aware of the prevalence of violence against women and of how social constructions of gender contribute to these crimes.
• To understand how social institutions, including politics, the military, and fraternities contribute to a culture of violence against women.
• To recognize the effects this violence has on women’s lives, including how this violence institutionalizes the control of women and of sexual/gender minorities.
• To be conscious of the ways in which hierarchies built on race and ethnicity, class, and sexuality intersect with gender inequality to produce and maintain violence against women.
• To understand how male privilege and mainstream male socialization contribute to violence against women.

Summary

• Violence against women is pervasive in all cultures (see stats and pearltrees link). Violence and the fear of violence are used to control women’s actions and bodies.
• Violence against women is produced at the intersections of race, class, and gender.
• Social institutions as well as individual men create and continue violence against women.
• Violence against women is a hate crime that is encouraged by sexist ideology.
• Violence also occurs against others less powerful including children and those who cross gender boundaries.

Some Questions 

Below are some important questions related to today's readings. The overwhelming goal (as always) is understand how each of these articles are related to normative constructions of gender, masculinity, and heterosexuality as well as how viewing these experiences from an intersectionalist perspective offers new insights to our understandings of these social phenomena.

1. How is violence against women (especially poor women and women of color) related to structural state-sanctioned violence?
2. Why is it more difficult for LGBT people of color and poor people to easily identify an act of violence as a hate crime directed at sexual identity? How is this related to white privilege?
3. How does the way fraternities focus on masculinity and heterosexuality contribute to a rape culture?
4. How do fraternity values such as loyalty and secrecy contribute to the prevalence of rape in fraternities?  How do these values make it difficult to bring fraternity men to justice?
5. What aspects of fraternity recruitment are likely to contribute to a rape culture?  What structural characteristics of fraternities contribute to this?
6. How are women treated by fraternities?
7. How is alcohol used by fraternity men?
8. How has sexuality been used as a tactic in many wars and conflicts? What are some of the examples of ethnosexual violence Nagel describes? Can you think of other examples of ethnosexual violence in war?
9. Why does Nagel use the term “ethnosexual” to describe the sexual assault and prostitution of war and militaries? How does ethnicity play an important role in who is assaulted and who provides prostitution?
10. What was the conflict that brought international attention to sexual violence as “crimes against humanity,” or what is often called “rape as a war crime”? Should acts of sexual violence be considered war crimes like mass killings? Why or why not?