Lec 8 - Collective gender-based violence? Flashcards
When is sexual and gender-based violence collective?
When is sexual and gender based violence collective?
Different ways to answer that question
1) Committed by a collective - Collective causal responsibility
2) Facilitated, encouraged, or condoned by a collective/society - Collective Political Responsibility
What is (collective) rape?
Geneva Convention: rape as a crime against a woman’s honor
Emphasized woman’s character rather than her personhood or rights
Since then reclassified by criminal tribunals as crime against humanit
Collective Rape research by Green, what where the key results
*Perpetrators of collective sexual violence are typically agents of the state or political
rebels
*Victims are typically discriminated
against minority groups
*Intimate tie between collective rape and other major human rights problem
Name examples of collective rape
Rwanda
Trial of Jan Paul Akayesu, Collective rape as part of Tutsi genocide
Yugoslavia
Rape as weapon for ethnic cleansing
Why is there a lack of reliable data in (collective) rape?
- Victims shame, guilt and fear
- Absence of agencies to report to in war-ravaged areas
- Dangerous to report because local officals may be related to perpetrators
- Many victims of sexual assault may have been murdered
What are the two archetypical types of response to collective sexual violence?
Community protection of perpetrators
Individualization or medicalization less feasible
vs.
Outrage at out group
Responses to collective GBV strongly informed by broader group conflicts
What is the role of the media in the societal response to collective GBV?
Media shapes dominant “frames” of events
“frames both produce and limit meaning” (Tuchman 1978)
**Media coverage of sexual violence informs **
Societal responses to violence (outrage, negligence, indifference, etc.)
How policymakers define and address a problem
How individuals make sense of what happens to them
What shapes how the media report on violence?
Addressed in communication and journalism studies
What shapes how journalists report on GBV and collective GBV
1) Journalists’ personal ideology
Feminism as a “dirty word?”
But: need to go beyond personal ideologies to study professional norms and practices
2) Factors external to journalism
Institutionalized sources and primary definers
3) Factors internal to journalism
Newspaper editorial organization
Masculine newsroom culture
What is the Primary Definer Thesis?
Media tend to reproduce
“dominant ideology”
Journalists’ reliance on
institutional sources (90% of Tailhook stories relied on offical governmental sources)
What are the phases of the 1991 tailhook scandal?
1)Business as usual: not yet a media story
2)Vistica and Coughlin speak out about sexual harassment in the navy
Victims “broke the silence”
Navy: “Wall of silence,” “closing ranks,” damage control
Photos of victims and perpetrators surfaced 1,5 years later
3) Media and the Pentagon cover up sexual harassment
Naval officers cited calling Coughlin “whore,” “tease,” “promiscuous”: trivializing sexual assault
Naval officers presented as victims: party that got out of hand
4) Women legislators challenge dominant ideology
Conflict between interests of Navy/government and of women who challenged their power
Criticism of “old boys’ network”
Covered only two years after the events
What is the relation to the response of collective GBV and broader society?
Response to GBV is informed by broader group conflict
What is the effect of the Cologne incident?
Sparked discussion on dangers of:
Liberal immigration policies and Wilkommenskultur
Muslim patriarchy
Political correctness: used to silence feminists and anti-racists (Boulila & Carri 2017)
‘Moral panic’ strengthened support for revision of criminal law
-177 STGB (WvS)
-Bundesrat linked criminal law on sexual assault to German Residence Act: Conviction for sexual assault can lead to deportation
