å Monday, April 24th, 2017

In this article, “Rights Talk and the experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence” the author Sally Engle Merry interviews women that have been the victims of crimes, such as domestic violence.  The activism for these women has time and time needed the legal system and it’s “justice component” to aid in the support of “the battered women’s movement.” These women have experienced the legal system for themselves and have created their own ” subjectivities” based on these experiences.

It is a harsh reality to think that many women are still the victims of domestic violence. It is not easy for women to come forward and prosecute the abuser. In this article. women share how challenging it was to come forward and prosecute their abusers but also how challenging it can be to prosecute them through our legal system. Sally Engle Merry says “I argue that the adoption of the rights-defined identity under identity-shifting circumstances such as battering depends on the individual’s experience with the law.” Women in general are often victimized. Those women, who have suffered domestic violence will always been seen as victim however depending on our justice and legal system this women may be able to move on and not just been seen or feel like the victim of domestic violence. The experience of this abuse does not have to define and or shape a woman if her abuser is prosecuted and she is treated with respect during the process.

Sally Engle Merry expresses the importance of how going through a “healthy” legal process is just as crucial to a women’s identity as coming forward and prosecuting her abuser. When going through this process each step a women has to take can either negatively or positively affect her “identity shifting”. For example, if a women makes a domestic violence call to the police and the Police Officer on duty tells the abuser “to take a walk.” this can negatively effect that women and her identity by making her feel as though her voice and even her rights as a human being mean nothing, because she has called and asked for help and/or justice and in return she was not meant with that but instead she was dismissed. On the other hand, if that same woman was to make a domestic violence call to the police and the police came and arrested her abuser she would feel as though her voice and rights do matter. This would have a positive effect on her identity-shifting’.

Sally Merry examines the relationship between woman rights, that being woman who have suffered from violence, and the legal system. Merry interviews woman who have experienced domestic violence and who have reached out to the legal system for help and protection against their abusers. Merry suggests that if a woman is suffering from abuse and is rejected by the local officials for help then she is more likely to feel she has no rights and is not worthy of rights- perhaps she many feel she isn’t equal to her abuser. Not only does the legal system opinions matter and affect her thought process, but the society in which she lives in, the people she surrounds herself with can way heavy on her decisions to seek justice. “Thus, an individual’s willingness to take on rights depends on her experience trying to assert them” (347). If people who support her and push her to fight for her rights surround her then she will identify as a person with human rights, equal rights.

Ironically a woman has to fit the descriptions as a “good victim” to receive recognition and protection from the legal system. If a woman fights back or provokes her abusers then she isn’t a “good victim”, they are viewed as troublesome and this can affect their cases. Some of the woman interviewed who had suffered terrible abuse from their spouses didn’t want to punish them, they wanted to make them realize that they were wrong. If a woman just wants recognition of the wrongdoing and then is willing to still be with her abuser is she truly finding her identity and human rights? As stated, “I didn’t want to punish him, just set him straight”(364). If a woman seeks help from the law and then returns to the abuser after, how is the law suppose to maintain protection for her? There are so many factors that go into the rights of woman, social norms in the town of Hilo played heavily on these domestic violence cases. For many years men played a masculine leader role in which he was to keep his wife in check, and if she wasn’t obeying him, then he would use violence to ensure she was doing her part in the household. However there have been many changes to the law because of feminist movements that are advocating for their rights. “A more complex set of penalties for batterers has developed both within and outside the law. Of particular importance is the development of new forms of governance that focus on self-management and a redefinition of masculinity” (379).

Subjectivities are produced through encounters with the legal system.  Feelings and opinions are created when you have dealt with the legal system.  Sally Engle Merry talks about how women and their encounters with the law affects a womans identiy.  For example it was mentioned in the reading that ” A battered women may be pressured by kin to feel she is a bad wife, while her partner may claim she is taking away his masculinity.  The only way she can rescue him from this loss is to deflect the very legal sanctions she has called down upon him. (Merry 345)  This situation right here can have such a major impact on a womens sense of self and the way she views the law.  why does a woman have to feel like she owes a man something or that she has to change her actions in order to please a man even when she knows deep down in her heart that she needs to guard and protect herself as a woman .

The reading also mentioned police , partners , relatives, friends and neighbors all playing a part in making women feel bad or making them feel as if they did something wrong when they decide to take their abusive husbands to court.  Police act as if battered women do not have the right to complain about the violence of their husbands making these women feel as if they are discouraged from seeing themselves as having such a right. (Merry 347) Partners , relatives, friends and neighbors tell these battered women that they are not a good wife for having her husband in court saying that she did something to him for him to hit her.  This type of mentality that society  has can honestly mess with a woman’s mind.  How can people in society cover for these abusive men?  It is as if the law and the people involved in the case of a battered woman puts that women in a place od discomfort when its time for her to make her decision on the man that abused her.  A battered women turns to the legal system for help but theirs close relatives and friends judging her . There should be no reason why women should be fearful or have any anxiety about turning to the courts.  This shows that the people close to these women have a major impact on their decision making .  Any one who has been mistreated and brings it to the legal system should be treated fairly and not judged. unlike these battered women who had their own share of judgments

In her article “Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence”, Sally Engle Merry shows how women as victims of violence by their husbands  come to take on rights consciousness through their experiences with the judicial legal system. first, one developed a rights-define self when one has the courage to speak up and seek help from the law. However, their encounters with police, prosecutors, judges, really define if the problem is relevant and if the offender is guilty, if he is not, then this subjectivity is undermine. A woman comes to take on a rights-define self when she sees herself as an autonomous self protected by the state. Some women are not still able to be aware of this consciousness because of their abused status that their husbands use as a way to show their masculinity, therefore abused women tend to file charges then drop them.

Through the interviews the author directed to various women sharing their experiences with the law, many women victims of violence by just taking a initiative to call the police for help, have already taken a huge step forward seeing themselves a defined beings capable of getting their rights protected. Since in the town of Hilo, the cases of violence against women have increased dramatically in the last 25 years, as a result of men trying to maintain their identify of masculinity and power by using violence, wives with the help of support groups and social services have taken taken a subject position by denouncing their husbands before the law.

The experience of calling to police, walking into courtrooms, filling out forms, gave women a sense of power and therefore enact a different self. This is how the law defines the self by recognizing women as subjects protected by law from violence even within the intimate sphere. But, when the legal system fail to arrest or to prove that the offender is guilty, this subjectivity  is mediated by this, However, they can still become an entitled person by following through with the case, leaving the offender and overall not provoking violence to prove that she is a rational and autonomous person capable of taking on this protection. After this encounters with the law, either with a good or unsatisfying outcome, as the author states “She acquires a new self, now no longer enclosed in the private sphere of the family but constituted by the law even within that family”.

In Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence by Sally Engle Marry, she discusses many important points that influenced women’s laws, specially laws of victims who go through domestic violence and other type of abuse situation by their intimate or family member. Marry argues about how women can be protected against intimate partner’s violence and what can be done to have positive results. With the help of battered women’s movement and the laws women violence can have a lower rate. The rights defined self is a critical issue for the battered women’s movement, which means the right to talk to encourage abuse women to look for help from the law. The battered women’s movement has always focused on a criminal justice component to its activism. In other words, it inspired victims to see violation as a crime to make them reach for the legal system for help. Marry and her assistant went through a long process to support their argument, she interviewed thirty women and twenty-one men and asked them about their experiences with the legal system and most importantly their reactions to the experiences. Everyone had a different opinion and reaction, which helped Marry and her assistant make progress on her project. From my understanding the subjectivities are produced through encounters with the legal system because is a better way to protect victims from domestic violence or any other type of abuse by their intimate partner.For example, women who were victims of domestic violence by their intimate partner were afraid of pressing charges or calling the police for help. Women in this situation would usually make a step back, which eventually give more power to man. One of the many reasons why those women were afraid was because all man was dominant and had power over women. With time women find a way to fit into the laws of being protected and acknowledgeable. The law plays a huge part in the redefinition of subjectivity. The importance is that women encounter conditional help. This is good because by women reporting how they were being threat it by their partners the law would take in mind women’s suffering. Another reason why making domestic violence records was significant at that time was because it gave women an identity as a wife, human being, women who is protecting themselves and children. In conclusion, the subjectivity that Merry tries to break down to make other understand how it works has to do with gender, status, religion, and other factors. Another factor that plays alone with her argument is the rights-defined.