Assignment 09- Merry
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’.
