fLiatt has 10 post(s)

Lila Abu-Lughod is discussing how the ideas of human rights and humanitarian efforts are in essence being forced on women of other cultures particularly those from Muslim countries. She is explaining how there is no real respect or understanding of differences among cultures and histories  and that Muslim women are not realized as individual persons with different notions of freedom and justice.

Abu-Lughod is trying to understand why the US is focused so much on  cultural and religious beliefs of certain cultures but particularly the religious and cultural beliefs of Afghan women and using the Burqa or veil as a symbol of oppression as well as a tool to justify military interventions by the US in certain regions of the world. She argues that the western views of human rights does not address the injustices faced by women in Muslim countries( education, poverty and health concerns) including the affects of war but instead are a site of cultural generalization where region, community membership and class are not taken into consideration. Wearing a veil, burqa or hijab signifies community membership modesty and respectability.  She makes an interesting point regarding the Jewish community and how women wear wigs which is a  part of their “religious belief and community standards of propriety require the covering of the hair” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 785).  The wearing of burqas also signifies the difference between the public and the private realm in Muslim countries. These distinctions are a part of their culture and are a  mark of modesty. Overall I think the veils have more to do with identity and inclusion in one’s own community as opposed to oppression or lack of agency.

The call to saving others has very little to do with human rights or justice or safety for the women in Muslim countries it has more to do with the US and other powerful countries imposing its values,  beliefs and morals on other nations. The western view of liberation does not necessarily align with the views of women in Muslim countries, “they may want different things than we would want for them” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 787). Again the vocations of saving others implies that the “other” ,Muslim women, need to be rescued. But it is really the West trying to gain control of many Arab countries based on “oil interests, the arms industry, and the international drug trade” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 789).

Muslim countries have long resisted attempts by the west to impose their ideas of how to live and dress starting with the 19th century Christian missionaries. The west wants to impose its way of life on these countries especially its religious beliefs. Culture is closely tied to religion in Muslim countries and they hold on  to the practices and rituals that are a central part of their culture and way of life.

The use of negative associations between terrorists , the Taliban and the injustices women face in South Asia by the west  work to divide nations and cultures by implying that Afghanistan is an uncivilized country and the women are “victims” of the Taliban. But at the same time the west omits its role in the injustices that impact the lives of women from Muslim countries.

Women in Muslim countries are not forced to wear veils or burqas they wear what is considered appropriate based on where in the region they live, their status (professional, poor or working class, marital status, etc) and to  community standards.

References

Abu-Lughod, L. (2002, September). Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 783-790.

Merry is arguing that with the help of the battered women’s movement and law  there are greater possibilities for protecting women against intimate partner violence. Merry is explaining that when battered women seek out help from the legal system gender identities  are altered. With the assistance of  activism put forth by battered women’s movement battered women are presented  as legally capable  and men  are met with the criminalization of their violent behavior  which is usually viewed as natural to men.

Merry also explains that in these instances women take on an individual identity or one that is “not defined by   family, kin” or work relationship. Once she accesses the legal system “she takes on a more autonomous self protected by the state” (Merry, 2003, p. 345). The rights defined identity that Merry explains means that  women who report instances of violence at the hands of their partners are asserting their autonomous selves with the right not to be battered. This autonomy allows her to define herself as a person separate from her identity as a wife or mother.

The subjectivities that are produced through encounters with the legal systems means that woman’s decisions to press charges, go to court or get TRO depends on her  encounters with police officers, battered women shelter advocates and judges as well as on” her sense of self that is deeply at odds with other senses that are rooted in family, religion, and community” (Merry, 2003, p. 345).  If a woman initially contacts the police then refuses to testify or follow through with the process she is then labeled a “bad” or “difficult” victim because of her resistance to “the shift in subjectivity required by the law” (Merry, 2003, p. 345). If a woman reports abuse to the police  and the police do not take her complaints seriously or if  the abuser is not arrested this encounter will shape her future decisions on whether or not she will report the abuse. So if  she encountered  negative reactions  from law enforcement such as her rights treated as if they are irrelevant  she may choose either not to report the abuse or she will not consider her complaints of abuse from a rights framework.  Her choice to report and/or follow through depends on her experiences  with the legal system trying to assert her right not to be battered.

The subjectivity that Merry is referring has to do with social location based on gender , class, marital status, religion etc. A rights-defined  identity is another layer to a women’s social location that some women did/do not know that they possessed until turning to the legal system when subjected to violence by their partner.  This has to do with gender roles and identity which is altered when the male is unable to maintain control and his masculinity is challenged due to the woman involving law enforcement  and asserting her rights. The woman contacting the police is going against the concept of her submissiveness to her mate. Her position negates his fantasy power and identity which creates crisis which leads to violence (husband to wife) because she turned to the law for help.

The purpose of Resolution 1325 is to acknowledge the impact of war on women and girls. Resolution 1325 calls for the adoption of gender mainstreaming which takes into consideration the unique needs of women and girls in war torn countries while also recognizing the importance of women’s  roles  and experiences in post war reconstruction, peace and justice.

Resolution is 1325 is a  document or recommendation that requires countries at war to protect women and girls against gender-based violence and prevent rights violations. This document is attempting to recognize that the most affected and impacted groups of people during conflict are women and children. These groups are targeted at higher rates in times of war by armed groups.

Two of the main areas that Resolution 1325 is bringing attention to is sexual violence against women and girls in countries of conflict and to increase the involvement and participation in peace building, security and other political institutions. Despite this resolution being based in international law that explicitly recognizes  “gender-specific conditions and acts that women experience in war”(p.1255) the resolution is facing difficulty being implemented even though  the document has a  Special Representative of the Secretary General  to advance  the issues covered in Resolution 1325. Members of the UN are supposed to follow the decisions made by the security council. Countries represented in the United Nations are supposed to be implementing the aim of the resolution.

I don’t think many nations are interested in implementing the resolution or are not committed to it because there appears to be no accountability or penalties for countries that do not implement it. I think that women are still being presented as victims even within the language of this resolution because it mainly emphasizes the  violence and other issues women face before, during and after war but does not seem to look at the other ways in which women’s rights are violated or ignored in the absence of war. I have never heard of this resolution and I am sure that I am not alone so the fact that society or countries in general may not even know about Resolution 1325 is another challenge to its implementation.

While the Resolution does bring awareness of the effects of war on women and children and how those effects differ from men’s there are still countries presently in conflict that are not utilizing women in peace building and do  not have women in positions of political power where they can effect change. Women, children and civilians are still being targeted by military groups  and women and girls are still becoming victims of various forms of violence from trafficking to rape and their rights continue to be violated and unprotected. Women still account for the largest group affected by war but there are still not enough women represented in the policy making and decisions that impact them (living free from violence, protection against gendered forms of violence,  lack of social justice and resources)

The surplus that Gilmore is referring to are the surplus of people mostly poor people of color that were left unemployed due to economic recession, surplus of land that was left unused due agribusiness and the industrialization of farming and the increased investment in high tech military industries resulted in large groups of people being unemployed. For those in government they understood that warfare spending produced wealth. This in turn created a social crisis where people  were fighting for social welfare rights because they were deliberately excluded which created various forms of activism and in turn created a moral panic which included civil disorder, political alliances among organizations. In order to cure society of the social crises ( people of color out of control, idle youth in the streets, and women and children without husbands and fathers) the state began to incarcerate large numbers of African American and Latinos. The prison system is the answer to the social crisis and deviant behavior.

Gilmore also explains that structural changes to employment opportunities  could also be another reason for prison expansion in California. These structural changes forced large groups of people to find other ways to support themselves and generate income. Many people resorted to property crimes or drug dealing and those convicted of such crimes made up a large number of the prison population because even laws changes which affected how a person would be charged and how long their sentence would be. People would not have resorted to crime had they not been forced out of work and if the social programs and resources were still available to them.

Media, policies and government were also influential in creating the social or moral crisis. The use of such terms as “law and order” and safety and crime  were used to justify the building of so many prisons in a short  period. Society was more concerned with crime rates and drugs than they were about unemployment and inflation. Society continued to worry about crime and safety even though crime rates were down.

The crisis was not necessarily economic the crisis seemed to be people especially those of color wanted fair treatment and employment. The surplus consisted of finance capital, land, labor (people) and sate capacity.

Crisis is usually what happens when something in society, ( people, land, buildings) becomes surplus or more than what was expected or needed and “society” decides that it should do something about it. In California the prison system is the answer to the crises: Land was made a surplus because of agribusiness (industrial farming), finance capital was made surplus by California’s budget and tax laws and the people in the urban areas were made surplus by uneven development, structural changes to employment opportunities and racism.

The transition from feudalism to capitalism started in the 16th and 17th centuries when land privatization and enclosures began to take place. People were removed from their land against their will and once they were removed they lost their means of production and sustenance.

Before the transition to capitalism women had access to land (commons) and the food they planted. They had control over the land and resources and were able to take care of themselves. They did not necessarily need men to tend to the land and they earned income from the crops the sold. But once the transition to a capitalist society began to take shape “women themselves became the commons, as their work was defined as a natural resource”(pg 97).

The economic and population crisis of the 16th and 17th centuries led to a “bio-power regime” which basically created policies that the state used “to punish any behavior obstructing population growth” (p. 86) which made reproduction and population growth a space where the state exercised control.

Federici argues that control over women’s bodies is linked to this crises. This is where the criminalization of reproduction began. In Europe “severe penalties were introduced in the legal codes to punish women guilty of reproductive crimes”(p87). Repopulization and reproduction of the labor force was what women were reduced to.

The degradation of women and the accumulation of wealth came in the form of state control over reproduction and the construction of women as the non-worker. In constructing the woman as a non worker it relegated them to the home (private sphere) which led to the devaluation of their labor. Women’s work was then viewed as a “communal good anyone could appropriate and use at will”(p.97).

The state controlled women’s reproduction and procreation through strict laws and penalties for using contraception, surveillance of pregnant women by midwives, neighbors and even family members. Women’s was so closely survelled that women were “required to register every pregnancy”(p.88).

Women were viewed as reproductive machines forced to reproduce the labor force. Women’s “wombs became public territory, controlled by men and the state, and procreation was directly placed at the service of capitalist accumulation”(p.89). Women were not only constituted as reproductive laborers without being paid but because they were relegated to the private sphere their labor became invisible while at the same time reproducing the conditions that enabled men to go to work.

Bodies were  viewed as “raw materials, workers and breeders of the state”(p.88). The witch hunts were another way that women were degraded. Women were the ones that resisted the enclosures and physically removed many of them. Women are the ones that stood in protest during meat and food shortages. It was these women that were targeted by the witch hunts because they resisted.

Over time women were not to live alone. They could not be seen in the streets alone and even at some point could not even be seen peering out of a window. The state continued to enact strict laws that  criminalized any activity women took part in. Prostitution was previously an acceptable practice but as the attack on women continued prostitution too became criminalized. .

The family unit (where a women lost most of her power). Women and children were considered the subordinate  class according to the new definition of the family in which the husband was responsible for disciplining and supervising them. Once women married their husbands were generally paid the wages that she  worked  for even though she worked to produce for the market The Feminization of poverty , male as bread winner, patriarchal wage were the instruments and tactics used by men and the government to strip women of social status, economic opportunity to ensure access to sex and the female body but also to continue to reproduce the labor force.

The rights for women to own land or conduct business or  to enter contracts  were all taken away, Women declared “legal imbeciles”

After reading the text I can see even more clearly how citizenship is sexualized and normalized as being heterosexual. But again to be a citizen implies that one must be male, white and heterosexual and to enjoy human rights you must be human which women are not thought to be human  they are believed to be the  other , “the marked and denigrated.” So to enjoy or exercise rights one must be a citizen which makes them human. Women and other groups (African Americans, immigrants, gays and lesbians) do not enjoy human rights protections because the institutionalization of heterosexism assumes men as the norm.

For Peterson in Parisi heterosexism is the best lens through which to see the structural inequalities that effect women and other vulnerable groups. Inequalities are produced and reinforced by the prevailing gender norms of society, which associate men and women with socially constructed gender identities.  These norms play a dominant role in the unequal relations between men and women. Women and other groups  are subordinate under heterosexism  and  face inequitable economic and health treatment, as well as an increased vulnerability to being victims of violence.

Heterosexism implies certain gender roles and responsibilities and protections. ” The heterosexual nuclear family unit becomes the primary social unit preserved and protected by the state, even as the state denies intervention in the private sphere” (Parisi, 1998, p. 144). Being that women are relegated to the private sphere they are not protected under human rights. They are subordinated in the private sphere and experience varying forms of human rights violations.

From what I’ve read so far, the language of various declarations of rights and the principles for which human rights framework  is derived was created to defend the rights of man and in particular elite men; male household heads. Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights  1948 declares: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon his honor or reputation”(United Nations) This article repeatedly uses the terms “man” and “his” and it also only seems to be talking about  how to protect the rights of the family from outside intrusion which is only addressing the public sphere. There is no mention of  woman or how she would be protected in the private or public sphere. Human rights are worded and built around male experiences and do not address the risks that women face (violence, unpaid labor, reproductive, political representation, etc). Heterosexism is precisely the way to analyze relationships of gender differences and human rights because  the early normalization and institutionalization of the man as property owners, man as citizens and man as breadwinner has continued to influence culture politics and  economics and continues to be the greatest factor impacting human rights discourse which continues to exclude women based on male ideals and norms.

Initially  Moyn gives a brief history of the term “human rights” and explains that human rights are a relatively new concept that was believed to have emerged after WWII in response to the “crimes against humanity” that took place in the German concentration camps. But according to Moyn, human rights did not gain attention  or momentum until the 1970’s when NGOs began to use human rights to represent individual protection against the state.

As far as I understand the Declaration of Rights of Man was intended to declare the rights of citizenship within the nation-state mainly in relation to the protection of property, which is different from human rights  today. “The rights of man were about a whole people incorporating itself in a state, not a few  foreign people criticizing another state for its wrong doings” (Moyn, 2010, p. 26) Moyn also argues that the concept of  human rights is an ideology or ideal for the world to aim for. Moyn also argues that human rights is the “the last utopia” for the world to believe in especially due to the crumbling over time of other, as Moyn calls them, alternative ideologies (religion, socialism, etc).

Moyn  also  discusses how  the problems during WWII  were not framed as human rights violations , which kept the public from knowing the issues and atrocities that had taken place. As mentioned before, the destruction and devastation caused by WWII had hardly any impact on  producing a set of human rights standards for countries to live by. There were many events that took place throughout history that have helped to shape the concept of human rights one of which was that President Carter  who began incorporating human rights language into foreign policy as a way to further the countries self interest and not necessarily out of the concern for international human rights.

Human rights can only be recognized and enforced by the state. Human rights imply moral principle and today while such organizations as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are in place to monitor/prevent human rights violations, they are not doing such a good job. Human rights are violated everyday here in the U.S as well as abroad. Human rights today is used as a tool to interfere in other governments such as the War on Terror. If human rights are intended to protect humanity  and to lessen the suffering of people then why do countries continue to use human rights rhetoric to justify military interventions in other countries as well as economic sanctions.

I think I learned that human rights today are very broad and interpreted very differently because they seem to promise everything to everyone. Also  having protections of rights depends on citizenship, as it always has. Citizenship or the “right to have rights” implies communal inclusion  “without communal inclusion the assertion of rights by itself makes no sense” (Moyn, 2010, p. 12).  Rights of man addressed citizenship and “belonging to a political community” (Moyn, 2010, p. 12) at home and human rights implies “the politics of suffering abroad” (Moyn, 2010, p. 12).

Human rights cannot rationally be said to exist only to protect the weak from abuse, as they are more and more politicized and designated as an mechanism through which the politics of power is advanced. Brown’s example of this is the United States and Britain “intervention in Iraq” (Brown, 2004, p. 455) which according to Brown was hailed  a human rights effort which according to Ignatieff’s view was intended to reduce the suffering in that country and promote agency or “help people to help themselves” but what choice did that country have. The United States’ intrusion in Iraq did not  reduce or prevent suffering what the U.S did was  advance its own political power in that country.

Another claim Brown is making is that  human rights are not universal they are  applied selectively, not universally, and can be used to further US interests rather than to protect people who fall victim to human rights abuses.

Brown is also arguing that human rights are a part of politics and can be tied to economics as well.  Rights can be a means and a medium of authority and domination.

I think Wendy Brown is arguing that human rights and how they are applied can lead to abuse of these rights and that human rights have to encompass more than just security and protection from suffering and political power. Brown also points out that Ignatieff’s doesn’t think that human rights should include food or shelter and that individual rights and how they are exercised cannot be separated from politics. The state is in the position to enforce or provide these rights to people.

Human rights discourse creates a “certain kind of subject in need of a certain kind of protection.” Another point raised in the text is that Americans have more rights today than they’ve ever had but little power to shape collective justice and political aims. So it appears that for all the rights that we have or fight for we still have relatively little say in government decisions even when they affect us.

I also believe that Brown is also making a point that human rights is a Western concept and therefore may not necessarily be able to be applied universally. At the same time she is touching on the idea that the U.S is in the position to create and impose this concept and can use the language of human rights rhetoric to justify military interventions in other countries as well as economic sanctions.

The incorporation of women into a sphere that “is and is not civil society” is achieved  through a marriage contract. When a women enters into a marriage contract she is giving her husband rights over her body. Marriage gives the men  sexual access to the woman’s body. According to the social contract, women were never included in the original pact.  They were completed written out of the contract that fortified liberties and rights for men. The contract in essence is an agreement made by men for men.

In the state of nature men and women have equal control over their children. In the state of nature women also have the same instinct to survive ( self-preservation) and even though women were not left out of the state of nature Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau believed that men and women are different and that “women are born into subjugation” (Pateman, 1988 p.41)  and that males have a natural right over women.

According to Hobbes mothers had rights over their children in the state of nature and not fathers. That in the state of nature women did have to consent to sexual intercourse, because it was in the state of nature that she was equal is status, “as free and  equal individuals” (Pateman, 1988 p. 48) to men but once she has children her position changes  because now she must protect herself and her child which places her at a weakness.

The social contract deliberately leaves women out of sharing in liberties, and political rights because the contract in itself is about male sex rights to women’s bodies. The contract is about  sexual access to the female body. Women are not” individuals” an individual is a man. Women’s bodies are thought to be only  reproductive sites. Women are not human beings they are something different ,not male . The pact was voluntarily agreed and consented to by men for men.

Although in the state of nature women have power over their offspring and the instinct to survive, women are believed  not to  possess natural freedoms, they are not born free and therefore do not possess the attributes or capabilities to be an individual capable of entering into  a contract or to be owners of their own bodies.  When a woman enters into a marriage she has to consent to the marriage. If  I understand correctly, consent requires a certain level of freedom, she would have to be recognized as an individual.

When a woman enters into a marriage contract she is simultaneously free but also subordinate. In the marriage contract the male guarantees  his access to conjugal relations.  She is part of civil (public)  society because she entered into a marriage contract but she is also not part of civil  society because once she enters into the marriage contract her husband has rights over her.

Hello everyone, my name is Liatt. This is  my last semester at CWE. I currently work as a Direct Service Provider for a non-profit in Brooklyn. I work with adults with mental illness and intellectual and developmental disabilities. I also have a 14 year old daughter on the Autism spectrum.

I chose this class because I feel it will connect well with a class I took in the fall titled Women and Work. Another reason I chose this class is because I think it is important to understand the history of human rights and why women are still fighting for them.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 1789 essentially said that all people are born free and have equal rights. The document also specifically named those rights, such as freedom, the right to own property, the right to safety and protection,  the right to be involved in the creation of laws, the right to a fair trial (innocent until proven guilty). Many of  the articles in the declaration  sound very similar to the U.S Constitution but the language changes in some of the articles. According to article 6 of The Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen, the words “all citizens” is used where in article 1 of the document the words “all men” is used.

I think that language as well as changes in society (education, employment, economics) affects how rights are interpreted, exercised, and applied. Today civil and human rights are not applied evenly or equally. In the past rights were not applied evenly or equally either. All of the precursory documents written regarding rights and citizenship were written by men. In almost all of them women, slaves, and people that are not property owners were not written in to the documents therefore not protected or included.

There are many groups of people today in the U.S that do not enjoy full citizenship  and who are not protected by the constitution or bill of rights. A persons social location determines citizenship, inclusion, protection under the law and whether or not one can exercise certain rights as well as political representation. Gender, immigration status, race and economic status all determine what rights apply to a particular group or if that group is even included under those rights. Human rights are still being violated today just as they were in the past.

I don’t understand a declaration to be law but instead they are a set of rules that were put into writing in order to prevent one person from having too much power. A declaration is basically a document stating how a person should be treated by others in the larger society and what society expects of its members.  Again, the language used as to who these rights protect is also very vague and not specifically naming every group of people. So if the terms “man” and “citizen”  were used then for me that implies that only men are protected and only men can be citizens. Women, slaves, and  people who did not own property, were not mentioned in the declaration, they were not thought to be honorable and had no political representation or rights. The language used in the Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen separated groups of people based on gender, economic status and race.