5 Assignment 09

In the article “Rights Talk and the Experience of Law” Sally Merry argues that rights are adopted by their identity mostly gender identity. “Gender is an identity which is performatively constituted by expressions” (351). Each gender rights can also be identified by encounters with the police, courts, judges and etc. she talks heavily about battered women and how they should speak up about their violent relationships to receive help. The human rights movement depends on the government to comply with the victims to advocate for the right to help these batter women. The battered women movement relies on criminal justice that encourage women to see their violations as a form of a crime and seek help from the legal system. But some battered women are slow to take action because they are scared of what might happen with their husbands. They are afraid that their husbands may kill them if they take them to court. So women are so afraid that they may back down and drop all charges or they may not want to testify against their husbands. They also fear the shift in subjectivity in the law. They may be called or seen differently by the law. By taking in these rights requires an identity change between both partners. The women will been seen as self protected by the state and the man will be seen as a criminal and controlled by the state.

All of the interactions with law can take on a new identity and sometimes favor the gender. A male police officer may fail to arrest a man for abuse because he may not think batter is something serious. This may discourage women of feeling like they have any rights. So the women must assert themselves so they can have some rights and not just be seen as battered women. There was an increase in cases of men beating on their wives which lead to an increase in seeking help from the law. Women that have been batter came together to help one another and develop a shelter to supper battered women.

Women taking actions by going to the law is being looked at as an exploration. Trying the system and hoping it won’t fail them. By going to the law these women must know the risks; a hostile and angry partner, and it Amy challenge the mans masculinity. When a women calls the police or press’s charges it opposes the power of his masculinity. These women are conflicted by using their rights to come forward about their violations or keeping their mouth shut and being a good wife. Unfortunately they can’t do both.

Some the the women Merry interviewed reported fears and anxieties about going to the courts. Some experienced hesitation for a long time before they went to court. After some women went to court they found the legal system supportive. When these women went to court they slowly stated to their dignity back and feel proud.

The men also was interviewed and they expressed that they felt angry and humiliated. Some felt that it was only one sided and everyone in the court was in the women side. Some wanted to know after so long of abuse their wives wanted to speak up now and that their behavior was not serious at all. Others found it to be life changing and very helpful they started to support their wives.

I think Merry means that identity can be produced through the legal system. For men they can been seen as being humiliated and a criminal. And for women they can been seen as a source of the humiliation and a battered women.

In “Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence”, Sally Engle Merry examines how one begins to see their problems within the framework of human rights. Focusing on gender-based violence in romantic and familial relationships, Merry and her assistants interview a number of women and men on their experiences with law enforcement, the judicial system, and advocacy groups to illustrate how these interactions bring awareness, or does not, to their consciousness of human rights and their understanding of how rights are applicable to the violence they have experienced (or perpetrated).

The interviews take place in Hilo Hawai’i in the early 1990s, across a broad range of ethnicities but mostly within a lower rung of economic class. They find that the interactions with law enforcement and the judicial system greatly affect the victims’ ability to look at their selves and their situations through the lens of human rights. For example, in many cases, the police officers responding to domestic violence cases were either chummy with the attacker or dismissed the women’s complaints. The result was the woman believing that they were not entitled to protection. On the other hand, many of the judges in the examples given were supportive of the women, resulting in the women developing a sense of self which acknowledged that they were due protection under the umbrella of human rights.

While the above may seem like common sense – it seems evident to me that one’s interactions with law enforcement and the judicial system will affect how one views themselves in relation to the law and rights – Merry’s research and essay is quite interesting, as it is yet another example of the public versus private sphere and how the division affects the rights of women. Merry speaks to the women developing a new sense of self, one that is not necessarily defined by their relationships with their partners or families, rather one that is defined as a subject of the state, one that is owed protection. This transition moves the conversation around gender-based violence in the home from the private domain into the public domain, allowing not only visibility but protection.

Merry does touch on the economics of both the victims and the attackers throughout her paper and spends a small paragraph on how those with the resources have different experiences. It would be interesting to investigate this further. On the one hand, one may think that having additional resources would allow victims easier access to lawyers and assistance. On the other, Merry makes a point of recognizing that many of these cases remain private due to the financial resources on both sides. Given that the consciousness of rights is tied to the private/public sphere division, it would be rather interesting to further investigate the impact of keeping these cases private has on the women’s ability to view their situation through the lens of human rights.

Toni Mitchell

Assign 9

The history of rights shows that the struggle for the recognition of women’s rights was difficult enough and the recognition of the right of women to a life without gender violence has been even more difficult. With a perspective based in a socio-legal and critical approach, Sally Engle Merry defends the recognition of the right of women to a life free of gender violence must be seen as a conquest of the feminist movement and women’s organizations.  It was the struggle of the feminist movement which provided the catalyst for the recognition of women’s rights and the specific right of women to a ‘healthy’ life free of gender violence and to protection against such violence. The right of women to a life free from gender-based violence cannot be fully realized without the implementation of this right at the international and the local level. The implementation of rights and the existence of social movements involved with the right to a life free from gender violence is decisive to transforms the demands for protection from violence and its eradication to be see not as a question of mercy, but as a question of justice; and putting the individual experiences of gender violence victims within a wider framework from which the abuse can be considered as a social problem.

Throughout the article,“Rights Talk and the experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence” , Merry interviews a number women known to society as a victim of domestic violence. She uses the issues concerning the bettering of women to model the way law acts to change social behavior. she examines examines various forms of intervention which have been developed in the US and globally for diminishing violence against women. She further discusses how they have globalized, focusing in particular on the role of the international human rights movement in defining gender-based violence as a human rights abuse.

From my point of view, those wishing to make a human rights claim on a violation of  reproductive rights, must use the terminology of other mainstream rights to do so. although this may appear as something difficult for a woman to do, Merry argues that “Human rights are difficult for individuals to adopt as a self-definition in the absence of institutions that will take these rights seriously.” Another thing that caught my attention is the usage of  the term victim. Why is it that when authorities are involved, women

Sally Engle Merry’s essay, “Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence,” attempts to examine the ways in which people who did not necessarily previously see themselves as entitled to rights (civil, human, or any other) come to see themselves as such. To make the argument, Merry employs her research with battered women (and abusers) in Hilo, Hawai’i in the 90s and concludes that this transition occurs within and is based upon an individual’s interaction with the legal system – or, some might say, the state.

Merry’s interviews seem to show that a battered woman’s experiences, from the time she calls for legal intervention to put a stop to the abuse to her interactions with court officials and then long-term services to prevent further abuse, are what begin to shape her (usually) new notion that she should have autonomy (bodily and otherwise) and is entitled to a set of rights to protect and preserve that autonomy. Many of the women interviewed experienced police officers displaying more sympathy towards the abusers than towards them. Some of them even described the police as “cold” and entirely unsympathetic to their horrible ordeals. This experience can lead to what she discusses in the introduction of her essay – many women dropping their initial complaints and refusing to cooperate with law enforcement.

Centrally, what she seems to be putting forward, however, is that positive interactions with the court system can help women to develop a strong sense of their rights. The ideal conditions, one imagines, begin with sympathetic police officers who recognize the dangers that women in abusive relationships face and immediately implement ways to protect the woman and keep her separated from her abuser. Then, a sympathetic Judge who understands the power dynamic and the influence that he or she can play within it to get the abuser to stop his behavior (in at least one of the interviews, a woman described being quite satisfied with a Judge’s lecture to her abuser, but less impressed by the police’s actions or his experience in the jail system). Finally, and what seems to be a crucial component, is the long-term follow up preventative measures of ATV classes that both partners attend.

So, when all the components seem to come into place, a battered woman’s identity can shift from seeing themselves as someone who must tolerate abuse to someone who has rights AND can implement those rights. But, evidence based on Merry’s interviews shows that these experiences can vary quite a bit and, thus, if a woman’s rights are not taken seriously by the state (i.e. the legal system), then there is no guarantee, really, of a woman understanding her identity as entitled to rights.

In “Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence,” Sally Engle Merry begins her article with a question pertaining to one’s understanding of their entitled or assumed rights and the problems that are associated with these rights, or lack thereof. The understanding and adoption of rights, according to Merry, needs legal intervention and protection by the law. However, this intervention by authorization only contributes to subjectivity and acknowledgement of existing subjectivity of those who need and want to acquire, understand, and fight for their rights.

“Rights-defined selves emerge from supportive encounters with police, prosecutors, judges, and probation officers. This empirical study shows how victims of violence against women come to take on rights consciousness,” (p. 343).

Subjectivities are produced through encounters with the legal system, according to her article, through various instances. For example, domestic violence specifically against women serve as a contribution to subjectivity. Although women may be in a dangerous and violent situation, they pick and choose when they want to assert, defend and reject their rights with inclusion of the law. This may be due to their splitting decision of wanting to claim their rights and security while simultaneously preserving their autonomy and role as a good wife. “They clearly fear retaliation by the batterer, but they also resist the shift in subjectivity required by the law,” (p. 345).

“Thus, an individual’s willingness to take on rights depends on her experience trying to assert them,” (p. 347). Merry shares that acting upon rights is dependent on an individual’s experience and understanding of rights in correspondence with their identity. In other words, if one believes that they are treated unjust and have the right to make a change, chances are that they will advocate and fight for that change. If rights are treated with insignificance, though, by law and the general population, the injustice in question may not be associated with rights and unjustness of rights. In either scenario, that individual is subjected to either go through some process of encounters with the legal system or is subjected to the dominant opinion of worth regarding the injustice felt by that individual.

According to Merry, encounters with the law cause women to switch up roles in accordance to the subjectivity at hand. Depending on the discourse and social practice at hand, women’s positions may switch from assertiveness to feeling out the waters of the situation they’re in and what they may want the outcome to be. Consciously adopting rights, then, requires shifts in behavior and subjectivity that correspond with an individual’s understanding and experience, their seriousness regarding implication of rights, and what is not worth reinforcing.

What I think Merry means when she says that subjectivities are produced through encounters through the legal system is that people, more specifically women, bias especially through the legal system. An argument that merry makes is that women that are in abusive relationship or marriages, the women who are being abused reports the abuse and other wrongdoings towards them and as a result they are choosing themselves over the man and that is when the woman gains power over the man. “At the same time her actions allow the law to define her husband/partner as a criminal under the surveillance and control of the state”. After reading that I feel that the mistreated or battered woman now has power over her husband or partner. I also think what Merry is trying to say is that after going to the legal system, the woman’s family tries to convince her that she’s not a good wife or girlfriend and will also try to. Convince her that she took away her husband’s or partner’s masculinity. “A battered woman may be be pressured by king to feel she is a bad wife, while her rather may claim she I staking away his masculinity.” Then right after, Merry states that a woman is considered a bad wife or girlfriend when after she goes to the legal system and asks for help then she takes it back. Then they are considered as having identity transformation.
A problem that Merry points out is what if those in the legal system favored the male and thought that the woman is overreacting and didn’t take the situation serious. This makes the woman thinks twice about what power she has to protect herself and her rights. Another problem that I noticed was when Merry said that when the male tries to reassert his masculinity, the female tries to find the new subject within the law alienating and empty. However, on the other hand, she also says that the female’s family would pressure her into leaving the abusive male and get new services to protect herself within the legal system. In my opinion, after reading that women often go to the legal system for help then try to take it back in fear of what her family thinks or that she fears that she is challenging the male. I don’t think that women should try to take back going to the legal system for help, because in a way the woman herself is taking away her own power. Not only to stop the abuse, but just having he own power in fear of being judged or fear of retaliation from the abusive male. “As women confront the demand to testify against an offender in open court, unsure of the penalty that will follow, but certain of the anger he feels as a result of her testimony, the nature of the new subjectivity offered to her by the law appears ambiguous and unclear”. I felt that this was another reason as to why women try to back out because the legal system doesn’t make what comes next clear and being that the female is unclear, scared, etc., she thinks twice about wether or not she should go through with whatever service it was that she chose.

After reading Sally Engle Merry article ” Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence” was a very interesting article because many of us are aware of domestic violence that often occur in marriages, but as for myself I did not realize depth of when a battered women/wife now turns to the legal system for protection of self right from such violence.

Merry argues and points out many good points, she focuses her arguments on battered women (that are in violent marriage or relationships receiving physical abuse) and that such issues battered women’s movement relies on the criminal justice that would become a component to an activism that would automatically allow these victims to view and acknowledge their violation towards them as a crime and turn to the legal system for help and guidance. Merry argues that battered women are hesitant to report these crimes due to the fact that most family are deeply rooted, that when the women reports the crime she automatically chooses to the ‘right define self’ which changes the identity for the man and women, but more importantly the women. Instead of being defined by her husband and the family, the wife will then be self-protected by the state of law-becoming an individual rights.

Because this is not the norm for women that are in rooted family, she can feel pressured by the kin to feel bad for trying or potentially to take away her partner masculinity. Or if she backs down from reporting such violation she would appear to be a difficult wife or even a bad victim.

Merry states that without the participation of these victims in the identification of the violence, it become difficult for movement activist to be unable to further their social forms. Interactions with workers from the law enforcement, courts, shelter workers is affective to how far a victim is willing tot are on this new identity. Merry would also point out the challenges these victims may face, such as what if the prosecutor of the courts system do not take the case serious-at the same time not taking the victim serious, or what if the police are friendly to the man, failing to arrest him or if the judges suggest the offense is not as serious. Such experience can weaken the woman’s willingness to take these rights that is presented to her and assert them. If her rights are treated unimportant she may choose to give up and no longer think about her self rights.

Based on Merry’s research, one of her focuses was in Hawaii, directly in towns where her interviewers has had experienced with family court/district court, and participation in a court mandated battered intervention program women’s support group. In a town called Hilo, a feminist group started a shelter program in 1978, and in 1986 they would work with battered women, supporting them. In this very own town cases of violence against women had expanded, hundreds to thousands of many reports of  arrest and  physical abuse were reported, this showed a major increased of women reaching out for help, because there was a system there to help them.

Based on gender man/woman, economic statues, marital status, religion and local (especially if the location is a poor area) when reporting these violence from the partner, the wife takes on a new subject position, where the man masculinity is challenged and more importantly for him his control over her.

Because the legal system allow women for once to be protected and gain self right towards violence from their partners this allows the women to take a step forward.

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.

I think what Merry was trying to say when she said subjectivities are influenced by ones encounters with the law is that women who are victims of domestic violence tend to seek help from the law but in most cases they end up dropping the charges and restraining orders in fear of losing their families as well as the abuser coming back for retaliation. The law greatly influences both the victim and the abuser’s out look on the seriousness of the subjectivities. Merry shows how if a woman is not given the proper encouragement needed so that she can understand that yes she has rights as a human and as a woman and yes those rights were violated and yes we will do everything in our power to get justice for the crime committed against her as well as any further help needed we will do so. Sometimes this outcome is not the case. Women are often times told by law enforcement that they are over reacting or because the abuser is a man he has a bond with his fellow man and the nature of the crime is then lessoned and a slap on the risk or a warning is issued which in turn empowers the abuser and discourages the abused or when the issues goes all the way up to the judge and another slap on the risk is given because the abuser has a good career and his reputation would be ruined if he was sent to jail over domestic violence or what ever the case may be. However , lets say that a women does seek help from the law and the law in turn actually does it job, justice is done , he goes to jail, get actual help like anger management , psychotherapy etc. to get him back on track and even marriage counseling if the woman has agreed to work things out then the woman is more inclined to ask for help from the law when needed. The journey for women’s rights as human rights will end when the victims of the domestic violence and other criminal acts that are committed against them are reported. It has to start first from the victim because no one can help if their story is never told. If no one hears and its kept behind closed doors due to fear then women will never feel they have or even deserve the right to have better or to be better. It starts with her first.

Due Sunday, April 23rd, by midnight. Word count: 400 words. Please make sure everything is in your own words. If you paraphrase, make sure to include the proper citation.

In her article, Sally Engle Merry argues that the adoption of a “rights-defined identity” largely depends on an individual’s experiences with the law. Drawing on details from interviews conducted by Merry and her research assistants, explain what you think she means when she says subjectivities are produced through encounters with the legal system.