Borer, T. A. (2009). ‘Gendered War and Gendered Peace: Truth Commissions and Postconflict
Gender Violence: Lessons From South Africa’, Violence Against Women, vol. 15, no. 10, pp. 1169-
1193.
"By the 1990s, a full 90% of casualties were civilians, mainly women and children (Pettman, 1996)." p.1169
"Richard Rayner (1997) argued that military training involves socialization into an extreme kind of masculinity, in which a young soldier must prove he is a good soldier—that is, that he is neither a “girl” nor gay. This militarized masculinity, which results from breaking men down and reconstructing them as soldiers, Pettman (1996) argued, “regularly includes the vilification of women and consciously plays on young men’s sexual insecurities and identities” (p. 93)." p.1170
Rape is often used by attackers as a way to prove that men are unable to protect their women. But it is also inflicted upon women by peacekeepers and their own soldiers.
"Pettman (1996, p. 126) argued that whatever women’s participation in armed struggles, they are routinely pushed back into the private sphere when the fighting is over, their contributions erased" p.1171
"after liberation women are relegated to roles of being protected and are made invisible in debates about how to build new, representative, and legitimate state institutions, including the military" p.1171
Two reasons offered for why women involved in wars and nationalist struggles are often sent back to the home, and gender roles reasserted:
"One possible reason is that the transfer of state power is not always accompanied by effective control over territory and population." p.1171 When this happens, states concentrate on survival and defence, translated as militarisation.
"Gender issues are also quickly set aside as well when the state immediately faces an economic crisis, such as reconstruction." p.1171
"new governments frequently need to absorb a large number of demobilized soldiers. And even though many women fought as soldiers, “soldier” comes to mean male, and “governments seek to ‘disarm’ soldier men as a potential threat to state power, and might reward them with ‘returned’ power over women"(Pettman, 1996, p. 140). p.1172
Gender roles are abandoned in the chaos that is war, however in a postwar context there is a reinstatement of "normalcy". p.1172
"Because violence was considered a legitimate means for waging and ending conflict, men use violence against women in the aftermath of conflict to reestablish and retain control over family resources and over women’s productive and reproductive rights" p.1172
The South African TRC and gendered violence
The commissioners of South Africa, of whom seven were women, had to determine who was a perpetrator and who was a victim.
"of the over 21,000 testimonies given, only 140 explicitly mentioned rape (South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1998b, p. 296)" p.1173
"socioeconomic vulnerability may well increase during violence with the economic burden of caring for and supporting the family being further shifted onto women who often find themselves as single heads of households due to high mortality and/or disappearance rates of men (Duggan & Abusharaf, 2006)" p.1174
The power relations of men leaving rural areas for urban cities for work, meaning women, elderly and the infirm were left behind, predated apartheid, but were also exacerbated by it. p.1174
"it is not that women do not suffer direct violence perpetrated by the state; they do. However, they are much more likely than men to suffer from violations of indirect or structural violence." p.1174
Because of the categories being searched for by the TRC, which were vague and therefore not explicit in regards to gender-based violence, the socio-economic rights of women "fell outside of the purview of the TRC." p.1174
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission found "that the state was responsible for the severe ill-treatment of women in custody; that women were abused in ways which specifically exploited their vulnerabilities as women; and that women in exile were also subjected to various forms of sexual abuse, including rape." p.1178
No one testified to the crime of rape at the South African truth and reconciliation commission.
The result of this is that the TRC was mostly silent on sexual violence, and no one was held accountable for the crimes. It also meant that there is no record to expose how widespread the use of rape as sexual violence was in South Africa.
"The South African case, then, offers a cautionary tale about the difficulties associated with the ability of truth-telling mechanisms to serve the cause of fostering a truly gendered human rights culture." p.1180
"Even if truth-telling mechanisms come to include more effective ways of getting women to discuss their own histories of violations, the second half of the equation—getting men to talk about their histories as perpetrators of these violations—remains unchanged." p.1181
"Getting women to talk without simultaneously getting men to do the same does little more than maintain the culture of impunity, with little to no accountability" p.1181
"if gender-based violence is to be taken seriously in truth telling, the enabling legislation for truth-telling mechanisms should include those forms of violence in definitions of concepts like victims and violations." p.1182
Gendered peace? Reparations
TRC can make recommendations "to ensure accountability of perpetrators of such violence, or for improving the economic status of women, or for making it easier for women to escape violent relationships, or to receive medical treatment for HIV/AIDS." p.1183
"Not only is sexual violence perhaps the most egregious form of gender-based violence, its socioeconomic impact on women can undermine their chances for recovery and for reintegration into the family, the community, and the state." p.1183
"The gender neutrality of the reparations program was evident in the financial payout given to victims... So, for example, women who lost breadwinners and thus faced a lifetime of impoverishment were given no more compensation than a person who suffered no material disadvantage at all (Goldblatt, 2006)" p.1184
"The question becomes how and whether the positive, human rights culture-promoting elements of the South African TRC and government are being translated into culture, in terms of attitudes, beliefs, and South Africans’ shared understanding about being a people who embrace human rights." p.1185
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1077801209344676
"By the 1990s, a full 90% of casualties were civilians, mainly women and children (Pettman, 1996)." p.1169
"Richard Rayner (1997) argued that military training involves socialization into an extreme kind of masculinity, in which a young soldier must prove he is a good soldier—that is, that he is neither a “girl” nor gay. This militarized masculinity, which results from breaking men down and reconstructing them as soldiers, Pettman (1996) argued, “regularly includes the vilification of women and consciously plays on young men’s sexual insecurities and identities” (p. 93)." p.1170
Rape is often used by attackers as a way to prove that men are unable to protect their women. But it is also inflicted upon women by peacekeepers and their own soldiers.
"Pettman (1996, p. 126) argued that whatever women’s participation in armed struggles, they are routinely pushed back into the private sphere when the fighting is over, their contributions erased" p.1171
"after liberation women are relegated to roles of being protected and are made invisible in debates about how to build new, representative, and legitimate state institutions, including the military" p.1171
Two reasons offered for why women involved in wars and nationalist struggles are often sent back to the home, and gender roles reasserted:
"One possible reason is that the transfer of state power is not always accompanied by effective control over territory and population." p.1171 When this happens, states concentrate on survival and defence, translated as militarisation.
"Gender issues are also quickly set aside as well when the state immediately faces an economic crisis, such as reconstruction." p.1171
"new governments frequently need to absorb a large number of demobilized soldiers. And even though many women fought as soldiers, “soldier” comes to mean male, and “governments seek to ‘disarm’ soldier men as a potential threat to state power, and might reward them with ‘returned’ power over women"(Pettman, 1996, p. 140). p.1172
Gender roles are abandoned in the chaos that is war, however in a postwar context there is a reinstatement of "normalcy". p.1172
"Because violence was considered a legitimate means for waging and ending conflict, men use violence against women in the aftermath of conflict to reestablish and retain control over family resources and over women’s productive and reproductive rights" p.1172
The South African TRC and gendered violence
The commissioners of South Africa, of whom seven were women, had to determine who was a perpetrator and who was a victim.
"of the over 21,000 testimonies given, only 140 explicitly mentioned rape (South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1998b, p. 296)" p.1173
"socioeconomic vulnerability may well increase during violence with the economic burden of caring for and supporting the family being further shifted onto women who often find themselves as single heads of households due to high mortality and/or disappearance rates of men (Duggan & Abusharaf, 2006)" p.1174
The power relations of men leaving rural areas for urban cities for work, meaning women, elderly and the infirm were left behind, predated apartheid, but were also exacerbated by it. p.1174
"it is not that women do not suffer direct violence perpetrated by the state; they do. However, they are much more likely than men to suffer from violations of indirect or structural violence." p.1174
Because of the categories being searched for by the TRC, which were vague and therefore not explicit in regards to gender-based violence, the socio-economic rights of women "fell outside of the purview of the TRC." p.1174
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission found "that the state was responsible for the severe ill-treatment of women in custody; that women were abused in ways which specifically exploited their vulnerabilities as women; and that women in exile were also subjected to various forms of sexual abuse, including rape." p.1178
No one testified to the crime of rape at the South African truth and reconciliation commission.
The result of this is that the TRC was mostly silent on sexual violence, and no one was held accountable for the crimes. It also meant that there is no record to expose how widespread the use of rape as sexual violence was in South Africa.
"The South African case, then, offers a cautionary tale about the difficulties associated with the ability of truth-telling mechanisms to serve the cause of fostering a truly gendered human rights culture." p.1180
"Even if truth-telling mechanisms come to include more effective ways of getting women to discuss their own histories of violations, the second half of the equation—getting men to talk about their histories as perpetrators of these violations—remains unchanged." p.1181
"Getting women to talk without simultaneously getting men to do the same does little more than maintain the culture of impunity, with little to no accountability" p.1181
"if gender-based violence is to be taken seriously in truth telling, the enabling legislation for truth-telling mechanisms should include those forms of violence in definitions of concepts like victims and violations." p.1182
Gendered peace? Reparations
TRC can make recommendations "to ensure accountability of perpetrators of such violence, or for improving the economic status of women, or for making it easier for women to escape violent relationships, or to receive medical treatment for HIV/AIDS." p.1183
"Not only is sexual violence perhaps the most egregious form of gender-based violence, its socioeconomic impact on women can undermine their chances for recovery and for reintegration into the family, the community, and the state." p.1183
"The gender neutrality of the reparations program was evident in the financial payout given to victims... So, for example, women who lost breadwinners and thus faced a lifetime of impoverishment were given no more compensation than a person who suffered no material disadvantage at all (Goldblatt, 2006)" p.1184
"The question becomes how and whether the positive, human rights culture-promoting elements of the South African TRC and government are being translated into culture, in terms of attitudes, beliefs, and South Africans’ shared understanding about being a people who embrace human rights." p.1185
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1077801209344676
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