classwarfare

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Sana Saeed, Guardian: How We 'Other' Sexual Assault to Ignore Our Own Norms of Abuse

Posted on 15:11 by Unknown
by Jack Gerson

We reprint a Guardian op ed by Sana Saeed that pulls no punches about how rape is used to terrorize women in Egypt, and how mob sexual violence in particular is an open tool used to discourage women from taking part in demonstrations and other political activity. But she also takes on the racist and chauvinist media propaganda prevalent in the West that sexual violence against women is mainly attributable to religious and cultural roots: Islam, Hinduism, Middle East, Indian subcontinent. But as she discusses, Egypt and India have no monopoly on sexual violence -- we need look no further than the U.S. (especially, but not only, the U.S. military).

How We 'Other' Sexual Assault to Ignore Our Own Norms of Abuse by Sana Saeed (Guardian, 7/7/13)

On 30 June, as “the Coup That Must Not Be Mentioned” was being celebrated in Tahrir Square, Cairo, news of over 80 reports of mob sexual violence and harassment emerged as a reminder of an ugly undercurrent behind the two-and-a-half-year-long anti-regime uprising. Sexual harassment and violence in Egypt is a daily occurrence – an epidemic, even – with 99.3% of women (pdf) claiming to have suffered some form of it.
Mob sexual violence, however, carries a certain brand of particularity as a near-explicit political tool used to discourage women, who make up nearly half of the total population, from attending demonstrations. Maria S Muñoz, co-founder and director of the anti-sexual assault initiative Tahrir Bodyguard, traces the advent and use of organized mob sexual assaults to the days of Mubarak, pointing to the 2005 assault of journalist Nawal Ali by hired “thugs” during a demonstration. Despite being aware of the risk of attending political demonstrations, women, Muñoz notes, “have continued to share the public space in protests, becoming an essential part of the opposition’s voice and presence.”

The culture of sexual violence and harrassment, in Egypt, has received considerable media attention, often highlighting the efforts of groups such as Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault, HarassMap and Tahrir Bodyguard as people-powered initiatives tackling sexual violence and harassment head-on. Despite this, it is apparently still difficult to have an honest discussion over why it happens.

On 5 July, US author Joyce Carol Oates (whom I know primarily from her having never written this) decided to join in with the sea of insta-Egypt Twitter experts and opined:

If 99.3% of women reported being treated equitably, fairly, generously–it would be natural to ask: what’s the predominant religion?
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) July 5, 2013

Despite the brevity of “Oatesgate”, the rhetorical question of a well-respected literary figure highlights popular characterizations of sexual violence and harassment when it takes place elsewhere. Rarely does sexual violence and harassment in our own societies – as it is perpetrated, prosecuted and cultured – allow the sort of cultural reductionism that seems to come with ease when sexual violence is associated with “the other”.

When a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern is brutally gang-raped and beaten in Delhi, we speak of “India’s woman problem”; when an incapacitated 16-year-old student is raped, photographed and filmed for six hours by peers – who share the images on social media – the incident is treated as an isolated act of unfortunate deviance and not part and parcel of a larger endemic culture that normalizes rape and the appropriation of women’s bodies as public property.

Child groomers of Muslim and South Asian backgrounds become cultural ambassadors raised on a steady diet of “savage” notions of sex embedded in anti-white biases and misogyny. Revered coaches and university administrations hiding decades of child sex abuse, on the other hand, become their own victims.

Thus there are no protests, no calls of a “woman problem”, no “natural” inquiries into the predominant religion when a country has ranked 13th in the world for rape, 10th for rapes per capita (pdf) and where 26,000 military service members reported sexual assault in 2012 alone. There are no popular anthropological undertakings by stiff-haired anchors of the inner secrets and dark forces of American culture, religion and society. No white American woman asks why the white American male hates “us”.

None of this is to provide a level playing field for discussing sexual violence. It is to highlight how understanding of sexual violence is reliant on how it is reported and how this, in turn, is reliant on who is involved. In the case of Egypt, the extent to which there is sexual harassment and violence is abysmal and even unique in how it occurs. Yet, this violence did not emerge overnight, nor does it occur in a political and socio-economic vacuum. It is the result of decades of state, legal and political decay. It is the result of a state that itself has created a culture of acceptability of violence and torture, often sexual, inside its own walls.

In the explicit act of violating bodily sovereignty, there is an active search for the conquest of power and control in a space where these have become vulnerable. This requires no sermon, book or belief to legitimize it; it only needs submission.
To read this article on the Guardian website, please go to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/07/sexual-assault-norms-abuse/print 
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest
Posted in Egypt, rape, sexual violence, US military | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • Amtrak: Washington DC to Huntington, West Virginia
    A Poem by Kevin Higgins   At Union Station hope is a t-shirt on sale at seventy per cent off. Yesterday, all the bow-tied barristers gather...
  • The NSA, Snowden, spying on Americans, Brazilians and everyone else
    We reprint this article by Glenn Greenwald which includes the video . It is from the Guardian UK via Reader Supported News . The Charlie R...
  • Austerity USA Begins March 1st:
    We reprint this article for the interest of our readers. Facts For Working People is not affiliated with Workers' Action. To read more f...
  • Starvation, poverty and disease are market driven.
    by Richard Mellor Afscme Local 444, retired What a tragedy. A beautiful little boy who should be experiencing all the pleasures that a heal...
  • Kaiser cancelled from AFL-CIO convention
    A short CNA clip from Kaiser nurses.  The AFL-CIO convention was apparently ready to applaud kaiser as the model health care provider.  The ...
  • Remembering 911
  • Buffet and Lemann: two peas in pod
    Jorge Lemann: won't eat what he produces by Richard Mellor GED Afscme local 444, retired In a previous piece I commen...
  • A poem on the 74th Anniversary of Trotsky's murder
                                                                                  You Are The Old Man In The Blue House                        ...
  • Cambodians clash with cops over land grabs
    Like China, there are repeated clashes between authorities and the population over the government's seizure of land for developers. Ther...
  • Austerity hits troops as rations are cut
    The organizers of this blog have explained that US capitalism cannot afford to keep its massive military machine working at its present leve...

Categories

  • Afghanistan (4)
  • Africa (8)
  • Afscme 444 (1)
  • anti-war movement (1)
  • art (6)
  • asia (15)
  • austerity (29)
  • Australia (4)
  • auto industry (3)
  • bailout (10)
  • bangladesh (9)
  • banks (11)
  • BART (13)
  • body image (4)
  • bradley Manning (17)
  • Britain (22)
  • California (17)
  • california public sector (18)
  • Canada (6)
  • capitalism (44)
  • catholic church (10)
  • child abuse. (1)
  • China (2)
  • consciousness (3)
  • debt (3)
  • Democrats (4)
  • domestic violence (7)
  • drug industry (6)
  • economics (43)
  • education (9)
  • Egypt (5)
  • energy (7)
  • environment (12)
  • EU (18)
  • family (1)
  • financialization (1)
  • food production (7)
  • gay rights (2)
  • globalization (17)
  • greece (3)
  • gun rights (4)
  • health care (13)
  • homelessness (4)
  • housing (3)
  • hugo chavez (4)
  • human nature (6)
  • humor (4)
  • immigration (2)
  • imperialism (14)
  • india (4)
  • indigenous movement (4)
  • Internet (1)
  • iran (4)
  • Iraq (4)
  • ireland (22)
  • Israel/Palestine (13)
  • Italy (3)
  • Japan (7)
  • justice system (11)
  • labor (15)
  • Latin America (17)
  • marxism (52)
  • mass media (4)
  • mass transit (1)
  • Mexico (4)
  • middle east (24)
  • minimum wage (4)
  • movie reviews (1)
  • music (2)
  • nationalism (2)
  • NEA (1)
  • Nigeria (1)
  • non-union (11)
  • nuclear (3)
  • Oakland (5)
  • Obama (14)
  • occupy oakland (2)
  • occupy wall street (1)
  • oil industry (2)
  • OUSD (1)
  • Pakistan (3)
  • Pensions (2)
  • police brutality (6)
  • politicians (6)
  • politics (22)
  • pollution (11)
  • poverty (7)
  • prisons (8)
  • privatization (6)
  • profits (21)
  • protectionism (2)
  • public education (9)
  • public sector (15)
  • public workers (6)
  • racism (18)
  • rape (2)
  • Religion (10)
  • Russia (1)
  • San Leandro (2)
  • sexism (21)
  • sexual violence (2)
  • Snowden (7)
  • socialism (22)
  • soldiers (1)
  • solidarity (1)
  • South Africa (15)
  • Spain (2)
  • speculation (1)
  • sport (2)
  • strikes (35)
  • students (3)
  • surveillance (1)
  • Syria (9)
  • tax the rich (4)
  • taxes (1)
  • Teachers (6)
  • Team Concept (4)
  • terrorism (22)
  • the right (2)
  • Trayvon Martin (3)
  • turkey (3)
  • UAW (3)
  • unemployment (1)
  • union-busting (3)
  • unions (51)
  • US economy (22)
  • us elections (6)
  • US foreign policy (41)
  • US military (26)
  • veterans (1)
  • wall street criminals (13)
  • War (15)
  • wealth (9)
  • wikileaks (12)
  • women (26)
  • worker's party (2)
  • worker's struggle (65)
  • workers (44)
  • Workers International Network (1)
  • world economy (28)
  • youth (5)
  • Zionism (13)

Blog Archive

  • ▼  2013 (410)
    • ►  September (21)
    • ►  August (54)
    • ▼  July (55)
      • Capitalism = Mental Illness = Profits
      • Syria's future uncertain as the Great Game is play...
      • What Needs to be Added to My SF Chron op ed piece ...
      • Global capitalism: The global search for value
      • Mos Def's principled act in support of Guantanamo ...
      • Marxist Economics: Heinrich: a small rejoinder
      • A BART Strike can be won with other unions and the...
      • Police murders and militarization of US society a ...
      • UK returns to growth, but what about investment?
      • Environmental destruction: No solution under capit...
      • Zimmerman got away with murder? No surprise there.
      • California prisons hunger strike day 17
      • US society: the calm before the storm?
      • Charles Barkley on Trayvon Martin: protecting his ...
      • BART Strike fears: The bosses' propaganda war heat...
      • Royal Baby: Britain's leading terrorist family add...
      • Rape Victim Sentenced -- For Being Raped
      • Detroit: motors, money and the municipality
      • Under pressure from below, Obama tries to calm the...
      • Obama on Trayvon Martin: The Word and the Deed
      • John Grishom: "Gitmo, a sad perversion of American...
      • Obama's speech. Again evading the economic base of...
      • Johnny Depp: Victim of capitalism or a nutter?
      • Trayvon Martin Murder. As we have written - judg...
      • Big business gets a free ride from BART
      • Obama: "We are a nation of laws."
      • Catholic church takes time off purgatory. You coul...
      • The Capitalist offensive. What can stop it.
      • Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, its a question of color...
      • Opportunity knocks (again) for BART Unions. Trayvo...
      • Zimmerman murder. Capitalism wipes its brow and la...
      • World Economy: The story of inequality
      • Martin Bashir tells the truth about Trayvon Martin...
      • Zimmerman. Racism and divide and rule and the work...
      • West Texas, capitalist terror, don't forget it
      • Travyon Martin murderer walks away scot free
      • US military spends hundreds of millions building n...
      • Edward Snowden: No regrets
      • Union hierarchy: silent on Snowden, silent on Mann...
      • Sterilization: coercion is not consent!
      • Sana Saeed, Guardian: How We 'Other' Sexual Assaul...
      • California prisoners hunger strike, condemns solit...
      • BART Strike: Bosses relieved as the state comes in...
      • Global Economy: The world is slowing
      • The NSA, Snowden, spying on Americans, Brazilians ...
      • Egyptian revolution: Out of the mouths of babes
      • BART Strike Called Off by Union Leaders
      • Egyptian Revolution: perspectives and internationa...
      • Pope Francis attributes two miracles to John Paul ...
      • Egypt: Some thoughts on the fall of Morsi
      • BART Strike: Out of the mouths of Union consultants.
      • BART Workers -- The Facts About Why They're Striking
      • Chip Johnson attacks City of Oakland workers on be...
      • Brazil: the carnival is over
      • Bay Area News: anti-worker, anti-union
    • ►  June (43)
    • ►  May (41)
    • ►  April (49)
    • ►  March (56)
    • ►  February (46)
    • ►  January (45)
  • ►  2012 (90)
    • ►  December (43)
    • ►  November (47)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile