feminism, "the female body", violence.

I listen to a story on Swedish radio ("Radiokorrespondenterna"). A journalist talks about a hospital in eastern (Democratic republic of) Congo. The hospital treats a huge amount of women who have been raped by men; soldiers, ex-soldiers, rebels... Some women's families have been murdered. The journalist talks about how women come there, their lives torn to pieces, and their bodies, too. Some of them have been raped by weapons, one woman shows her leg that was burned with hot knives. When leaving the hospital, many of them are likely to be faced with rejection by their families. Stigmatization.

Over 40 women are raped in Congo - EVERY DAY.
A source from 2007 talks about 12,000 women having been raped during the time span of 6 months.... and: "In 2004–05, the UN and non-governmental organizations estimated that as many as 100,000 women had been raped in the entire eastern DRC." from here.

Some people who are suspicious of "feminism" believe that the only thing feminists fight for is power, that feminists are power-crazed women the only political goal of whom is to humiliate and rob men of power.*

Feminism is about this: all over the world, there are people who are reduced to the potential of being fucked by men, reduced to tools for enhancing male power.

Paradoxically, one aspect of oppression and violence is the image of women as fundamentally frail beings, frail because they have something that can be violated. 'This is part of the CONDITION of the female LIFE.'

Why are women seen as inherently frail beings?
Only in a particular form of world will women and frailty become synonymous; only against a particular background of sexual violence and oppressive practices will this be so.
There is a common view of what a "woman" is.
: A woman is somebody who can be raped. The world is always dangerous for women, be it peace or war - women need always be prepared for violence and abuse because these belong to the set-up of reality. This is just the way it is.
Women & children become the Frail group in need of protection, sometimes military protection.
[I can't articulate this better than this, and I know it is unclear.]

That there is a huge group of Congolese women who get raped is no natural occurance that somehow flows out of their being women in a dangerous world of conflicts and war. Rape & war are sometimes depicted that way. The frailty of women is often implicitly understood to be a "natural expression of war". Noody states it that way perhaps. Violence against women in the context of war is naturalized as a side effect. Women become faceless victims of an anonymous War or Conflict. Rapists are conceived as an anonymous force that can be explained in terms x or y or z (and of course this view of war is just as problematic).

It is important not to naturalize violence - or war, for that matter.
Women's sexuality is used as a weapon in war - but how is this to be understood?

One question is rightly asked by a doctor at the hospital visited by the journalist in the radio program: why is there not a mass movement reacting to violence against women in DRC?


* In the same program, it is noted that Carl Bildt rarely talks about women, sex/gender in his speeches and comments. Carl Bildt's response: he doesn't comment on "these things".

read more here ('I'll be a post feminist in post patriarchy') and here.