Peace for Women

The article “Women and Peace: The Meaning of Peace for Women” by Brigit Brock-Utne definitely had some eye opening information in it. The definitions of peace, negative and positive, and violence, organized and unorganized, helped other discussions about violence against women fall into place.

It makes sense that everyone is for peace, but as Brock-Utne says, so many people assume that peace is just the cessation of wars and cooperation between nations. But the point that if the torture of millions of women every day is also a huge form of warfare, if unorganized, is very true. Women, and people in general, need to consider not just large international wars, but also domestic issues that women (and minorities, and children, etc.) face every day. In this way, we can truly consider this violence to be at the macro level, because it really is on the same scale as wars, maybe even larger.

It’s hard to comprehend, I think, because it’s just the way that our society is structured sometimes, and also the societies and cultures of other nations - patriarchal and still unequal between the sexes and other groups of people. Often times, it’s religion too – though it may be uncomfortable to mention, religion is so many times used as an excuse for the oppression of other peoples or genders. The section on page 8 about the clitoris being almost universally hated by men really struck a chord. It’s not just the physical part that so many men try to get rid of – they also diminish women’s sexuality, not only in other “far off” countries but in the U.S. too. Think of all the purity balls and virginity pledges that girls sign due to pressure from their parents, school or church. Though boys sometimes participate in these, girls are the main group that are put under this pressure. Because many people, religious or not, believe that women’s sexuality needs to be controlled, but not men’s, at least not to that great extent. I realize that not everyone who is religious believes that women should be beaten or oppressed, but that doesn’t change the fact that many people use it as a tool to justify their violent behavior.

We cannot afford to lose our women to these horrors, physical and psychological. If we as humanity want to stop this, we need to seriously re-structure our society, our teachings, and our culture, which are all intertwined.