D. Mazurana, et
al., ‘Women, Girls and Structural Violence’, in Christie, et al., eds., Peace, Conflict and Violence.
Summary by Caitlin Back
Mazurana and McKay document and
analyze socio-cultural, economic and political systems that perpetuate or
condone physical, sexual and psychological violence against women. They define and divide structural violence into the following two categories: 1) premature
death attributed to inequitable life opportunities and 2) a reduced quality of
life in which human potential is diminished (130). They define patriarchy as “systems or structures of exploitation that normalize
socially constructed gender differences in ways that reproduce and legitimize
male domination” (130). The define patriarchal
structural violence as the “structural violence that happens to girls or
women because of their gender” (120).
SOCIO-CULTURAL
SYSTEMS
SON PREFERENCE –
social preference for male children (which leads to female infanticide- direct
violence stemming from structural violence)
Economic structures
and institutions that promote son preference include those “such as dowry
payments or ‘bride price’...[those] that pay women less for equitable work,
fail to account for nearly half of women’s work worldwide, and routinely
discriminate against women in the labor market” (131).
Cultural and
religious systems and institutions also perpetuate son preference through
“promoting beliefs the privilege males with the perpetuation of family name,
and by mandating male-only roles…” (131).
FOOD AND HEALTH CARE
DISTRIBUTION – girls and women often receive less food and health care
services than male counterparts, particularly in developing nations (132)
Unjust
systems of distribution of food, land and healthcare.
Governmental policies
and practices by large multinational corporations “contribute to structural
violence against women and their families in the area of food production and
distribution” (132). (i.e.
multinational mono-crop plantations force women to subsistence farm;
“unproductive” women are forced off land to make room for new multinational
corporations to overcrowded urban areas where they contribute to growing
unemployment and fill the pool of cheap labor from which the multinationals
draw)
EDUCATION – has
been proven as the most effective means to address poverty, malnutrition and
poor health conditions (133)
Girls receive less
education than boys despite UNICEF’s statement that educating girls “is one
of the most important investments that any developing country can make in its
own future” (133). However, girls are
not educated because of the belief that they will “only become wives and
mothers and because scarce familial education resources are reserved for boys”
(133).
While not a panacea,
education provides women and girls at least the knowledge for “improving
nutrition and sanitation in their homes…enhances women’s status in their
relationships at home, which increases decision-making regarding family
planning, contraceptive choices and finances.
The global result of educating girls and women are
lower fertility, lower infant mortality rates, healthier children and a more
productive economy” (133).
ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
Women’s (Invisible)
Work – one of the primary reasons women are poor is that the majority of
women’s work literally counts for nothing
Governmental
accounting systems do not recognize the majority of women’s labor because
the rules of UNSNA only count that which passes through the market-place, i.e.,
anything that has currency-generating capacity” (133) For countries to become part of the
United Nations, or borrow money from the World Bank or acquire a loan from the
IMF must adhere to the rules of UNSNA.
Yet these economic systems place “no value on peace, the preservation of
natural resources, or unpaid labor, including that of reproducing and nurturing
human life” (134).
Military and Social
Expenditures
War economies
exist when countries prioritize maintaining a military
and buying weaponry above health care and education of its citizens.
Women often pay
the price for such economies as “inflated military budgets often come as a
result of reductions in social services, where worldwide women are most often
employed” (134). In addition, military
practices such as “maintaining prostitution for servicemen, dropping chemical
weapons on rural areas and targeting civilian populations during conflicts,
cause specific harm to women , through disease, cancers, birth defects, and
psychological and reproductive disorders” (135).
“Throughout
the world women and their children suffer disproportionately to men in war” (135).
POLITICAL SYSTEMS
Engendering Democracy
– patriarchal structural violence is often embedded in democracy. As a political ideology, it too often
“normalizes the male image as ‘citizen’ and encourages others to deny aspects
of themselves to conform to some unitary norm, which itself was never
gender-neutral” (135).
Women and the Private
Sphere
Male bias “inherent in (patriarchal) democracy” demotes
“women’s issues” such as domestic violence to the private sphere where they become matters unaddressed
by the state because they are deemed private
matters (135). The authors also
state that laws and systems that “condone particular forms of violence against
women, deny women control over their bodies, provide no assistance with childe
care and maternity leave, make no attempt to remedy child support defaults and
fail to provide unemployment protection to women who work within the ‘private’
realm in domestic service or farm work” (136) are all forms of patriarchal
structural violence.
Women in
Decision-Making Bodies
In this section, Mazurana and McKaystress that women need to “actively participate in creating,
executing and enforcing the laws” (136).
Worldwide, women are steadily underrepresented, if not absent from
positions of political power. Because of
this, little discussion takes place about the protection or enhancement of
women’s rights. The authors claim that
“exclusion of women from national decision-making bodies is a form of
patriarchy” and “discrimination that limits women from political participation
is a form of patriarchal structural violence” (137).
CONCLUSION
“The global community must reject call
efforts to justify abuse on the basis of culture” (138).
“Peace cannot be achieved until both indirect and direct
forms of violence are dismantled” (138).
“Patriarchal systems that discriminate
against women and girls contribute to the eventual expression of direct
violence” (138).