In light of the Rape culture piece from last week, I think it is appropriate to address violence against women. The international day to end violence against women is November 25th. On last year’s day, FEMEN posted some of its more disturbing images of members being arrested, some of their more prolific and meaningful as a representation of the activities of the organization. The members of FEMEN train to resist arrest; they learn not to practice violence, but to spread their message through any means possible and at all cost. FEMEN protests the exploitation of women, whether they target religion, political figures, or the sex industry. Their organization is global, predominantly Western, but global still. There is an issue within Western feminism in that they have failed to decolonize their values; Western feminism forces itself upon other cultures and takes on the assumption that their problems and ideals are the same as women everywhere… and that is simply not true. When I discussed rape culture last week, I failed to mention the unrest in India over the rise in brutal gang rapes over the last decade or so and acid attacks. Women in the Middle East are shot for trying to get an education. FEMEN describes violence against women:
“Violence is not just physical, violence has many faces and different mechanisms to sneak into women’s life. From acid attacks to laboral discrimination. Patriarchal violence isn’t just about bumps or bruises, insults, is also about earn less money in a job for being a woman, being object of sexist compliments, is about the feminization of poverty, or being discriminated because of sexual orientation or origin.”
If we take a look at the rise of violence against women we can find that it manifests in different ways and we can find links to possible causation factors. One of these factors is the rise in capitalist economies around the world. Most countries today are affected by the capitalist economy, but many of these countries do not have the stability, especially in the government to effectively operate this naturally unstable economic model. Capitalism, in its foundation relies on consumerism. Consumerism implies that resources are limitless and promotes a grab and go population. Consumerism turns any and everything into a commodity, including women. When a woman becomes a commodity her humanity is devalued. ISIS gifts female slaves to new recruits as a reward for their service. Vadana Shiva, in her essay “Our Violent Economy is Hurting Women” finds a link between the rises in Indian gang rapes to the 1990 new economic policy. The Western ideal of what feminism, exploitation, and activism is does not align itself with other culture’s ideals. The assumption that we all want the same things in the same way has been detrimental for certain cultures. Similarly with the economic model of capitalism, when permeated through unstable environments as an international pressure to “fit in” with the West it has proven devastating for local economies as well the female population of these areas.
Back to FEMEN’s objective in the fight against gendered violence… on October 9th 2014 FEMEN won the Honor Award for successful communication at the Luxembourg Marketing & Communication Award 2014. In their acceptance speech they discuss the use of nudity as a political tactic and also criticized the audience, mostly comprised of people in marketing and advertising, for the sexualized images used in advertisements and marketing campaigns. Violence for women continues in our rape culture world, it is promoted by multiple societal institutions from the economy to the government. Violence against women needs to be stopped and the first step is creating a communication between activists on a global scale.
Thanks for reading!
*There will be provocative images posted on this blog each week, in coordination with the FEMEN protests I will be covering. Any direct quotes or images in this post were from www.femen.org , the official website for FEMEN. I do not own the rights to these images.
**Additional information came from Vandana Shiva’s essay, “”Our Violent Economy is Hurting Women” here’s a link: http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/violent-economic-reforms-and-women
Adrian Casey says
I’m new to this site, and i don’t know what FEMEN is. could some1 xplane it 2 me?
thnks.
Laura Cook says
Is socialism any better than capitalism for women though?? Capitalism creates commodities, but socialism leaves most people in poverty because it literally does not work in practice.