Institute for Law and Society/Anthropology. Gender, Violence, and the Law. Spring Sally Engle Merry. V V14.

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1 Institute for Law and Society/Anthropology Gender, Violence, and the Law Spring 2007 Sally Engle Merry V V Office hours: Wed Vanderbilt Hall 409B or by appointment. This course begins with an analysis of the meanings of gender and violence, then considers the range of actions considered gender violence and the way the terminology has changed over time. The creation of gender violence as a social problem is a product of social movements in the US, Europe, India, and many other parts of the world. It is now understood globally as an important human rights violation. The course considers several theories that attempt to account for gender violence and points to the importance of examining variations in gender violence in terms of context and meaning. Forms of violence to be discussed include domestic violence in same and opposite sex relationships, rape, sex trafficking, rape in wartime, female genital cutting, honor killings, sex selection, among others. The course links these forms of violence to other forms of violence in the wider society, showing how interpersonal violence is connected to structural violence. A second theme of the course is the way law acts to change social behavior. It examines forms of intervention which have been developed in the US and globally for diminishing violence against women, including policing, prosecution, and punishment. We will consider the debates surrounding criminalization among people of color in the US and globally as well as other forms of intervention include shelters, counseling, batterer treatment programs, and public education. After examining the development of these approaches in the US, the course examines how they have globalized, focusing in particular on the role of the international human rights movement in defining gender-based violence as a human rights abuse. The course joins an anthropological approach to the study of gender with the analysis of law and society as it examines forms of intervention developed to ameliorate and change a range of gendered violations of women. The focus is both national and international, exploring variability across race, class and community. The course examines the global dimensions of this movement, exploring the extent of gendered violations worldwide and human rights efforts to change them. There will be two short essays and a final exam. Students are expected to do the reading, attend all classes, and participate in class discussions. The short essays are each worth 30% of the grade, the final exam 40 %. There are five required texts. Three are 1

2 in the bookstore and two are available online on Blackboard. The rest of the readings are also available on Blackboard. Required Books: Schechter, Susan Women and Male Violence. Boston: South End Press. Lancaster, Roger Life is Hard. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. Smith, Andrea Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Spindel, et. al With an End in Sight. UNIFEM. (available on e reserve) Merry, Sally Engle. An Introduction to Gender Violence: Anthropological Perspectives (forthcoming). Blackwells. Available on Blackboard. January 16-18: The Creation of Gender Violence as a Social Problem and a Human Rights Violation Overview of the evolution of feminist theory and ideas of gender as performance Introduction to the definitions and theories of gender violence. Introduction to the history of gender violence as a public problem/ concern domestically and on an international scale includes discussion of sexual harassment. Merry, An Introduction to Gender Violence, Chapters 1 and 2. January 23-25: Theorizing Gender and Kinship Kimmel, Michael. (2000) Introduction, to The Gendered Society. Oxford University Press: New York, NY. Pp Kimmel, Michael (1996). "Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity." in Theorizing Masculinities. Eds. Brod and Kaufman. London: Sage, pp

3 R.W. Connell, Masculinities. Pp., Berkeley: University of California Press, January 30 February 1: The Global Scope of Gender Violence Lancaster, R. (1992). Life is hard: Machismo, Danger and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua. University of California Press: Berkley, CA. Introduction and Chs. II, III, XVIII. hooks, bell. Violence in Intimate Relationships: A Feminist Perspective. In Gender Violence, pp Liu Meng and Cecelia Chan Enduring Violence and Staying in Marriage: Stories of Battered Women in Rural China. Violence against Women Vol. 5, No. 12: Liu Meng and Cecelia Chan Family Violence in China: Past and Present. New Global Development 16: February 6: Intersectionality Kimberle Williams Crenshaw Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Pp in The Public Nature of Private Violence: The Discovery of Domestic Abuse, Martha Albertson Fineman and Roxanne Mykitiuk, eds. Routledge. Davis, Angela The Color of Violence Against Women. ColorLines 3 (no.3): 4-8. Davis, A. (2001) Public Imprisonment and Private Violence. In Waller, M.R. and Rycenga, J. (Eds.) Frontline Feminisms; Women, War and Resistance. New York, NY: Routledge. pp.3-16 February 8: Variations in Gender Violence by Race, Class, Nation, Sexualities, Colonial Histories Razack, Sherene. (2000) Gendered Racial Violence and Spatialized Justice: the Murder of Pamela George. Canadian Journal of Law and Society Vol. 15, No. 2. pp Wing, A.K. (2000). A Critical Race Feminist Conceptualization of Violence: South African and Palestinian Women. In Wing, A.K. (Ed) Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader. New York, NY: NYU Press. pp

4 Bhattacharjee, A. (1997). The Public Private Mirage; Mapping Homes and Undomesticating Violence Work in the South Asian Immigrant Community. In Mohanty, C. and Alexander, J. (Eds.) Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. Routledge: New, NY. Pp Mama, A. (1997) "Sheroes and Villains: Conceptualizing Colonial and Contemporary Violence Against Women in Africa" In Alexander, M.J. and Mohanty, C.T. (Eds.) Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies and Democratic Futures. New York, NY: Routledge. Pp First paper due Feb 8: Compare three examples of gendered violence. How do the specific features of the situation and the larger context within which it takes place affect the nature and meaning of that violence? 5 pp. Feb 13-15: Gender Violence and Conquest Andrea Smith Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. South End Press. Feb. 9: FILM: Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity by Jackson Katz. Feb 20-22: The History of the Movement Origins of the violence against women movement. Evolution of the movement and corresponding changes in definitions and strategies. Schechter, S., Women and Male Violence, Part I (pp ). Merry, ch. 3 Feb. 27- March 1: Theories about Gender Violence Heise, L. (1998). Violence against Women: An Integrated Ecological Framework. Violence Against Women Vol. 4, No. 3:

5 Schechter, S., Women and Male Violence, Part II: (pp ). March 6-8: Modes of Intervention: Shelters and Support Groups Intersection of gender violence and criminal justice system No-drop policies, mandatory arrest, restraining orders, batterer s treatment programs, and the politics of criminalization. Merry, ch. 4 Sherman, Lawrence W. and Richard A. Berk, "The Specific Deterrent Effects of Arrest for Domestic Assault, " American Sociological Review (April, 1984): Wittner, J. Reconceptualizing Agency in Domestic Violence Court, in Naples, N (Ed) Community Activism and Feminism Politics. Pp Hanna, Cheryl "No Right to Choose: Mandated Victim Participation in Domestic Violence Prosecutions." Harvard Law Review 109: (Available through Lexis-Nexus,). Ferraro, K Negotiating trouble in a Battered Women s Shelter. Urban Life, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp Fischer, K. and Rose, M. (1995) When Enough is Enough : Battered Women s Decision-Making around Court Orders of Protection. Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp Merry, Sally Engle "Spatial Governmentality and the New Urban Social Order: Controlling Gender Violence through Law." American Anthropologist 103: March 20-22: Batterer Training Groups Merry, Sally Engle "Gender Violence and Legally Engendered Selves." Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 2: Anderson, K. and Umberson, D. (2001) Gendered Violence: Masculinity and Power in Men s accounts of Domestic Violence. Gender and Society, Vol. 15, no. 3. Pp

6 Merry, Sally Engle Human Rights and Transnational Activism: Mapping the Middle. American Anthropologist Second paper, due March 27: What are the advantages and drawbacks of criminal justice interventions for domestic violence and sexual assault? 5 pp. March 27 29: Gender policing and violence David Valentine, The Calculus of Pain: Violence, Anthropological Ethics, and the Category Transgender. Ethnos 68: (1): 27-48) April 3-5: Gender Violence as an International Human Rights Issue Emergence of gender violence as an international human rights issue. How is violence against women defined internationally? What are the strategies adopted in the international arena and in various country settings? Bunch, C. (1990). Women s Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-Vision of Human Rights. Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 12: Thomas, D. and Beasley, M. (1993). Domestic Violence as a Human Rights Issue. Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 1.: Merry, Sally Engle Women, Violence, and the Human Rights System. Pp in Marjorie Agosin (ed). Women, Gender, and Human Rights. Rutgers Univ. Press. Keck, Margaret and Kathryn Sikkink (1998). Activists Beyond Borders, Transnational Networks on Violence Against Women. Pp Cornell Univ. Press. General Recommendation 19 on Violence Against Women to CEDAW: April 10-12: Strategies of Intervention in Violence Against Women 6

7 Spindel, With an End in Sight. UNIFEM. Available in separate chapters on Blackboard. April 17-19: Gender Violence and Human Rights Issues I: Female Genital Cutting and Military Violence Walley, Christine J "Searching for "Voices": Feminism, Anthropology, and the Global Debate over Female Genital Operations." Cultural Anthropology 12 (3): Somalia report Razack, Sherene, From the Clean Snows of Petawawa : The Violence of Canadian Peacekeepers in Somalia. Current Anthropology 15(1): April 24-26: Honor Killing, and Police Violence Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera (2002). "Femicide and the Palestinian Criminal Justice System: Seeds of Change in the Context of State Building?" Law and Society Review 36: (available in Lexis-Nexus, search under femicide). Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera (2002). Reexamining femicide: Breaking the silence and Crossing scientific borders. Signs, vol. 28, (2): Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera. (2004) "Racism, Militarisation and Policing" from Social Identities, Volume 10 Number 2, November 2004: pps