Gender Discrimination (34): Public Opinion on Domestic Violence

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One can, to some extent, understand – but not condone! – men who approve of domestic violence. After all, they may have good self-interested reasons to engage in it (power is useful). However, the level of female acquiescence is just baffling:

On average, 29 percent of women in countries with data concurred that wife beating was justified for arguing with the husband, 25 percent for refusing to have sex, and 21 percent for burning food. In Guinea, 60 percent of women found it permissible to be beaten for refusing to have sex with their spouses. In Ethiopia, 81 percent of women say that it is justified for a husband to beat his wife for at least one of the reasons listed in the Demographic and Health Surveys; 61 percent reported violence to be appropriate for burning food and 59 percent for arguing with their husbands. (source, source)

More about domestic violence. More posts in this series.

Sexism, A Collection of Images (5)

women clean the house, and stay slim at the same time

women make breakfast

women work in the kitchen

women do the dishes

women are responsible for educating their children

in China, beautiful women serve coffee on international women’s day

women look old rather quickly

women smell

some women can project their equipment

More sexist images here, here and here.

Gender Discrimination (30): The Politics of the Female Body

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Exploitation can be beneficial to the exploited, human rights violations can be self-inflicted, and people can internalize stereotypes about them and behave accordingly.

Some examples. Take the case where A and B have unequal bargaining power. A sells bread in an isolated village where the people don’t have the means to produce their own bread. A overcharges for the bread because B doesn’t have the means or the strength to find another seller. The sale of bread makes B better off, because without bread he would be worse off. Yet A takes unfair advantage of the buyer’s condition. A exploits B, yet B is better off and can decide to accept his exploitation.

Examples of self-inflicted human rights violations are school drop-outs, the undeserving poor, contestants in privacy invading reality shows etc. – to the extent that these people’s actions are really voluntary and based on informed consent, they impose rights violations on themselves.

Stereotype threat means that the threat of stereotypes about your capacity to succeed at something negatively affects your capacity: when the belief that people like you (African-Americans, women, etc) are worse at a particular task than the comparison group (whites, men, etc) is made prominent, you perform worse at that task.

Jacques Lacan

These three phenomena converge in the lives of many women in present-day western societies. Few of them are ruthlessly oppressed, few of their rights are grossly violated, and sexist stereotyping has become unfashionable. And yet, it’s arguably the case that many western women show signs of having internalized patriarchal power relations. It wouldn’t be correct to depict these women as unconscious victims who can’t choose for themselves – that would be just as bad as the sexist stereotypes of the past – but there are signs that some of them have been taught to participate in their own oppression and subordination.

How else could we explain the beauty ideal, women modifying their bodies, starving themselves, re-sculpturing their silhouettes and conforming in all possible ways to male expectations and prejudices? It’s like they have internalized the male gaze (in the sense given to that word by Jacques Lacan) and look at themselves the way many men do.

I don’t claim that this internalization of stereotypes is beneficial to women in the sense that some forms of exploitation are beneficial to the exploited, although in some cases that may be true – some women may reap some advantages from conforming to stereotypes. Neither do I claim that the internalization of stereotypes is self-inflicted in the sense of a voluntary act. In most cases we’re probably dealing with some form of indoctrination, and it’s fair to say that women and their bodies are still highly regulated, in a way that’s different from but not unlike the way it is in more traditional societies (for example in some Muslim societies). However, we shouldn’t exclude the possibility that some women do in fact voluntarily accept stereotypes. Again, the view that women are passive victims of indoctrination isn’t much better than or different from the view that women conform to more traditional stereotypes.

More on body politics is here. More on gender discrimination is here. And more on the Muslim headscarf is here.

Related Articles

• Do we cling to stereotypes even when information about the individual is available? (bakadesuyo.com)
• The patriarchy is dead … but the kyriarchy lives on | Nichi Hodgson (guardian.co.uk)
• The Devil is sexist (greedygoblin.blogspot.com)
• The New Sexism (time.com)

The Most Absurd Human Rights Violations (94): Virginity Tests in Egypt

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Egypt’s army has devised an original method to defend itself against possible allegations of rape by women “in its care”:

By now, almost everyone has heard the about the 18 women protestors in Egypt’s Tahrir Square who this past spring were detained, beaten, given electric shocks, strip searched and forced to submit to “virginity tests“. (source)

May I suggest that trying to protect yourself against potential charges of rape by violating women’s bodies isn’t really very smart? Of course, the real reason for these tests is torture and intimidation. Women will probably think twice before participating in protests if they know what may happen if they are detained. The tests themselves are horrific, but they can also entail future harm: if the tests are negative, women risk prostitution charges, jail sentences and social stigma.

The tests involve an inspection of a female’s hymen, on the mistaken assumption that her hymen can only be torn as a result of sexual intercourse. This is one account of the way in which the tests were conducted:

[T]he female detainees were separated into two groups, the married and unmarried. The seven unmarried women were given a medical checkup during which the “virginity test” was done. …

“They took us out one by one … they took me to a bed in a passageway in front of the cell. There were lots of soldiers around and they could see me.

I asked if the soldiers could move away and the officer escorting me teased me.

A woman prison guard in plainclothes stood at my head and then a man in military uniform examined me with his hand for several minutes. It was painful. He took his time”. (source)

Fortunately, an Egyptian court has now ruled that virginity tests on female detainees are illegal, referencing the human rights guaranteed in the Egyptian Constitutional Declaration of 2011 as well as Egypt’s obligation under international law. Which of course doesn’t mean the tests will end. Virginity tests in general have not been outlawed, only those taking place in military detention premises. And it remains to be seen if the military will respect the ruling.

More on gender based violence. More absurd human rights violations.

Gender Discrimination (28): Occupational Sex Segregation as One Cause of the Gender Pay Gap

It’s common knowledge that women tend to earn less that men, even in countries that pride themselves on their respect for gender equality. Here are the data on the gender pay gap in the U.S.:

(source)

One of the causes of this gap is occupational sex segregation, meaning that women and men tend to work in very different occupations. Coincidentally or not, “men’s jobs” are generally better paid than “women’s jobs”:

(source, click image to enlarge)

Now, “segregation” in this context may be too strong a term, since there are no longer a lot of legal restrictions on the employment of women, at least not in the U.S. Women aren’t segregated into very specific occupations, at least not by law. Cultural pressures may still exist, however. Women often feel obliged to choose occupations that mix well with family responsibilities, and those occupations tend to be less profitable. Such a sense of obligation is not a sign of gender equality.

It’s also not clear to what extent women – voluntarily or not – choose jobs that are less well paid, and to what extent employers decide that jobs chosen by women merit less pay.

And finally, let’s not forget that there’s a gender pay gap even within professions. Occupational sex segregation therefore can’t explain the whole pay gap. Hence, the gender pay gap may be an indication of different types of gender discrimination:

• forcing women into jobs that are less well paid
• paying less for the types of jobs that women tend to choose
• paying women less than men within the same types of jobs
• failing to give women and girls the same opportunities to enter some types of jobs (e.g. because of unequal education, child marriage etc.)

More on the gender pay gap here.

Human Rights Maps (70): Gender Equality in Government

share of women in parliament, change between 1997 and 2011

Here’s another version:

(source)

And yet another version:

National parliaments can be bicameral or unicameral. This map covers the single chamber in unicameral parliaments and the lower chamber in bicameral parliaments. It does not cover the upper chamber of bicameral parliaments. Seats are usually won by members in general parliamentary elections. Seats may also be filled by nomination, appointment, indirect election, rotation of members and by-election. Seats refer to the number of parliamentary mandates, or the number of members of parliament.

(source)

And this is the detail for the U.S.:

(source)

Parliament is obviously just one part of government. How about gender equality in other parts?

(source, click on the image to enlarge)

Read more about the reasons why this is a human rights issue.

What is Democracy? (38): Equal Representation and the Share of Women in Parliament

In a representative democracy, one can reasonably expect to have a parliament that is roughly representative of the population in general: poor people should have their representatives or delegates just like rich people, women just like men, minorities just like majorities. This representativity or representativeness isn’t an absolute requirement. One can have a democracy without it. The people, after all, may decide that their views are best represented by an all-male, all-white body of parliamentarians for example.

However, it seems statistically unlikely that this would be their decision in each consecutive election in each democratic country. Imbalances in the demographics of parliament that persist over time and space are probably not the result of the choices of voters but of other factors, such as discrimination, unequal opportunities etc. If that’s the case, we are dealing with an imperfect democracy because democracy means equal influence and an equal chance to get elected (art. 21 of the Universal Declaration and art. 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).

And that is the case. Take the share of women in parliament for instance. In almost every major democracy of the world, election after election, women are a (tiny) minority in parliament. It’s very unlikely if not impossible that women are systematically less competent than men to serve in parliament, or that the voters sincerely, rationally and objectively believe this to be the case. There must be other, more deeply embedded psychological motives for such a choice, related to the generally inferior position of women in patriarchal societies.

Here are some data:

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A complete up-to-date data set is here. More on women’s rights in general here.

Gender Discrimination (5): Matriarchy in the USA

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Although many indicators still point to the existence of gender-discrimination in the US, there are hopeful signs.

But first the bad signs:

• The US still ranks only 31st in the Global Gender Gap Index (an index of equality between women and men, published by the World Economic Forum) behind Cuba, South-Africa, the Philippines etc.
• Only 69% of Americans believe men and women make equally good leaders. 21% believe men make better leaders; 6% women (source).
• Less than 20% of governors and members of Congress are women.
• There’s only one woman on the Supreme Court.
• Women in the US still earn less than men:

(source)

Now for the good signs:

• Women earn 57% of bachelor’s degrees, 59% of master’s and 50% of doctorates.
• Boys are more likely to drop out of high school than girls.
• Men are more likely to commit crimes and end up in prison:

(source)

• Men are more likely to get themselves murdered:

(source)

• Men are more likely to kill themselves:

(source)

Small nuance: I don’t think it’s a “good sign” that more men than women get killed or kill themselves. I think it’s a good sign that less women do.

My personal opinion: it’s about time you girls catch up, and good luck to you.

More on gender-equality and gender-discrimination.

Limiting Free Speech (5): Pornography

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First of all, whatever we think of pornography, we should admit that it is a kind of speech, just as cross-burning, flag-burning, hate speech etc., and hence it is at least possible that it falls under the protection of the right to free speech. The U.S. Supreme Court has at different occasions decided that pornography should be protected under the First Amendment:

There are two types of pornography that receive no First Amendment protection — obscenity and child pornography. The First Amendment generally protects pornography that does not fall into one of these two categories. (source)

Other jurisdictions have also protected pornography.

Violence IN pornography

The quote above already indicates that an overall protection of pornography widely defined is not acceptable and that certain limits on the freedom of speech of pornographers are possible. According to the rules set forth in the introductory post of this series a right can be limited if it violates other rights or the rights or others. This is obviously the case of any child pornography or pornography in which violence or force is used against the participants, such as certain kinds of extreme sadomasochistic porn.

Another reason why there can be force and violence in pornography is human trafficking. Many girls are forced to participate in porn movies because they are victims of human trafficking. They are modern slaves in the sex industry.

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Violence BECAUSE OF pornography

There is still some discussion in the scientific community as to whether pornography, and especially hardcore and violent pornography, promotes sexual violence in society. This is not easy to establish because the interactions of mass media and human behavior are complex. If pornography promotes sexual violence, we have another justification for limiting its distribution.

The weight of evidence is accumulating that intensive exposure to soft-core pornography desensitises men’s attitude to rape, increases sexual callousness and shifts their preferences towards hard-core pornography. Similarly, the evidence is now strong that exposure to violent pornography increases men’s acceptance of rape myths and of violence against women. It also increases men’s tendencies to be aggressive towards women and is correlated with the reported incidence of rape. Many sex offenders claim they used pornography to stimulate themselves before committing their crimes. (source)

In Australia, the federal government has tended to relax its controls on pornography since 1970. Different states have, however, implemented these changes to varying extents and, as a result, have unwittingly conducted an interesting experiment on the effect of pornography. Queensland, the most conservative state, has maintained the strictest controls on pornography and has a comparatively low rate of rape reports. By contrast, South Australia, the most liberal state in relation to pornography, has seen escalating reports of rape since the early 1970s:

(source)

Businesses spend billions of dollars on advertising, in the belief that media can and do have an effect on human behaviour. We support and encourage the arts, in the belief that novels, films and such have the capacity to uplift and enhance human society; in other words, that the arts have a capacity to influence people. Yet we are expected to believe that the increasing tide of pornography does not affect attitudes to women. (source)

The image of women in pornography

One reason why porn can cause violence in society is the image of women that is created through pornography. In some porn, rape is explicitly legitimized, but in all kinds of porn women are depicted as constantly and immediately available for sex. We can assume that long term consumption of porn from an early age onwards, creates the opinion that it is not necessary for men to establish whether a female partner consents to having sex since porn tells them that such consent is automatic. In real life, of course, this is not the case and hence there will be rape.

Porn also objectifies women. It turns women into objects of sexual desire and sexual use. Here are a few examples of this objectification of women. This picture shows a woman as a piece of meat for consumption, in the manner in which a pig would be depicted in a butchery:

(source)

This one puts “live girls” on the same level as lunch or “stuffed sandwiches”, and one can assume that it’s possible to consume both at the same time:

(source)

Objectification of women is of course not limited to pornography. Advertising also regularly uses women as means or tools or objects. Here’s an example:

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The objectification of women means dehumanization. And there are more things you can do to a non-human than to a human. Objectification therefore can promote violence against women. To the extent that is does, we have another justification for restrictions on pornography. See also this post on dehumanization.

Moreover, pornography shapes and reinforces a male-dominant view of sexuality and of gender relations. It’s not far-fetched to claim that pornography contributes to gender discrimination, machismo, sexism, paternalism etc.

All this is the case not only for violent porn but for porn in general and could therefore justify restrictions on non-violent porn.

Different kinds of restrictions

There are different kinds of pornography, different circumstances in which it is distributed, and different people respond differently to pornography. So restrictions on pornography may differ according to circumstances. People with a history of sexual violence are more obvious targets of a ban on the use of hardcore and violent porn than other people. Young people, for the reasons given above, may have more restrictions, including non-violent porn. Pornography in a library is not the same thing as pornography on the streets…

Soft porn or “artistic porn” should be treated differently. An all-out ban on all kinds of pornography would be just as unwise as an all-out protection. Many classic works of art would have to be forbidden if no pornography were allowed. We have to admit that porn can be art and art can be pornographic. Take this example:

(source)

Porn industry

Here are some data on the porn industry and porn consumption in the US:

(source)

Religion and Human Rights (8): Sharia

The term Sharia literally means “path” or “way” (“way to the water source”). So, originally, it wasn’t a legal code or a set or rules as it is now. With the passing of time, the word has come to mean the body of legal rules which were produced through a very long process of scholarly interpretation of the divinely sanctioned material of the Koran (or Quran). This interpretation is known as fiq (or fiqh), literally “understanding” or, more specifically in this context, “jurisprudence”, and involves such things as debate, precedent reasoning by analogy etc. The Sharia, therefore, is – in part at least – a human creation, unlike the Koran which is believed to be the word of God told through Muhammad.

Nowadays, many Muslims believe – mistakenly according to their own religion – that the early interpretations of the Koran – which, together with the rules contained in the Koran, form the Sharia – are also of Godly origin and therefore just as sacred and unchangeable as the Koran itself. The reason is that they lump together the rules in the Koran and the subsequent interpretations, thereby lumping together the revealed with the unrevealed, the sacred words of God and the subsequent human interpretations of these words. According to Islam, however, the Koran is the immutable Basic Code which should be kept separate from ever-evolving interpretive law (fiqh).

The diagram below, drawn by Dr Moojan Momen, shows the sources of Sharia. (In order to accommodate the differences between Sunni and Shi’i, the latter are shown in red).

(source – hadith are the sayings and doings of Muhammad and his companions)

As is apparent from this diagram, Sharia is understood in different ways by different groups within Islam. So the monolithic Sharia which we know from many scaremongering news-stories does not exist.

Sharia deals with many issues of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business, family, sexuality, hygiene etc. Some aspects of Sharia lead to violations of human rights, in particular the treatment of women and the punishments for certain “crimes” such as homosexuality, adultery and apostasy prescribed by certain schools of jurisprudence. These include amputation, flogging and stoning.

(source)

The rules prescribed by the Koran and the Sharia are a sufficient basis for the laws of a Muslim country. At best, human rights or other laws can only play a role when they do not contradict the law of God. At worst, the execution of the law of God is the only legitimate role of the state, even if this implies violating human rights. The problem is that changing the Koran or the Sharia is believed to be the same thing as changing the word of God, which is said to be impossible. Human rights advocates can try to convince people that part of the Sharia is clearly not of Godly origin, not even according to the Muslim faith.

These are the countries which apply, to some degree, Sharia law:

(source)

Most countries mix Sharia with other legal traditions, or apply Sharia only in some parts of the law, or some regions. There’s even talk of allowing Muslim minorities in western countries to apply Sharia law within their own communities.

Here’s an opinion poll in some Muslim countries on the desirability of Sharia:

(source)

Human Rights Quote (51): Gender Discrimination

The inequality of the sexes has deprived society of a vast pool of talent. If women had the free use of their faculties along with the same prizes and encouragements as men, there would be a doubling of the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity. Every restraint on freedom of conduct of any of their human fellow creatures dries up pro tanto the principal fountain of human happiness, and leaves the species less rich, to an inappreciable degree, in all that makes life valuable to the individual human being. John Stuart Mill

More on gender inequality or gender discrimination.

Gender Discrimination (4): “Global Gender Gap”

The “Global Gender Gap Index 2007”, published by the World Economic Forum, ranks 128 countries according to the level of gender-inequality existing in those countries. This ranking is based on 14 indicators covering political representation, access to education, health and economic participation.

All of the world’s countries are affected by gender-based inequality, but some more than others. The Global Gender Gap Index tries to measure the levels of inequality.

These are the categories that are measured and that make up the global index:

This is the 2007 ranking (there are no long historical series so difficult to analyze evolutions):

Here’s a map of country performances:

(source)

More on gender inequality. More on discrimination.

Human Rights Quote (28): Gender Discrimination

Manmohan Singh

No community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it condones the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity represented by women. Indian Prime Minister MANMOHAN SINGH

More on women’s rights and gender discrimination. More on discrimination in general.

Gender Discrimination (1)

Women are probably more likely victims of human rights violations than man, and not only in Islamic societies. Perhaps the violations of women’s rights are more visible in Islamic countries, paradoxically because of the relative invisibility of women there.

Most of the violations of the rights of women can be addressed by normal human rights, and do not require special and new women’s rights, rights specific to women. Non-discrimination, equality, the right to education and work etc. are standard human rights which can be used to counter most if not not all the oppression suffered by women.

However, it can be possible that some situations require specific and new rights destined exclusively to women, e.g. rights related to reproduction…

Here are some data on gender discrimination. And here’s a post on discrimination in general.