Crystal Raffiani Lucy Steel English 1202 Inquiry Project

The battle between the sexes Growing up, teachers would say a picture can say a thousand words and ask the class to write down what words they saw within the pictures. For me, a picture could not say a thousand words, but one single word could paint a thousand pictures. Words like violence would paint a picture of my parents arguing and my father striking my mother for disobeying him. Violence would be a picture of the switch my grandfather used for discipline. Racism would paint a picture of my grandfather chasing my friend Sasha down the road with a bat because she was black, and little white girls do not play with blacks. The word discrimination would be when our pastor tried to remove the evil out my openly gay sister. Human rights would be our constitution, with the thirteenth and nineteenth amendments a thousand times smaller than the other twenty-three and with our founding fathers laughing at the two. Rapes picture is my uncles mug shot in the news next to the picture of the ten year old girl whom committed suicide because not a soul believed her. The world genocide would paint a picture of thousands of bodies lying there grotesquely butchered with a group of men standing around admiring there art work. Why is it that when I think of these words, pictures of men come to mind; my father, grandfather, uncle, our founding fathers, and a group of men. Why it is that most of the victims in these pictures are females? Is it possible that the answer to my questions is dark truths about society are males committing genocide to females? Within this paper I will be looking at a number of different articles to determine whether or not men are committing genocide to women.

In order to discuss the topic of genocide between the two sexes we much first define what genocide is. The convention defines genocide as any act committed with the idea of destroying in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. This includes such acts as: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to physically destroy the group (the whole group or even part of the group), and forcefully transferring children of the group to another group. The convention declares that there is no immunity from being prosecuted for committing genocide: those found guilty of genocide will be punished for their crime, regardless of whether they are or were legally constituted ruler, public officials, or private individuals (UN). The reason behind using this specific definition is because it is published by the United Nations. The United Nation is the group responsible for helping prevent genocide, stopping genocide, and ultimately decides if the situation given is genocide or not. The next step in the discussion is to determine what will be talked about throughout the paper. The United Nations separates violence against women into three major groups physical, sexual, and mental. Having the given information I will look at different articles that discuss the three groups listed above, while also linking it to currently known genocides, and reflecting back to the definition of genocide. The goal with this is to make a logical decision on whether or not the male race is inflicting genocide on the female race. The first section out the three groups is physical. Within the section we will be looking at domestic violence. Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior perpetrated by an intimate partner against another. I previously talked about how I witnessed my father physically abuse my mother. I remember being a child and having my father come home in a drunken rage and my mother shoving us into a closet to stay out of his wrath. I remember the screaming, the bleeding, the holes in walls, and

the late night hospital trips. This violence took a toll on my mother even to this day she has side effects from the violence my father showed to her. One question raised by Katherine Yount who wrote Domestic Violence against Married Women in Cambodia is are women growing accustom to domestic violence. What I believe she is trying to say is that our youth is being exposed to domestic violence more and more and the parents are trying to play it off as not being a bad experience. The fact that the parents play it off makes it seem normal or okay in a childs eyes and that in return makes it so as a whole we do not view domestic violence in a negative way. From April to July of 1994 the Rwanda genocide occurred, this genocide was between ethnic majority the Hutus and minority the Tutsis. Hutu nationalism was being to spread rapidly and the Hutu government urged the Hutus to take up arms against the Tutsis. About 800,000 Tutsi gruesomely died to the machete blades their neighbors held. The effects after the genocide left a huge population dip for the Tutsis. Due to the genocide the sex ratio deeply decreased, for the simple fact that more women were killed in order to stop the bloodline of the Tutsis. Due to the sex ration decrees the domestic violence rate in Rwanda actually increased substantially. The reason for this increase according to Giulia La Mattina is a verity of things, but one that sticks out is the power that women help previously, before the genocide took place. Women actually held a lot of power, and where consider being the reason Rwandas economy began to grow. Giulia La Mattina believes that the men blame the Tutsi women for the genocide and are reclaiming their dominance through violence. Though this information is proven to be factual, the likely hood of genocide in Rwanda is actually quite low. The Tutsis are moving on and actually forgiving the Hutus for their crimes against humanity, and the Hutus have

accepted that what took place during those three month was unacceptable and should have happened. Looking back at the definition of genocide I would say domestic violence could possibly fit. Looking back at the definition it says causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. In the cases listed above men where causing body harm to member of the female group. However, what about males that fall victim to domestic violence? Statics say that about 85% of domestic violence victims are women, leaving the other 15% men. Granted 15% may not seem like a lot at first but when you get down to it that is a pretty large chunk of the population. Not only is that a fairly decent size parentage but statics also say men are 80% less likely to report their abuse compared to women. Bruce Watson calls domestic violence against men a hidden crime. Why you might ask? Watson says that because the media does not ever portray domestic violence from the male prospective and it makes seems unnatural to happen. The media also portrays men, who fall into victimization as weak and often poke fun of the few cases that get into the news. Watson also says that this abuse leads to a lot of untreated mental illness because the majority of funds for domestic violence go to women and men do receive some of the help they require. I agree with Watson when says that domestic violence is a huge issue today, and that with budget cut and a bad economy victims are not getting some attention they need, especially men. Most organization now actually refuses to help men who claim to be a victim in domestic violence, due to the high volume of female cases. In all of the United States there is only one organization that offers help to men out of about two thousand, and they are only offered about 10% of the help female receive. Watson ends his article by asking where the equality is for people who truly need help.

I have always known that domestic violence can happen between both sexes, what I never realized was how limited the help for men was. If I was man, what would the point be to go public about my abuse, if I could not even get the free help that the government or free agencies offer? Not only would I be rejected for help, but the media has then created a bundle of stereotypes because I was now a man who fell into women territory. I personally cannot agree that domestic violence is the key to genocide against women. I think as a society we are too quick to a gender to actions. Things like women belong in the kitchen, Men play videogames, and women fall into victimization of domestic violence. The next topic within our genocide hunt is sexual. For sexual, we are going to keep the discussion to rape and sexual assault. When I was gowning up there was always a running joke Oh that Jr material right there, in simplest terms that means Oh that fucked up. Jr was my uncle, who was arrest for the rape of a twelve year old girl. This girl was a student of his and was always known for having a colorful imagination. When the girl got home from school, she told her mother what had happened, her mom thought it was one of her stories again and ignored her. From what I was told this girl was desperate for someone to believe but instead help and support, she was made fun and bullied. The little girl took her own her own life, because not a soul would believe what Jr was doing to her. I always wonder when I was younger why everyone thought she was lying. I have learned now that it is due to the lack of actual rapes reported. Each year there is a crime report for each state that gives them a specific number and ratio for different crimes. The crime report for rape is almost useless only about 35% of all people within the United States report there rape, out of the 35% around 10% are falsely report. Thus, when you look into the crime reports it would appear that a lot of people lie about being raped.

Rape though as bad it might seem is actually become a weapon for war. In every genocide does not matter how old or small there will always be rape. Since early 2003, Sudanese government forces and government-backed ethnic militias known as Janjaweed have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of Sudan. They have targeted for abuse civilians belonging to the same ethnic groups as members of two rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). In Darfur rape was there number one method of genocide. Rape and sexual violence against women and girls has been a prominent feature of the ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by government forces and militias, both during and following displacement in Darfur. Once displaced into camps in Darfur, or into refugee camps in Chad, women and girls continue to suffer sexual and gender-based violence. As discussed below, rape and sexual violence have numerous social, economic and medical consequences, including increasing the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS as a result of the violence. The goal behind this rape weapon is destroy families; physically and mentally. There are pages upon pages of situation of women being raped in different ways to be broken and anyone one who opposed had the same fate. Eric Reeves compared the gas chamber of the Holocaust to the Rape camps in Darfur. It is really interesting concept Darfurs take on the genocide, with the concept of less shooting more raping. The big part about it however is why only women and girls. If they wanted to destroy the family structure, why not dehumanize the males. Women in Darfur already viewed as weak individuals, does making them weaker really add to the cause? Women are not always the victim of rape, in the Syrian civil war the government actually forced the sexual violence onto men and boys so that when the children grew older the where to weak and fragile to even consider revolting. Evening looking at through a non-genocidal view every two minutes

in the United States someone is sexually assaulted. One of about every six girls have experience some type of sexual assault and one out of every thirty three men have experienced some type of sexual assault. The sexual assault section really pulled me through a loop when I was reading about because it is very hard state percentages when most of that data is wrong. How am I supposed to believe that only 10% of males are raped within the United States? It could be more or it could be less. It obvious however that looking outside of the United States both male and female receives the same type of actions taken against them. For some reason however, I get this strange feeling who are raped have it worse than men. I honestly believe it might be due to the horrid Darfur stories that I read about. Rape is a huge issue within the world and the fact that it is being used against men and women as a weapon of war makes me give the idea of genocide for sexual a no because both groups are experiencing the pain. The third and last group is mental. Within this section we will be focusing on emotional abuse. There are six types of emotional abuse exploitation, corruption, isolation, terrorism, ignoring, and rejection. Emotional abuse it the largest form of abuse that happens around the world and is mostly associated within relationships. Comments such as "I have to drink to be able to stand you", "Don't complain about how bad you have it, no one else could love you" and "One of these days you'll wake up, and I'll be gone" are all saying that I have heard thrown around my household. My mother fell into victimization of domestic violence with my father. The physical abuse she went through as caused her now to retaliate with emotional abuse to my step farther. My step father has never hurt my mother physically, and has rarely even raised his voice at her, he is an innocent man. My mother though is so afraid of my step father Joe hurting

her to the point where she actually emotionally abuses him in order to wear the pants in the family.

Most statics would say claim my moms emotional abuse to be a rare cause because she is women. However, Steven Stosny claims that if you look at each one of the six section women emotionally abuse men just as often, but society does not realize because they are unaware that it is actually abuse. Common phrases that I hear a lot in the media and in everyday conversation sound something like this "I could have married a man who made more money, I had more orgasms with my last boyfriend, you're not a real man, and you don't know the first thing about raising kids." These quotes are things I women talk about a lot actually and are consider emotion abuse. On the mens side I hear phrases like this "You shouldn't spend so much on clothes, you don't look good anyway." Get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich, its all your good for anyway and "Working and taking courses is too much for you; you can't handle what you need to do now." For this section emotion abuse happens to everyone, I think it is just a part of life that we yet to figure an approach for stopping it. Everyday people are emotionally abused by their spouses, in school, and by their parents. When it comes to genocide emotional abuse is everywhere, and it does not end with a snap of a finger. What some of these people have witnessed will stay with them for the rest of their lives. In the Rwanda genocide there was a woman named Alice Mukarurinda. Alice was a Tutsi woman and survived the genocide while her three year old daughter was slaughtered from of her. Alice watched as the man cut limb from limb off her daughter. He wanted her to remember very vividly her daughter death; he wanted her to

remember so much that it haunted her until the day she died. He even took the liberty of cutting off her left hand so every time she saw it; she would imagine her daughter slaughter. Any type of emotional I think I have witnessed Alices is a billion times worse. Want to know the remarkable situation that happened? Ten years after the genocide Alice ran into the man who slaughtered her daughter. The man got down on both knees and said his apologies, he felt so ashamed of his actions, and was glad to see she made out alive. In this situation, I do not think I would be able to forgive that man, but Alice is a better woman than I and actually forgave him. This type of slaughter happened all throughout Rwanda at the time, and Alice is not the only woman to forgive the men. Alice said how is it that we are supposed to stop such violence in todays world if we cannot learn to forgive in future, and remember and the past. I think that is a very strong quote because using my mother example she held a grudge against my father that carried through to my step farther. If she learned to forgive my father, she would be in a happier relationship with my step father, but if she remember the abuse she went through she is less likely to fall into victimization again. I think the world right now is in a very care free state and emotions mean nothing anymore. People are scared to trust and love because they have been so bad in past. If we learned to forgive but learn our lessons I think the emotional abuse rates would actually be lower today. On the terms of genocide against women, I am going to have to say mental a no because personally you are in control of your own life, and with women and men according to Stosny about equal in there abuse rates I think the problem lies somewhere else. I think when the term genocide is not widely understood throughout today population, so when people may notice a trend of negativity towards a group they assume genocide. Looking at these three cases, I think it is rather clear that genocide is not occurring to women by men. Do not get me wrong, genocide is occurring around the world today, at this very hour but it is not genocide

between the sexes. I think the in the United States especially that we get so wrapped around gender that we often stereotype ourselves as the victim or the bad guy. We do not also just stereotype ourselves; we limit ourselves when it comes to gender. In the United States we only recognize two types gender while in actuality there are at least fifty five different classification of gender. How is there genocide between the sexes when they only classify two of the genders? I found this topic interesting because originally I almost instantly agreed with every situation they talked about and thought to myself whoa, there may be a new genocide on our hands. After researching and reading up about it I would ultimately have to say this is not genocide in my professional opinion.

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