Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Feminist Sociological Perspectives: Gender-Based Violence and the Continued Struggle for Equality in a Post 2015 Agenda

In a penal sponsored by Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), active scholars gathered together to have conversations about gender-based violence and the continued struggles for equality in a post-2015 agenda from feminist sociological perspectives.

Dr. Manisha Desai from the University of Connecticut examines the relationship between feminisms and globalization when it comes to gendered-based violence. She suggests that feminism is an important force to shape globalization, which requires us to see changes in the shifting contexts to analyze gender-related issues. She reminds us to pay attention to the shifting context from a transnational feminist perspective. She argues that transnational feminism has shaped spaces of global politics by providing theoretical frameworks, organizational structures, and strategies. For example, the sex worker's movement since 1990s has created a space for sex workers to develop a union to negotiate their rights and to react to rescue discourses. They are new actors who are developing new strategies in the new contexts, rather than victims of sex trafficking who do not have any agency waiting to be rescued.

One scholar from this penal revisited the 1994 Rwanda Genocide to examine the relationships between genocide and gender. During 1994 Rwanda genocide, over 250,000 women were raped. Because of gendered dynamics, such as women are primarily care providers for their children, most women were killed with their children. After the genocide, there are still a lot of challenges for women survivors in Rwanda right now. A lot of them are poor and traumatized. Due to lack of awareness of assistance, they are disconnected. Besides, women who were raped are less likely to report and ask for help from large institutions.

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