Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Women during war and conflict
Roles of women in combat civil war
Women during war and conflict
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Women during war and conflict
Almost twenty years ago, Carlos Eduardo Jaramillo, a renowned Colombian historian and violentologist, insisted on the need to find the women hidden amidst the thick smoke of black gun-powder . Despite this warning, the recognition and reparation of female victims of the Colombian war are relatively new and remain far from being adequate. The Colombian government has postponed its obligation to implement gender-just and transformative reparations in order to face many other urgent issues, such as the provision of humanitarian assistance to the victims and the search for a peace agreement in the midst of continuing offensive military operations.
My hometown, Medellin (Colombia), is a city marked by violence. It’s a place of arrival for hundreds of internally displaced persons every month, the cradle of Colombian paramilitarism, and a witness to a growing wealthy class that shines against a background of economic and gender inequality. As a response to this context, I started to worry about human rights violations during my undergraduate studies in law. The law school I attended had a preference for banking and financial law, and for this reason it offered almost exclusively internship opportunities at companies and institutions in those fields. Nevertheless, my interest in understanding the effects of the Colombian war was by then so considerable, that I decided to apply on my own to several Human Rights NGOs.
I ultimately obtained an intern position at Corporación Región where, to my surprise, I was the only lawyer . I was in charge of giving Human Rights training workshops and of providing legal advice to victims of the armed conflict (mainly internally displaced persons). This first-hand experience with victims marked me profou...
... middle of paper ...
...t to seriously approach social movements activism. I also aspire to build a relationship with the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, for its interdisciplinary methodology; the Center for Global Initiatives, mainly for its “Visualizing Human Rights” project; and the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science, for its broad data management resources. Above all, I hope to establish a fruitful relationship with the prestigious Institute for the Study of the Americas, especially in the frame of the UNC–Duke Consortium in Latin American & Caribbean Studies.
Works Cited
Carlos Eduardo Jaramillo Castillo, “Mujeres en guerra. Participación de las mujeres en los conflictos civiles”, in Magdala Velásquez Toro (coord.), Las mujeres en la historia de Colombia (t. II, pp. 359-386). Bogotá, Grupo Editorial Norma, Presidencia de la República de Colombia, 1995, p. 360.
The Women of Colonial Latin America serves as a highly digestible and useful synthesis of the diverse life experiences of women in colonial Latin America while situating those experiences in a global context. Throughout, Socolow mediates the issue between the incoherence of independent facts and the ambiguity of over-generalization by illustrating both the restrictions to female behavior and the wide array of behavior within those restrictions. Readers of varied backgrounds will come away with a much deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities that defined the lives of the diverse women of the New World ruled by Portugal and
Over the past few decades, research on women has gained new momentum and a great deal of attention. Susan Socolow’s book, The Women of Colonial Latin America, is a well-organized and clear introduction to the roles and experiences of women in colonial Latin America. Socolow explicitly states that her aim is to examine the roles and social regulations of masculinity and femininity, and study the confines, and variability, of the feminine experience, while maintaining that sex was the determining factor in status. She traces womanly experience from indigenous society up to the enlightenment reforms of the 18th century. Socolow concentrates on the diverse culture created by the Europeans coming into Latin America, the native women, and African slaves that were imported into the area. Her book does not argue that women were victimized or empowered in the culture and time they lived in. Socolow specifies that she does her best to avoid judgment of women’s circumstances using a modern viewpoint, but rather attempts to study and understand colonial Latin American women in their own time.
“Two sets of values coexist, compete, and more than occasionally blur: the ideals of machismo, with its cult of aggressive masculinity, defined as a mode of sexual and physical conquest; and the ideals of the revolutionary New Man, who is envisioned as hard working, devoted and family oriented (Lancaster, 1992; pg. 40).” For women, her traditional role was in the household taking care of the children, cleaning, cooking and washing as would be expected. Furthermore, she was unable to voice her objections or opinions to her husbands’ sometimes abusive tendencies, and from that the New Woman had evolved also. Women started to lose faith in the war, growing tired as they were losing many husbands and sons to the war. Throughout Lancaster’s Life Is Hard, one can watch as the behaviors and society gender roles start to change as the Sandinista Revolution continue...
...ctims who suffered psychological trauma as a direct outcome of the gender violence, economic violence and torture. The method for healing such a trauma was the “Trager Approach”, which involved a space in which a women was able to feel relaxed and talk about their suffering. In doing so she was able to examine their ongoing trauma and understand that treating the deeper wound would be more beneficial for the people of Haiti in the long term. Continuing this aid apparatus and aid recipient interaction, James shines a light on the issue surrounding what she calls the audit culture. Remembering back to the fact that the victim had to prove their trauma through testimony, they then had to demonstrate a continued demand for support. This contestation of the nature of the victim’s identity is again the bureaucraft at work in places such as the Rehabilitation Center.
"Women in World History : MODULE 11." Women in World History : MODULE 11. N.p., n.d.
The current century has witnessed immense improvement and re-conceptualization of standards and sovereignty of human rights in Latin America. With the endemic repression and violations of human rights throughout Latin American in the mid to late 20th century, the International human rights regime, an amalgam of international and intergovernmental organizations and bodies, expanded exponentially. By conducting investigations within certain countries, or simply monitoring overt violations of human rights, the international human rights regime stimulated global awareness of violations of human rights in different countries; soon to follow was change in domestic policy in response to international policy. This also led to increased opposition by domestic NGOs against repressive governments or dictatorships largely responsible for human rights violations. Just as well, a number of organizations and groups aided domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in their growing efforts to establish judicial practices that better protected human rights. Declarations, conventions, and charters, established a number of values that served as the credo for the organizations that constituted the international human rights regime. Over time, more and more countries were pressured and held accountable for these values, which developed into universal standards for human rights practices. Thus the International Human right regime and the pressure they imposed upon governments ultimately resulted in widespread positive changes in human rights.
Center for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University. (1994) Twenty-five Human Rights Documents. New York: Columbia University.
...ist activism in Latin America. Blackwell encyclopedia of sociology. Retrieved May 20, 2011, from http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405124331_yr2011_chunk_g978140512433112_ss1-38#citation
Between the years of 1976 to 1983, the period known as the ‘Dirty War’ was in full force in Argentina. During this period, thousands of people mysteriously went missing, and are referred to now as the ‘Disappeared’. It is believed that many of the disappeared were taken by agents of the Argentine government, and perhaps tortured and killed before their bodies were disposed of in unmarked graves or rural areas. Whenever the female captives were pregnant, their children were stolen away right after giving birth, while they themselves remained detained. It is estimated that 500 young children and infants were given to families with close ties to the military to be raised. Within this essay I would like to touch on the brief history of the Dirty war and why the military felt it was necessary to take and kill thousands of Argentina’s, and also the devastating affects the disappeared, and stolen children are having on living relatives of those taken or killed. It is hard to imagine something like this happening in North America relatively recently. To wakeup and have members of your family missing, with no explanation, or to one day be told your parents are not biologically related is something Argentina’s had to deal with, and are continuing to face even today.
Women in Latin America were expected to adhere to extreme cultural and social traditions and there were few women who managed to escape the burden of upholding these ridiculous duties, as clearly shown in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. First, Latin American women were expected to uphold their honor, as well as their family's honor, through maintaining virtue and purity; secondly, women were expected to be submissive to their parents and especially their husbands; and lastly, women were expected to remain excellent homemakers.
Indigenous people of the world have historically been and continue to be pushed to the margins of society. Similarly, women have experienced political, social, and economical marginalization. For the past 500 years or so, the indigenous peoples of México have been subjected to violence and the exploitation since the arrival of the Spanish. The xenophobic tendencies of Spanish colonizers did not disappear after México’s independence; rather it maintained the racial assimilation and exclusion policies left behind by the colonists, including gender roles (Moore 166) . México is historically and continues to be a patriarchal society. So when the Zapatista movement of 1994, more formally known as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación National (Zapatista Army of National Liberation; EZLN) constructed a space for indigenous women to reclaim their rights, it was a significant step towards justice. The Mexican government, in haste for globalization and profits, ignored its indigenous peoples’ sufferings. Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, consisting of mostly indigenous peoples living in the mountains and country, grew frustration with the Mexican government. It was in that moment that the Zapatista movement arose from the countryside to awaken a nation to the plight of indigenous Mexicans. Being indigenous puts a person at a disadvantage in Mexican society; when adding gender, an indigenous woman is set back two steps. It was through the Zapatista movement that a catalyst was created for indigenous women to reclaim rights and autonomy through the praxis of indigeneity and the popular struggle.
Azuela shows these impacts by the progression of Camila, from a sweet innocent woman, to joining the rebel forces, and lastly to being killed. Symbolically, Azuela kills off Camila almost immediately upon her rise to power and drops her from the novel’s plot. This shows the how insignificant of an impact that women had on the battles, and how easily they were forgotten after death. Women still struggle today with gaining equal rights and treatment within the Mexican culture. It has taken nearly 70 years for women to gain equality with men in the workforce, gaining rights such as voting, and having a shared family responsibility with the male figure (Global). Unfortunately, many women within the working-class household still suffer from the traditional norms and values regarding the roles of men and women. In addition, these women were often subjected to control, domination, and violence by men” (Global). This validates Azuela’s stance on how women should stay within their traditional roles because fighting for equality has been ineffective even still
In 1973, Chile witnessed the emergence of a militaristic leader – Augusto Pinochet. The Pinochet dictatorship that controlled Chile during this period led to a society that was filled with fear, repression and suffering. It has been argued by some, such as Alicia Frohmann and Teresa Valdés, that this was especially true for women in Chile who were active in the struggle for survival . Clandestinely, women began to form ‘underground’ organisations that played a significant role in opposing the dictatorship as the government develop...
Thousands of foreigners are smuggled across national borders as forced labour in factories, farms, and brothels. Many are forced to become victims of human trafficking through force or the false promise of the American dream. The threat of human trafficking presently is that it deprives people of their human rights, it is a global health risk, and fuels the growth of organized crimes, such as sex crimes. Within this paper I will discuss my research on human trafficking and the victims’ deprivation of human rights. In order to so, I will synthesize three relevant sources on this topic, discuss additional questions that should be addressed when further researching this issue from a peace studies perspective, and outline a specific proposal for future research.
Hymowitz, Sarah, and Amelia Parker. "Lessons - The Genocide Teaching Project - Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law." American University Washington College of Law. American UniversityWashington College of Law Center for Human Rights and Humanitaian Law, 2011. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. .