Violence Against Women in Asian Societies: Gender Inequality and Technologies of Violence

by Bennett,Linda Rae

• ISBN13: 9780700717422
• ISBN10: 0700717420
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2003-04-04
• Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon

Summary

Violence against women is a violation of women's human rights and a priority public health issue. It is endemic worldwide. While much has been written about it in industrialized societies, there has been relatively little attention given to such violence in Asian societies. This book addresses the structural and interpersonal violences to which women are subject, both under conditions of conflict and disruption, and where civil society is relatively ordered. It explores sexual violence and coercion, domestic violence, and violence within the broader community and the state, avoiding sensationalised accounts of so-called cultural' practices in favour of nuanced explorations of violences as experienced in Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and India.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	viii
List of tables and figures	xii
Series Editor's Foreword	xiii
Acknowledgements	xiv
1. Introduction: gender inequality and technologies of violence	1	(19)
Linda Rae Bennett and Lenore Manderson
Violence against women in South and Southeast Asia	3	(6)
Core themes on violence against women	9	(3)
Outline of the book	12	(8)
2. Violence against Maranao Muslim women in the Philippines	20	(21)
Anne-Marie Hilsdon
Growing a bunch of bananas	24	(2)
Magic realms as women's legal forums	26	(3)
Prostitutes and nuns	29	(2)
Marriage, a risky business	31	(3)
Women's rights as Muslim rights	34	(3)
Human rights as Muslim rights	37	(1)
Transversal politics	38	(3)
3. Presumed consent: marital violence in Bugis society	41	(20)
Nurul Ilmi Idrus and Linda Rae Bennett
Gender inequality, the State and Islam	43	(4)
Sex, gender and siri'	47	(2)
Patterns and etiology of marital violence	49	(3)
Economic and social violence	52	(1)
Risk factors/predictors of violence	53	(3)
Women's responses to violence	56	(2)
Conclusion	58	(3)
4. Loss of face: violence against women in South Asia	61	(15)
Mridula Bandyopadhyay and Mahmuda Rahman Khan
Abuse in South Asia	64	(3)
Marriage, risk and protection	67	(1)
Acid attacks in Bangladesh	67	(4)
Social censure: the trauma of acid burns	71	(2)
Conclusion	73	(3)
5. Behind bamboo fences: forms of violence against women in Myanmar	76	(17)
Monique Skidmore
Violence and the vicissitudes of everyday life	76	(1)
Background	77	(1)
Direct violence	78	(1)
Impunity and atrocity: Southeast Asia's hidden war	79	(3)
Forced relocation	82	(1)
Forced labour	83	(1)
Indirect violence: tenor as control	83	(1)
Structural violence: behind bamboo fences	84	(6)
Gender inequality	90	(1)
Conclusion	91	(2)
6. Rape and sexual transgression in Cambodian society	93	(21)
Rebecca Surtees
Through Cambodian lenses	95	(1)
Rape and "sexual transgression"	96	(1)
Marital rape	97	(1)
Acquaintance rape	98	(4)
Stranger rape	102	(2)
Rape in social and cultural context	104	(2)
Social sanctions and structuring forces	106	(3)
Concluding remarks	109	(5)
7. Sexual coercion amongst adolescents in an urban slum in India	114	(16)
Geeta Sodhi and Manish Verma
Background	114	(2)
Swaasthya	116	(1)
Methodology	117	(1)
The social environment: perpetuating gender stereotypes	118	(1)
Defining coercion	118	(7)
Disciplining the errant	125	(1)
Illicit relations	126	(2)
Conclusion	128	(2)
8. Violence against women: the challenges for Malaysian women	130	(20)
Rebecca Foley
Attempts to silence women's organisations	131	(5)
The campaign against violence against women	136	(3)
A focus on rape	139	(2)
A shift in focus to domestic violence	141	(4)
Sexual harassment and the plight of abused domestic helpers	145	(1)
Concluding remarks	146	(4)
9. Notes of an out-of-place widow	150	(9)
Jacqueline Aquino Siapno
Invisible impacts of violence: post-traumatic stress disorders	152	(2)
Nothing but paradoxes to offer: roles being reversed	154	(1)
Learning from the enemy	155	(1)
Women who play maid-servants in "best supporting role"	156	(3)
10. Whose honour, whose shame? Gender-based violence, rights and health	159	(12)
Jill Astbury
Gender-based violence: a case of alienated human rights	160	(2)
Gender inequality and vulnerability to risk of violence	162	(1)
Gender roles and violence	163	(1)
Honour and shame	163	(1)
Policing the public-private divide	164	(1)
Caring for others and individual rights	165	(1)
Space for action	166	(1)
Resisting violence	167	(1)
Implications of a rights-based approach	168	(3)
Bibliography	171	(17)
Index	188