Violence against women/violence in the world

Abstract

Today’s world is characterized by escalating insecurity and conflict. Promoting sustainable peace is a global challenge that goes beyond a concern for particular fragile and/or conflictedaffected territories. Feminist conceptualizations of violence offer less partial and more encompassing analysis of all forms of harm within and across borders. With a gendered lens, feminist analysts observe and connect violence at the micro level of the family, household, and community with violence at the macro level, in production relations, vis-à-vis states and non-state actors (Peterson 2003; Tickner 1992). Understanding the connections among different forms of violence, their causes and its consequences, in a global context has never been more important. As well, feminist perspectives make visible the relationship among different forms of violence such as physical, psychological, and economic violence with structural discrimination and symbolic harms. Importantly, they highlight how violence in times of crisis and transition is rooted in pre-existing gendered inequalities that cut across and often reinforce hierarchies of class, race/ethnicity, nationality/citizenship, religion, and sexuality. To achieve global peace and security, a feminist approach strives to be inclusive, not by adding violence against women to the list of violence to be eliminated, but by analysing the intersections of power relations across all sites of belonging and strife. Show more