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Violence against women

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132-407: Violence against women ( VAW ), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence ( SGBV ), is violent acts primarily committed by men or boys against women or girls . Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime , committed against persons specifically because they are of the female gender , and can take many forms. VAW has a very long history, though

264-557: A Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root * ǵénh₁- 'to beget', which is also the source of kin , kind , king , and many other English words, with cognates widely attested in many Indo-European languages . It appears in Modern French in the word genre (type, kind, also genre sexuel ) and is related to the Greek root gen- (to produce), appearing in gene , genesis , and oxygen . The Oxford Etymological Dictionary of

396-467: A "private cause behind manifest behaviours". Historically, most societies have recognized only two distinct, broad classes of gender roles, a binary of masculine and feminine, largely corresponding to the biological sexes of male and female. When a baby is born, society allocates the child to one gender or the other, on the basis of what their genitals resemble. However, some societies have historically acknowledged and even honored people who fulfill

528-466: A 15-year-old girl who was ruthlessly dragged on the ground for over 50 feet and then was raped by 10 Burmese soldiers. Human trafficking refers to the acquisition of persons by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children states, "Trafficking in persons" shall mean

660-961: A baby is clothed in or what toys they are given to play with. However, a person's gender does not always align with what has been assigned at birth. Factors other than learned behaviors play a role in the development of gender. The article Adolescent Gender-Role Identity and Mental Health: Gender Intensification Revisited focuses on the work of Heather A. Priess, Sara M. Lindberg, and Janet Shibley Hyde on whether or not girls and boys diverge in their gender identities during adolescent years. The researchers based their work on ideas previously mentioned by Hill and Lynch in their gender intensification hypothesis in that signals and messages from parents determine and affect their children's gender role identities. This hypothesis argues that parents affect their children's gender role identities and that different interactions spent with either parents will affect gender intensification. Priess and among other's study did not support

792-421: A bibliography of 12,000 references on marriage and family from 1900 to 1964, the term gender does not even emerge once. Analysis of more than 30 million academic article titles from 1945 to 2001 showed that the uses of the term "gender" , were much rarer than uses of "sex" , was often used as a grammatical category early in this period. By the end of this period, uses of "gender" outnumbered uses of "sex" in

924-540: A common culture among participants concerned. According to social identity theory , an important component of the self-concept is derived from memberships in social groups and categories; this is demonstrated by group processes and how inter-group relationships impact significantly on individuals' self perception and behaviors. The groups people belong to therefore provide members with the definition of who they are and how they should behave within their social sphere. Categorizing males and females into social roles creates

1056-456: A country that has received major international criticism for the way it has dealt legally with the issue of violence against women is Finland; with authors pointing out that a high level of equality for women in the public sphere (as in Finland) should never be equated with equality in all other aspects of women's lives. The American Psychiatric Association planning and research committees for

1188-414: A deeper analysis of how interactions between the biological being and the social environment influence individuals' capacities. The philosopher and feminist Simone de Beauvoir applied existentialism to women's experience of life: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one." In context, this is a philosophical statement. However, it may be analyzed in terms of biology—a girl must pass puberty to become

1320-421: A fluctuating gender identity, or being third gender or other-gendered. Recognition of non-binary genders is still somewhat new to mainstream Western culture, and non-binary people may face increased risk of assault, harassment, and discrimination. Two instruments incorporating the multidimensional nature of masculinity and femininity have dominated gender identity research: The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and

1452-1048: A form of violence against women. Women from certain lower castes have been involved in prostitution as part of a tradition, called Intergenerational prostitution . In pre-modern Korea, women from the lower caste Cheonmin , known as Kisaeng , were trained to provide entertainment, conversation, and sexual services to men of the upper class. Women with illegal resident status are disproportionately involved with prostitution. For example, in 1997, Le Monde diplomatique stated that 80% of prostitutes in Amsterdam were foreigners and 70% had no immigration papers. Militarism produces special environments that allow for increased violence against women. War rapes have accompanied warfare in virtually every known historical era. War rapes are rapes committed by soldiers, other combatants, or civilians during armed conflict or war or during military occupation, distinguished from sexual assaults and rapes committed amongst troops in military service. It also covers

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1584-713: A gender role that exists more in the middle of the continuum between the feminine and masculine polarity. For example, the Hawaiian māhū , who occupy "a place in the middle" between male and female, or the Ojibwe ikwekaazo , "men who choose to function as women", or ininiikaazo , "women who function as men". In the language of the sociology of gender , some of these people may be considered third gender , especially by those in gender studies or anthropology. Contemporary Native American and FNIM people who fulfill these traditional roles in their communities may also participate in

1716-584: A girl after his genitals were accidentally mutilated is cited as disproving the theory that gender identity is determined solely by parenting. Reimer's case is used by organizations such as the Intersex Society of North America to caution against needlessly modifying the genitals of unconsenting minors. Between the 1960s and 2000, many other male newborns and infants were surgically and socially reassigned as females if they were born with malformed penises, or if they lost their penises in accidents. At

1848-501: A history which warrants the heightened scrutiny we afford all gender-based classifications today", and stated "When state actors exercise peremptory challenges in reliance on gender stereotypes, they ratify and reinforce prejudicial views of the relative abilities of men and women." The word was still widely used, however, in the specific sense of grammatical gender (the assignment of nouns to categories such as masculine , feminine and neuter ). According to Aristotle , this concept

1980-403: A husband calls his wife to his bed (i.e. to have sexual relation) and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning';" and several comments on the issue of marital rape made by Muslim religious leaders have been criticized. Dating abuse, or dating violence, is the perpetration of coercion, intimidation, or assault in the context of dating or courtship . It

2112-595: A less harmful life. The custom of dowry , which is common in South Asia, especially in India, is the trigger of many forms of violence against women. Bride burning is a form of violence against women in which a bride is killed at home by her husband or husband's family due to his dissatisfaction over the dowry provided by her family. Dowry death refers to the phenomenon of women and girls being killed or committing suicide due to disputes regarding dowry. Dowry violence

2244-534: A manner as possible. A 2005 review of these cases found that about half of natal males reassigned female lived as women in adulthood, including those who knew their medical history, suggesting that gender assignment and related social factors has a major, though not determinative, influence on eventual gender identity. In 2015, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a webinar series on gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, etc. In

2376-574: A minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. Because of the illegal nature of trafficking, reliable data on its extent is very limited. The WHO states "Current evidence strongly suggests that those who are trafficked into the sex industry and as domestic servants are more likely to be women and children." A 2006 study in Europe on trafficked women found that

2508-472: A more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation." Haig also notes that "gender" became the preferred term when discussing phenomena for which the social versus biological cause was unknown, disputed, or actually an interaction between the two. In 1993, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) started to use gender instead of sex to avoid confusion with sexual intercourse . Later, in 2011,

2640-785: A number of different areas: in sociology during the 1950s; from the theories of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan ; and in the work of French psychoanalysts like Julia Kristeva , Luce Irigaray , and American feminists such as Judith Butler . Those who followed Butler came to regard gender roles as a practice, sometimes referred to as " performative ". Charles E. Hurst states that some people think sex will, "...automatically determine one's gender demeanor and role (social) as well as one's sexual orientation " (sexual attractions and behavior). Gender sociologists believe that people have cultural origins and habits for dealing with gender. For example, Michael Schwalbe believes that humans must be taught how to act appropriately in their designated gender to fill

2772-473: A personal identification with a particular gender and gender role in society. The term woman has historically been used interchangeably with reference to the female body, though more recently this usage has been viewed as controversial by some feminists . There are qualitative analyses that explore and present the representations of gender; however, feminists challenge these dominant ideologies concerning gender roles and biological sex. One's biological sex

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2904-483: A problem for some individuals who feel they have to be at one end of a linear spectrum and must identify themselves as man or woman, rather than being allowed to choose a section in between. Globally, communities interpret biological differences between men and women to create a set of social expectations that define the behaviors that are "appropriate" for men and women and determine their different access to rights, resources, power in society and health behaviors. Although

3036-638: A range of actions with unwelcome sexual overtones, including verbal transgressions. Sexual violence is a broader term referring to the use of violence to obtain a sexual act, including, for example, trafficking. Sexual assault is usually defined as unwanted sexual contact and when this involves sexual penetration or sexual intercourse it is referred to as rape . Women are most often the victims of rape, usually perpetrated by men known to them. The rate of reporting, prosecution, and convictions for rape vary considerably in different jurisdictions and reflect, to some extent, society's attitudes toward such crimes. It

3168-733: A role in the gender system. The coauthors argue that daily people are forced to acknowledge and interact with others in ways that are related to gender. Every day, individuals are interacting with each other and comply with society's set standard of hegemonic beliefs, which includes gender roles. They state that society's hegemonic cultural beliefs sets the rules which in turn create the setting for which social relational contexts are to take place. Ridgeway and Correll then shift their topic towards sex categorization. The authors define sex categorization as "the sociocognitive process by which we label another as male or female." The failure of an attempt to raise David Reimer from infancy through adolescence as

3300-496: A scientific trade journal in 1955. In the seminal 1955 paper, he defined it as "all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman." The modern academic sense of the word, in the context of social roles of men and women, dates at least back to 1945, and was popularized and developed by the feminist movement from the 1970s onwards (see Feminist theory and gender studies below), which theorizes that human nature

3432-543: A society where we present our genders so distinctly, there can often be severe consequences for breaking these cultural norms. Many of these consequences are rooted in discrimination based on sexual orientation. Gays and lesbians are often discriminated against in our legal system because of societal prejudices. Hurst describes how this discrimination works against people for breaking gender norms, no matter what their sexual orientation is. He says that "courts often confuse sex, gender, and sexual orientation, and confuse them in

3564-425: A synonym for sex during the twentieth century, initially as a euphemism, as sex was undergoing its own usage shift toward referring to sexual intercourse rather than male/female categories. During the last two decades of the 20th century, gender was often used as a synonym for sex in its non-copulatory senses, especially outside the social sciences. David Haig , writing in 2003, said "the sex/gender distinction

3696-437: A tradition that incorporates all the features above. In addition to these traditionally recognized third genders, many cultures now recognize, to differing degrees, various non-binary gender identities . People who are non-binary (or genderqueer) have gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine. They may identify as having an overlap of gender identities, having two or more genders, having no gender, having

3828-690: A wide variety of reasons. In 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that "nearly 20% of all women" in the United States suffered attempted rape or rape sometime in their lives. More than a third of the victims were raped before the age of 18. Women who are sex workers end up in the profession for several reasons. Some were victims of sexual and domestic abuse. Many women have said they were raped as working girls. They may be apprehensive about coming forward and reporting their attacks. When reported, many women have said that

3960-707: A wife by her husband, the disciplining by parents and teachers of children under their authority within certain limits prescribed by law or by custom". In the West, married women faced discrimination until just a few decades ago: for instance, in France, married women received the right to work without their husband's permission in 1965. In Spain, during the Franco era, a married woman required her husband's consent ( permiso marital ) for nearly all economic activities, including employment, ownership of property and traveling away from home;

4092-500: A woman—and sociology, as a great deal of mature relating in social contexts is learned rather than instinctive. Within feminist theory , terminology for gender issues developed over the 1970s. In the 1974 edition of Masculine/Feminine or Human , the author uses "innate gender" and "learned sex roles", but in the 1978 edition, the use of sex and gender is reversed. By 1980, most feminist writings had agreed on using gender only for socioculturally adapted traits . Gender studies

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4224-420: Is a field of interdisciplinary study and academic field devoted to gender, gender identity and gendered representation as central categories of analysis. This field includes Women's studies (concerning women , feminity , their gender roles and politics, and feminism ), Men's studies (concerning men , masculinity , their gender roles , and politics), and LGBT studies . Sometimes Gender studies

4356-422: Is a biological concept; gender is a human social and cultural concept." However, Poiani (2010) notes that the question of whether behavioural similarities across species can be associated with gender identity or not is "an issue of no easy resolution", and suggests that mental states, such as gender identity, are more accessible in humans than other species due to their capacity for language. Poiani suggests that

4488-460: Is a custom prevalent in many societies that in its extreme can lead to the rejection of daughters. Sex-selective abortion of females is more common among the higher income population, who can access medical technology . After birth, neglect and diverting resources to male children can lead to some countries having a skewed ratio with more boys than girls, with such practices killing an approximate 230,000 girls under five in India each year. In China,

4620-483: Is also often the result of a dispute between families, where the dispute is 'resolved' by giving a female from one family to the other. The custom of bride kidnapping continues to exist in some Central Asian countries, such as Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the Caucasus, or in parts of Africa, especially Ethiopia. A girl or woman is abducted by the would-be groom, who is often helped by his friends. The victim

4752-479: Is also when one partner tries to maintain abusive power and control . Dating violence is defined by the CDC as "the physical, sexual, psychological, or emotional violence within a dating relationship, including stalking". Widows have been subjected to forced remarriage called widow inheritance , where they are forced to marry a male relative of their late husband. Another practice is the banned remarriage of widows, which

4884-482: Is based on the cultural norms of that society, which lead to the creation of gender systems . The gender system is the basis of social patterns in many societies, which include the separation of sexes, and the primacy of masculine norms. Philosopher Michel Foucault said that as sexual subjects, humans are the object of power, which is not an institution or structure, rather it is a signifier or name attributed to "complex strategical situation". Because of this, "power"

5016-542: Is common in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. In India, in 2011 alone, the National Crime Records Bureau reported 8,618 dowry deaths, while unofficial figures suggest the numbers to be at least three times higher. The relation between violence against women and marriage laws, regulations and traditions has also been discussed. Roman law gave men the right to chastise their wives, even to the point of death. The US and English law subscribed until

5148-465: Is commonly used to refer to the biological sex of the animals. According to biologist Michael J. Ryan , gender identity is a concept exclusively applied to humans. Also, in a letter Ellen Ketterson writes, "[w]hen asked, my colleagues in the Department of Gender Studies agreed that the term gender could be properly applied only to humans, because it involves one's self-concept as man or woman. Sex

5280-417: Is considered a sin ) and states, "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another." Some conservative religious figures interpret this as rejecting to possibility of marital rape. Islam makes reference to sexual relations in marriage too, notably: "Allah's Apostle said, 'If

5412-438: Is considered the most underreported violent crime. Following a rape, a victim may face violence or threats of violence from the rapist and, in many cultures, from the victim's own family and relatives. Violence or intimidation of the victim may be perpetrated by the rapist or by friends and relatives of the rapist, as a way of preventing the victims from reporting the rape, punishing them for reporting it, or forcing them to withdraw

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5544-426: Is defined as the actions or responses that may reveal their status as boy, man, girl or woman, respectively. Elements surrounding gender roles include clothing, speech patterns, movement, occupations, and other factors not limited to biological sex. In contrast to taxonomic approaches, some feminist philosophers have argued that gender "is a vast orchestration of subtle mediations between oneself and others", rather than

5676-438: Is discordance between the natal sex of one's external genitalia and the brain coding of one's gender as masculine or feminine. Although causation from the biological— genetic and hormonal —to the behavioral has been broadly demonstrated and accepted, Money is careful to also note that understanding of the causal chains from biology to behavior in sex and gender issues is very far from complete. Money had previously stated that in

5808-436: Is essentially epicene and social distinctions based on sex are arbitrarily constructed. In this context, matters pertaining to this theoretical process of social construction were labelled matters of gender . The popular use of gender simply as an alternative to sex (as a biological category) is also widespread, although attempts are still made to preserve the distinction. The American Heritage Dictionary (2000) uses

5940-506: Is far from proved", despite recent research demonstrating sophisticated cognitive skills among non-human primates and other species. Hird (2006) has also stated that whether or not non-human animals consider themselves to be feminine or masculine is a "difficult, if not impossible, question to answer", as this would require "judgements about what constitutes femininity or masculinity in any given species". Nonetheless, she asserts that "non-human animals do experience femininity and masculinity to

6072-507: Is female. "I am not permitted to construct my gender and sex willy-nilly," she said. "[This] is so because gender is politically and therefore socially controlled. Rather than 'woman' being something one is, it is something one does." More recent criticisms of Judith Butler's theories critique her writing for reinforcing the very conventional dichotomies of gender. According to gender theorist Kate Bornstein , gender can have ambiguity and fluidity . There are two contrasting ideas regarding

6204-498: Is identical in any culture, what that specific sex means in reference to a person's gender role as a man or a woman in society varies cross-culturally according to what things are considered to be masculine or feminine. These roles are learned from various, intersecting sources such as parental influences, the socialization a child receives in school, and what is portrayed in the local media. Learning gender roles starts from birth and includes seemingly simple things like what color outfits

6336-419: Is illegal but is widely tolerated and accepted as a husband's prerogative. The criminalization of spousal rape is recent, having occurred during the past few decades. Traditional understanding and views of marriage , rape , sexuality , gender roles and self determination have started to be challenged in most Western countries during the 1960s and 1970s, which led to the criminalization of marital rape during

6468-464: Is legal in India and Korea. A more extreme version is the ritual killing of widows, as seen in India and Fiji. Sati is the burning of widows, and although sati in India is today an almost defunct practice, isolated incidents have occurred in recent years, such as the 1987 sati of Roop Kanwar , as well as several incidents in rural areas in 2002 and 2006. A traditional idea upheld in some places in Africa

6600-497: Is now only fitfully observed." Within the social sciences, however, use of gender in academia increased greatly, outnumbering uses of sex during that same period. In the natural sciences, gender was more often used as a synonym for sex . This can be attributed to the influence of feminism. Haig stated, "Among the reasons that working [natural] scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use

6732-611: Is offered together with Study of Sexuality . These disciplines study gender and sexuality in the fields of literature and language, history , political science , sociology , anthropology , cinema and media studies , human development, law, and medicine. It also analyses race , ethnicity , location , nationality , and disability . In gender studies, the term gender refers to proposed social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities. In this context, gender explicitly excludes reference to biological differences, to focus on cultural differences. This emerged from

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6864-570: Is often raped by the would be groom, after which he may try to negotiate a bride price with the village elders to legitimize the marriage. Forced and child marriages are practiced by some inhabitants of Tanzania. Girls are sold by their families to older men for financial benefits, and often girls are married off as soon as they hit puberty, which can be as young as seven years old. To the older men, these young brides act as symbols of masculinity and accomplishment. Child brides endure forced sex, causing health risks and growth impediments. Primary education

6996-475: Is often used interchangeably with violence against women , and some articles on VAW reiterate these conceptions by stating that men are the main perpetrators of this violence. Moreover, the definition stated by the 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women also supported the notion that violence is rooted in the inequality between men and women when the term violence is used together with

7128-406: Is oftentimes tied to specific social roles and expectations. Judith Butler considers the concept of being a woman to have more challenges, owing not only to society's viewing women as a social category but also as a felt sense of self, a culturally conditioned or constructed subjective identity. Social identity refers to the common identification with a collectivity or social category that creates

7260-629: Is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men." Kofi Annan , Secretary-General of the United Nations , declared in a 2006 report posted on the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) website: Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime with

7392-507: Is serious violence in the marriage that is "usually the husband battering the wife". In these cases the emergency room or a legal authority often is the first to notify the clinician . Most importantly, marital violence "is a major risk factor for serious injury and even death and women in violent marriages are at much greater risk of being seriously injured or killed ( National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women 2000)". The authors conclude with what they call "very recent information" on

7524-447: Is that an unmarried widow is unholy and “disturbed” if she is unmarried and abstains from sex for some period of time. This fuels the practice of widow cleansing where the unmarried widow is required to have sexual intercourse as a form of ritual purification, which is commenced with a ceremony for the neighborhood to witness that she is now purified. Unmarried widows are most likely to be accused and killed as witches . Witch trials in

7656-424: Is the one most frequently at risk, and clinicians must be aware that supporting assertiveness by a battered wife may lead to more beatings or even death. Marital or spousal rape was once widely condoned or ignored by law and is now widely considered unacceptable violence against women, repudiated by international conventions, and increasingly criminalized. Still, in many countries, spousal rape either remains legal or

7788-498: Is unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual or group toward another person, often manifested through persistent harassment , intimidation , or following/monitoring of the victim. Stalking is often understood as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear.". Although stalkers are frequently portrayed as being strangers, they are most often known people, such as former or current partners, friends, colleagues or acquaintances. In

7920-496: Is usually not completed for young girls in forced marriages. Married and pregnant students are often discriminated against, expelled, and excluded from school. The Law of Marriage Act currently does not address issues with guardianship and child marriage. The issue of child marriage is not addressed enough in this law, and only establishes a minimum age of 18 for the boys of Tanzania. A minimum age needs to be enforced for girls to stop these practices and provide them with equal rights and

8052-450: Is what determines individual attributes, behaviors, etc. and people are a part of an ontologically and epistemologically constructed set of names and labels . For example, being female characterizes one as a woman, and being a woman signifies one as weak, emotional, and irrational, and incapable of actions attributed to a "man". Butler said that gender and sex are more like verbs than nouns. She reasoned that her actions are limited because she

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8184-443: Is your own sense or conviction of maleness or femaleness; and gender role is the cultural stereotype of what is masculine and feminine. Causality with respect to gender identity disorder is sub-divisible into genetic, prenatal hormonal, postnatal social, and post-pubertal hormonal determinants, but there is, as yet, no comprehensive and detailed theory of causality. Gender coding in the brain is bipolar. In gender identity disorder, there

8316-490: The Council of Europe describes VAW as "a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women" and defines VAW as "all acts of gender-based violence that result in or are likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological, or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life". The 1979 Convention on

8448-855: The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights announced that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had killed over 150 women and girls in Fallujah who refused to participate in sexual jihad . During the Rohingya genocide (2016–present), the Armed Forces of Myanmar , along with the Myanmar Border Guard Police and Buddhist militias of Rakhine , committed widespread gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against

8580-851: The Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ). Both instruments categorize individuals as either being sex typed (males report themselves as identifying primarily with masculine traits, females report themselves as identifying primarily with feminine traits), cross sex-typed (males report themselves as identifying primarily with feminine traits, females report themselves as identifying primarily with masculine traits), androgynous (either males or females who report themselves as high on both masculine and feminine traits) or undifferentiated (either males or females who report themselves as low on both masculine and feminine traits). Twenge (1997) noted that men are generally more masculine than women and women generally more feminine than men, but

8712-567: The Rohingya Muslim women and girls. A January 2018 study estimated that the military and local Rakhine Buddhists perpetrated gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against 18,000 Rohingya Muslim women and girls. The Human Rights Watch stated that gang rapes and sexual violence were committed as part of the military's ethnic cleansing campaign, while the United Nations Special Representative of

8844-611: The Rwandan Genocide as a war crime. According to one report, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant 's capture of Iraqi cities in June 2014 was accompanied by an upsurge in crimes against women, including kidnapping and rape. The Guardian reported that ISIL's extremist agenda extended to women's bodies and that women living under their control were being captured and raped. Fighters are told that they are free to have sex and rape non-Muslim captive women. Haleh Esfandiari from

8976-467: The WHO . The social sciences have a branch devoted to gender studies . Other sciences, such as psychology , sociology , sexology , and neuroscience , are interested in the subject. The social sciences sometimes approach gender as a social construct , and gender studies particularly does, while research in the natural sciences investigates whether biological differences in females and males influence

9108-478: The Witch trials in the early modern period or the sexual slavery of the comfort women . The Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe identifies nine forms of violence against women based on subject and context rather than life cycle or time period: The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a typology of violence against women based on their cultural life cycles. Sexual harassment includes

9240-553: The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has highlighted the abuse of local women by ISIL militants after they captured an area. "They usually take the older women to a makeshift slave market and try to sell them. The younger girls... are raped or married off to fighters," she said, adding, "It's based on temporary marriages, and once these fighters have had sex with these young girls, they just pass them on to other fighters." In December 2014

9372-485: The hijras of South Asia ; these are often referred to as third genders (and fourth genders , etc.). Most scholars agree that gender is a central characteristic for social organization . The word is also used as a synonym for sex, and the balance between these usages has shifted over time. In the mid-20th century, a terminological distinction in modern English (known as the sex and gender distinction ) between biological sex and gender began to develop in

9504-625: The militias that supported them led to 200,000 women being raped over a period of nine months. Rape during the Bosnian War was used as a highly systematized instrument of war by Serb armed forces, predominantly targeting women and girls of the Bosniak ethnic group for physical and moral destruction. Estimates of the number of women raped during the war range from 50,000 to 60,000; as of 2010 only 12 cases have been prosecuted. The 1998 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda recognized rape in

9636-434: The one child policy increased sex-selective abortions and was largely responsible for an unbalanced sex ratio. The Dying Rooms is a 1995 television documentary film about Chinese state orphanages, which documented how parents abandoned their newborn girls into orphanages , where the staff would leave the children in rooms to die of thirst, or starvation. Violent Too Many Requests If you report this error to

9768-400: The "socialized obverse of sex". Simone de Beauvoir 's 1949 book The Second Sex has been interpreted as the beginning of the distinction between sex and gender in feminist theory , although this interpretation is contested by many feminist theorists, including Sara Heinämaa. Controversial sexologist John Money coined the term gender role , and was the first to use it in print in

9900-414: The 1950s, American teenage girls who had been exposed to androgenic steroids by their mothers in utero exhibited more traditionally masculine behavior, such as being more concerned about their future career than marriage, wearing pants, and not being interested in jewelry. There are studies concerning women who have a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia , which leads to the overproduction of

10032-477: The 2000s. In Canada, marital rape was made illegal in 1983, when several legal changes were made, including changing the rape statute to sexual assault and making the laws gender neutral. In Ireland, spousal rape was outlawed in 1990. In the US, the criminalization of marital rape started in the mid-1970s, and in 1993, North Carolina became the last state to make marital rape illegal. In England and Wales , marital rape

10164-513: The 20th century to the system of coverture , that is, a legal doctrine under which, upon marriage, a woman's legal rights were subsumed by those of her husband. Common-law in the United States and in the UK allowed for domestic violence and in the UK, before 1891, the husband had the right to inflict moderate corporal punishment on his wife to keep her "within the bounds of duty". Today, outside

10296-637: The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of the United Nations General Assembly makes recommendations relating to VAW, and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action mentions VAW. However, the 1993 United Nations General Assembly resolution on the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women was the first international instrument to explicitly define VAW and elaborate on

10428-701: The English Language of 1882 defined gender as kind, breed, sex , derived from the Latin ablative case of genus , like genere natus , which refers to birth. The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED1, Volume 4, 1900) notes the original meaning of gender as "kind" had already become obsolete. The concept of gender, in the modern social science sense, is a recent invention in human history. The ancient world had no basis of understanding gender as it has been understood in

10560-457: The FDA reversed its position and began using sex as the biological classification and gender as "a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions based on the individual's gender presentation." In legal cases alleging discrimination , a 2006 law review article by Meredith Render notes "as notions of gender and sexuality have evolved over

10692-568: The Gender System: A Theoretical Perspective on Gender Beliefs and Social Relations", Cecilia Ridgeway and Shelley Correll , argue that gender is more than an identity or role but is something that is institutionalized through "social relational contexts." Ridgeway and Correll define "social relational contexts" as "any situation in which individuals define themselves in relation to others in order to act." They also point out that in addition to social relational contexts, cultural beliefs plays

10824-591: The House of Lords , in the case of R v. R in 1991. In the Netherlands, marital rape was also made illegal in 1991. One of the last Western countries to criminalize marital rape was Germany, in 1997. The relationship between some religions ( Christianity and Islam ) and marital rape is controversial. The Bible at 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 explains that one has a "conjugal duty" to have sexual relations with one's spouse (in sharp opposition to sex outside marriage , which

10956-697: The Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, said that Rohingya women and girls were made the "systematic" target of rapes and sexual violence because of their ethnic identity and religion . Other forms of sexual violence included sexual slavery in military captivity, forced public nudity, and humiliation. Some women and girls were raped to death while others were found traumatised with raw wounds after they had arrived in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch reported of

11088-466: The U.S., a survey by NVAW found that only 23% of female victims were stalked by strangers. Stalking by partners can be very dangerous, as sometimes it can escalate into severe violence, including murder. Police statistics from the 1990s in Australia indicated that 87.7% of stalking offenders were male and 82.4% of stalking victims were female. An acid attack is the act of throwing acid at someone with

11220-488: The United States, in 2005, 1181 women were killed by their intimate partners, compared to 329 men. It is estimated that 30% or more of the women who are admitted to the ER could be victims of domestic violence In England and Wales about 100 women are killed by partners or former partners each year while 21 men were killed in 2010. In 2008, in France, 156 women were killed by their intimate partner, compared to 27 men. According to

11352-662: The WHO, globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner. A UN report compiled from a number of different studies conducted in at least 71 countries found domestic violence against women to be most prevalent in Ethiopia . A study by Pan American Health Organization conducted in 12 Latin American countries found the highest prevalence of domestic violence against women to be in Bolivia . In Western Europe,

11484-491: The West, many countries severely restrict the rights of married women: for example, in Yemen , marriage regulations state that a wife must obey her husband and must not leave home without his permission. In Iraq husbands have a legal right to "punish" their wives. The criminal code states at Paragraph 41 that there is no crime if an act is committed while exercising a legal right; examples of legal rights include: "The punishment of

11616-494: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 210583739 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:41:12 GMT Gender Gender includes the social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being a man , woman , or other gender identity . Depending on

11748-425: The abuser usually someone known to her. A number of international instruments that aim to eliminate violence against women and domestic violence have been enacted by various international bodies. These generally start with a definition of what such violence is, and a proposal to combat it. The Istanbul Convention ( Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence ) of

11880-632: The academic areas of psychology , sociology , sexology , and feminism . Before the mid-20th century, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories . In the West, in the 1970s, feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender . The distinction between gender and sex is made by most contemporary social scientists in Western countries, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as

12012-399: The assigned gender. The assignment of gender involves taking into account the physiological and biological attributes assigned by nature followed by the imposition of the socially constructed conduct. Gender is a term used to exemplify the attributes that a society or culture constitutes as "masculine" or "feminine". Although a person's sex as male or female stands as a biological fact that

12144-589: The association between biological sex and masculinity/femininity is waning. Some gendered behavior is influenced by prenatal and early life androgen exposure. This includes, for example, gender normative play, self-identification with a gender, and tendency to engage in aggressive behavior. Males of most mammals, including humans, exhibit more rough and tumble play behavior, which is influenced by maternal testosterone levels. These levels may also influence sexuality, with non-heterosexual persons exhibiting sex atypical behavior in childhood. The biology of gender became

12276-592: The complaint; or it may be perpetrated by the relatives of the victim as a punishment for "bringing shame" to the family. Internationally, the incidence of rapes recorded by police during 2008 varied between 0.1 per 100,000 people in Egypt and 91.6 per 100,000 people in Lesotho with 4.9 per 100,000 people in Lithuania as the median . Around the world, rape is often not reported or handled properly by law enforcement for

12408-456: The context, this may include sex -based social constructs (i.e. gender roles ) as well as gender expression . Most cultures use a gender binary , in which gender is divided into two categories, and people are considered part of one or the other ( girls / women and boys / men ); those who are outside these groups may fall under the umbrella term non-binary . A number of societies have specific genders besides "man" and "woman," such as

12540-417: The course of violent marriages, which suggests that "over time a husband's battering may abate somewhat, but perhaps because he has successfully intimidated his wife. The risk of violence remains strong in a marriage in which it has been a feature in the past. Thus, treatment is essential here; the clinician cannot just wait and watch." The most urgent clinical priority is the protection of the wife because she

12672-477: The definition of gender, and the intersection of both of them is definable as below: The World Health Organization defines gender as "the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed". The beliefs, values and attitude taken up and exhibited by them is as per the agreed upon norms of the society and the personal opinion of the person is not taken into the primary consideration of assignment of gender and imposition of gender roles as per

12804-558: The definitions disregard violence against men and that the term gender , as used in gender-based violence , only refers to women. Other critics argue that employing the term gender in this particular way introduces notions of inferiority and subordination for femininity and superiority for masculinity. There is no widely accepted current definition that covers all the dimensions of gender-based violence. Violence against women can fit into several broad categories. These include violence carried out by individuals as well as by states. Some of

12936-595: The development of gender in humans; both inform the debate about how far biological differences influence the formation of gender identity and gendered behavior. Biopsychosocial approaches to gender include biological, psychological, and social/cultural aspects. The modern English word gender comes from the Middle English gender , gendre , a loanword from Anglo-Norman and Middle French gendre . This, in turn, came from Latin genus . Both words mean "kind", "type", or "sort". They derive ultimately from

13068-517: The early modern period (between the 15th and 18th centuries) were common in Europe and in the European colonies in North America. Today, there remain regions of the world (such as parts of Sub-Saharan Africa , rural North India , and Papua New Guinea ) where belief in witchcraft is held by many people, and women accused of being witches are subjected to serious violence. Son preference

13200-463: The extent that any given species' behaviour is gender segregated." Despite this, Poiani and Dixson emphasise the applicability of the concept of gender role to non-human animals such as rodents throughout their book. The concept of gender role has also been applied to non-human primates such as rhesus monkeys . Biologist and feminist academic Anne Fausto-Sterling rejects the discourse of biological versus social determinism and advocates

13332-636: The face and body. Such attacks are common in South Asia, in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India; and in Southeast Asia, especially in Cambodia. A forced marriage is a marriage in which one or both parties are married against their will. Forced marriages are common in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The customs of bride price and dowry , which exist in many parts of the world, contribute to this practice. A forced marriage

13464-437: The first lecture Sherer explains that parents' influence (through punishment and reward of behavior) can influence gender expression but not gender identity . Sherer argued that kids will modify their gender expression to seek reward from their parents and society, but this will not affect their gender identity (their internal sense of self). Sexologist John Money coined the term gender role in 1955. The term gender role

13596-478: The following decades. With a few notable exceptions, it was during the past 30 years that most laws against marital rape have been enacted. Some countries in Scandinavia and in the former Communist Bloc of Europe made spousal rape illegal before 1970, but most Western countries criminalized it only in the 1980s and 1990s. In many parts of the world the laws against marital rape are very new, having been enacted in

13728-420: The following two sentences to illustrate the difference, noting that the distinction "is useful in principle, but it is by no means widely observed, and considerable variation in usage occurs at all levels." The effectiveness of the medication appears to depend on the sex (not gender) of the patient. In peasant societies, gender (not sex) roles are likely to be more clearly defined. Gender identity refers to

13860-507: The forms of violence perpetrated by individuals are: rape , domestic violence , sexual harassment , acid throwing , reproductive coercion , female infanticide , prenatal sex selection , obstetric violence , online gender-based violence and mob violence ; as well as harmful customary or traditional practices such as honor killings , dowry violence , female genital mutilation , marriage by abduction and forced marriage . There are forms of violence that may be perpetrated or condoned by

13992-485: The forthcoming DSM-5 (2013) have canvassed a series of new Relational disorders , which include Marital Conflict Disorder Without Violence or Marital Abuse Disorder (Marital Conflict Disorder With Violence) . Couples with marital disorders sometimes come to clinical attention because the couple recognize long-standing dissatisfaction with their marriage and come to the clinician on their own initiative or are referred by an astute health care professional. Secondly, there

14124-404: The government, such as war rape ; sexual violence and sexual slavery during conflict, forced sterilization ; forced abortion ; violence by the police and authoritative personnel; stoning and flogging . Many forms of VAW, such as trafficking in women and forced prostitution are often perpetrated by organized criminal networks. Historically, there have been forms of organized WAV, such as

14256-437: The humanities and social sciences for the past few decades. The term gender had been associated with grammar for most of history and only started to move towards it being a malleable cultural construct in the 1950s and 1960s. Before the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role developed, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories . For example, in

14388-463: The hypothesis of Hill and Lynch which stated "that as adolescents experience these and other socializing influences, they will become more stereotypical in their gender-role identities and gendered attitudes and behaviors." However, the researchers did state that perhaps the hypothesis Hill and Lynch proposed was true in the past but is not true now due to changes in the population of teens in respect to their gender-role identities. Authors of "Unpacking

14520-441: The incidents and intensity of such violence have varied over time and between societies. Such violence is often seen as a mechanism for the subjugation of women, whether in society in general or in an interpersonal relationship . The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women states, "violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women" and "violence against women

14652-428: The intention of injuring or disfiguring them. Women and girls are the victims in 75–80% of cases and are often connected to domestic disputes, including dowry disputes, refusal of a proposal of marriage, or sexual advances. The acid is usually thrown at the faces, burning the tissue, often exposing and sometimes dissolving the bones. The long-term consequences of these attacks include blindness and permanent scarring of

14784-403: The last few decades, legal theories concerning what it means to discriminate "because of sex" under Title VII have experienced a similar evolution". In a 1999 law review article proposing a legal definition of sex that "emphasizes gender self-identification," Julie Greenberg writes, "Most legislation utilizes the word 'sex,' yet courts, legislators, and administrative agencies often substitute

14916-613: The masculine sex hormone , androgen . These women usually have ordinary female appearances (though nearly all girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) have corrective surgery performed on their genitals). However, despite taking hormone-balancing medication given to them at birth, these females are statistically more likely to be interested in activities traditionally linked to males than female activities. Psychology professor and CAH researcher Dr. Sheri Berenbaum attributes these differences to an exposure of higher levels of male sex hormones in utero. In non-human animal research, gender

15048-470: The modern, two-spirit community, however, these umbrella terms, neologisms, and ways of viewing gender are not necessarily the type of cultural constructs that more traditional members of these communities agree with. The hijras of India and Pakistan are often cited as third gender . Another example may be the muxe (pronounced [ˈmuʃe] ), found in the state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. The Bugis people of Sulawesi , Indonesia have

15180-732: The permiso marital was abolished in 1975. Concerns exist about violence related to marriage – both inside marriage (physical abuse, sexual violence, restriction of liberty) and in relation to marriage customs ( dowry , bride price , forced marriage , child marriage , marriage by abduction , violence related to female premarital virginity ). Claudia Card, professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, writes: Women are more likely to be victimized by someone that they are intimate with, commonly called " intimate partner violence " (IPV). Instances of IPV tend not to be reported to police and thus many experts find it hard to estimate

15312-403: The potential number of species with members possessing a gender identity must be limited due to the requirement for self-consciousness . Jacques Balthazart suggests that "there is no animal model for studying sexual identity. It is impossible to ask an animal, whatever its species, to what sex it belongs." He notes that "this would imply that the animal is aware of its own body and sex, which

15444-426: The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at

15576-569: The role properly, and that the way people behave as masculine or feminine interacts with social expectations. Schwalbe comments that humans "are the results of many people embracing and acting on similar ideas". People do this through everything from clothing and hairstyle to relationship and employment choices. Schwalbe believes that these distinctions are important, because society wants to identify and categorize people as soon as we see them. They need to place people into distinct categories to know how we should feel about them. Hurst comments that in

15708-615: The situation where women are forced into prostitution or sexual slavery by an occupying power. During World War II, the Japanese military established brothels filled with " comfort women ", girls and women who were forced into sexual slavery for soldiers, exploiting women for the purpose of creating access and entitlement for men. Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War by members of the Pakistani military and

15840-527: The social sciences, arts, and humanities. It was in the 1970s that feminist scholars adopted the term gender as way of distinguishing "socially constructed" aspects of male–female differences (gender) from "biologically determined" aspects (sex). As of 2024, many dictionaries list "synonym for 'sex'" as one of gender' s meanings, alongside its sociocultural meaning. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, gender came into use as

15972-427: The specific nature and degree of these differences vary from one society to the next, they still tend to typically favor men, creating an imbalance in power and gender inequalities within most societies. Many cultures have different systems of norms and beliefs based on gender, but there is no universal standard to a masculine or feminine role across all cultures. Social roles of men and women in relation to each other

16104-668: The stigma was too great and that the police told them they deserved it and were reluctant to follow police policy. Decriminalizing sex work is argued to help sex workers in this aspect. In some countries, it is common for older men to engage in "compensated dating" with underage girls. Such relationships are called enjo kōsai in Japan and are also common in Asian countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. The WHO condemned "economically coerced sex (e.g. school girls having sex with "sugar daddies" ( Sugar baby in return for school fees)" as

16236-428: The subject of an expanding number of studies over the course of the late 20th century. One of the earliest areas of interest was what became known as "gender identity disorder" (GID) and which is now also described as gender dysphoria . Studies in this, and related areas, inform the following summary of the subject by John Money. He stated: The term "gender role" appeared in print first in 1955. The term gender identity

16368-529: The subject. Other definitions of VAW are set out in the 1994 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence Against Women and by the 2003 Maputo Protocol . In addition, the term gender-based violence refers to "any acts or threats of acts intended to hurt or make women suffer physically, sexually, or psychologically, and which affect women because they are women or affect women disproportionately". Gender-based violence

16500-587: The term gender-based . In Recommendation Rec(2002)5 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the protection of women against violence , the Council of Europe stipulated that VAW "includes, but is not limited to, the following": These definitions of VAW as being gender-based are seen by some to be unsatisfactory. These definitions understand society as patriarchal, signifying unequal relations between men and women. Opponents of such definitions argue that

16632-467: The time, surgical reconstruction of the vagina was more advanced than reconstruction of the penis , leading many doctors and psychologists, including John Money who oversaw Reimer's case, to recommend sex reassignment based on the idea that these patients would be happiest living as women with functioning genitalia. Available evidence indicates that in such instances, parents were deeply committed to raising these children as girls and in as gender-typical

16764-502: The true magnitude of the problem. Though this form of violence is often considered as an issue within the context of heterosexual relationships, it also occurs in lesbian relationships, daughter-mother relationships, roommate relationships and other domestic relationships involving two women. Violence against women in lesbian relationships is about as common as violence against women in heterosexual relationships. Women are much more likely than men to be murdered by an intimate partner. In

16896-719: The women were subjected to serious forms of abuse, such as physical or sexual violence, that affected their physical and mental health. Forced prostitution is prostitution that takes place as a result of coercion by a third party. In forced prostitution, the party/parties who force the victim to be subjected to unwanted sexual acts exercise control over the victim. Single women and women who are economically independent have been vilified by certain groups of men. In Hassi Messaoud in Algeria in 2001, mobs targeted single women , attacking 95 and killing at least six and, in 2011, similar attacks happened again throughout Algeria. Stalking

17028-538: The word 'gender' for 'sex' when they interpret these statutes." In J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B. , a 1994 United States Supreme Court case addressing "whether the Equal Protection Clause forbids intentional discrimination on the basis of gender", the majority opinion noted that with regard to gender, "It is necessary only to acknowledge that 'our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination,' id. , at 684, 93 S.Ct., at 1769,

17160-487: Was introduced by the Greek philosopher Protagoras . In 1926, Henry Watson Fowler stated that the definition of the word pertained to this grammar-related meaning: "Gender...is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons...of the masculine or feminine g[ender], meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder." In 1945, Madison Bentley defined gender as

17292-710: Was made illegal in 1991. The views of Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century jurist, published in The History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736), stated that a husband cannot be guilty of the rape of his wife because the wife "hath given up herself in this kind to her husband, which she cannot retract"; in England and Wales, this would remain law for more than 250 years, until it was abolished by the Appellate Committee of

17424-406: Was used in a press release, 21 November 1966, to announce the new clinic for transsexuals at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was disseminated in the media worldwide, and soon entered the vernacular. The definitions of gender and gender identity vary on a doctrinal basis. In popularized and scientifically debased usage, sex is what you are biologically; gender is what you become socially; gender identity

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