What connects rape in war, domestic violence and sexual harassment? Patriarchy | Suzanne Moore

Without an analysis of the patriarchy, we will remain powerless to change the abuse of women that is present in varying degrees everywhere

Late at night I gaze upon the faces of the women of the YPJ, the Kurdish all-female military organisation, as they unfurl flags in Raqqa. Isis is not entirely gone. Everything is still complicated. But for a moment these women have won. They vanquished the rapists. They have confronted our worst nightmares. They know what they are doing. In interviews these young women tell us that rape is a planned way to destroy a culture and that this is what Isis fighters were doing to the Yazidis. They tell us they scream with happiness when they go into battle because they know that, according to the Isis interpretation of Islam, to be killed by a woman means a fighter won’t go to heaven.

Watch, if you can bear it, the accounts of the Rohingya women who have been raped in Myanmar. Again, rape is being used systematically to destroy a culture. It was used in the Balkans, too. It has always been used.

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from Network Front | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2gsFWJ1