Culture & Violence against Women

Sarala Emmanuel

The topic of the Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Yakin Ertürk, to the Human Rights Council in 2006 was on the intersections between culture and violence against women. In the report she defines culture as:

"The set of shared spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of human experience that is created and constructed within social praxis. As such, culture is intimately connected with the diverse ways in which social groups produce their daily existence economically, socially and politically. It therefore embraces both the commonly held meanings that allow for the continuation of everyday practices as well as the competing meanings that galvanize change over time."

Some of the important arguments she makes in the report are discussed in this article. Firstly, she links the emergence of hegemonic cultural discourses to the deepening inequalities between nations and the polarized global power structures. She notes that these economic and political trends not only challenge the universality of human rights as being 'Western' but also lays the ground for the perpetuation and justification of discriminatory practices against women including violence against women in the name (or guise) of culture, custom, tradition or religion. Therefore there needs to be a stronger analysis into the economic and political conditions that sustain violations of women's rights in the name of culture.

Secondly, she also challenges the essentializing of traditional cultures of the global south as inherently harmful to women. For example, she notes how in international discourses human rights law is seen as one way of eliminating 'harmful traditional practices', maintaining the superficial duality between modernity and tradition. These conceptualizations, she argues, does not take into consideration the economic and political dimensions of women's subordination and assumes that once the cultural practices are stopped women will be liberated. They also ignore the resistance to violence and oppression by women living in the developing world and provide women only the option of denying themselves their cultural identity in order to be free of violence.

She writes, "A 1995 United Nations publication on harmful traditional practices, for instance, seems to juxtapose non-Western traditional practices with 'non-traditional practices, such as rape and domestic violence'. This classification is dubious and highlights the problem the concept of 'tradition' entails. Since high rates of domestic violence and rape persist in the Western world despite commendable legal and institutional measures in place for women's advancement, it is hard not to perceive these violations as harmful social traditions rather than merely as the crimes of individual, deviant perpetrators."

She further notes that distinct cultural norms that define gender relations in Western countries are often not perceived as culture. She uses the example of half day schooling and rigid shop hours in European countries, which are based on ideologies that prioritize women's reproductive roles in terms of'someone' being able to take care of the shopping and the children during regular working hours. Also the gendered nature of the gun culture in the United States of America where "in 2003, 50 per cent of female homicide victims in the United States of America were shot and killed with a gun. Women in the United States of America are 11 times more likely than in other high-income countries to be murdered through the use of a fire-arm".

She further notes that distinct cultural norms that define gender relations in Western countries are often not perceived as culture.

She strongly states that Western countries too have cultural practices that legitimize and hide violence within intimidate relationships, as well as ignore harmful cultural practices among immigrant communities in their countries; and have not brought refugee laws in line with international standards of gender-related prosecution.
She also states that universal human rights are also a culture. One of her main arguments is that "culture evolves as a response to a different and competing individual and collective needs and aspirations, which makes culture diverse and dynamic. However, at any given time, certain interpretations of culture may be legitimized and imposed on a society or a community. The assertions of dominant interpretations of culture, in seemingly diverse sociocultural settings, are often similar to the extent that they
1 presuppose a static and homogenous set of values and norms that govern the lives of a collective entity; and

2 reflect and reinforce hegemonic and patriarchal power relations. Such cultural discourses are at odds with universal cultural standards, in particular the legally binding human rights principle that no custom, tradition or religious consideration can be invoked to justify violence against women (my italics).

She states that "In order to successfully uphold universally agreed values, in particular the principle that no custom, tradition or religious consideration can be invoked to justify violence against women, it is necessary to address, and understand the process of legitimization in the assertion of these types of discourses. This requires systematic engagement in a "cultural negotiation" whereby the positive cultural elements are emphasized, while the oppressive elements in culture-based discourses are demystified."

She uses examples of how women have mobilized and used positive cultural symbols to denounce violence against women. Also how cultural discourses have been used to complement and reinforce human rights discourses. For example, "on 25 November 2006 a group of distinguished Islamic scholars assembled at Al-Azahr University in Cairo issued a set of recommendations recognizing that female genital mutilation "is a deplorable, inherited custom, which is practiced in some societies and is copied by some Muslims in several countries" They concluded that "there are no written grounds for this custom in the Qur'an with regard to an authentic tradition of the Prophet" and acknowledged that "female genital circumcision practiced today harms women psychologically and physically" and should be "seen as a punishable aggression against humankind". They demanded the practice must be stopped "in support of one of the highest values of Islam, namely to do no harm to another", and called for its criminalization."

Her recommendations for addressing the issue of culture and violence against women therefore are –
1	Problematizing culture as historically constructed and representing diverse subject positions and interests, which includes interrogating and negotiating culture and identifying positive elements of culture, including human rights culture, and integrating them in strategies to transform oppressive practices defended in the name of culture
2	Applying a political-economy perspective to understanding cultural practices. Addressing social, economic and political factors that underlie and reinforce harmful cultural paradigms that subordinate women; and recognizing the political and economic nature of gender inequality and the prevailing forms of violence against women;

3	Approaching all forms of violence against women as a continuum and intersectional with other forms of inequality. Specifically avoiding compartmentalized and selective approaches to the elimination of violence against women that de-link the problem from its underlying causes.
