Women and War. It is by no means unpreventable that the exercise of war creates such a devastating consequences that destructs not only the stability of a country, but it has a far-reaching effects that war has abolished a sense of human’s right to live; hundreds and thousands of non-combat-ants people have been killed, which most of the victims are women and children.
In the article of “Women and War:Reclaiming a Feminist Perspective” Amee Chew tries to create a discourse that analyze the presence of gendered biases where it is seen that women received a greater impact from the exercise of war.
According to the United Nations Security Council, women and girls suffered disproportionately during and after war, they have a more tendency to be adversely affected by the armed conflict, making them more vulnerable to experience sexual violence and exploitation (United Nations, 2003).
Women are more likely to be used as a trading commodity for sexual slavery, serves as a forced labor, sent to military brothels, raped and tortured 1n inhumane possible ways to an extent that it has violated their physical, sexual and psychological aspects.
In this case of the gender-based violence, many feminist movement have fought against this gender discrimination that have long been targeted women as the object; it has long been rooted from our past history where imperialism and capitalism is interconnected with the systematic patriarchy, which have made women to be marginalized ever since.
It is the aim of the article to question the narrow explanation that the world had offers in regards to the ever- present sexism that both feminist and US anti-war movement have confronted and to support this matters, I do believe that the lack of gendered analysis on this sexual subjugation towards women is what keep the sexual violence from happening in the future.
Since the initiated US invasion in 2003, Iraqi women encountered an overwhelming economic downfall in a way that lots of women are becoming unemployed; men are more preferable to be employed because they are seen to be more eligible.
As stated on the article, formerly 72% salaried Iraqi women were public employees, and many lost their job when ministries are being dismantled. In addition to this, many Iraqi woman have lost its right to have an access towards publics services because the war have abolished the infrastructure such as the access to electricity, safe water, and sanitation. It is by no means the aim of the warring parties to damage the basic infrastructure as a strategy to lead to chaos and social disorder, destabilizing the opposite party (Plumper & Neumayer, 2006).
This also happens with the women in US. US government have concentrated its budget to be used to finance the war, making the public services to be scarcely available by its people due to the undergone budget slashes; it is now difficult for most families in poverty, which usually lead by single mothers, to have an easy and free access towards healthcare, education, and childcare.
However, these effects on economy that affected both women in Iraq and US couldn’t be conceptualized into the same page; it is women in Iraq who suffered the hardest (to compare with the US women) because not only they are being limited on the availability of job offers, they are also experiencing a catastrophic events in a way that they lived in the on going war scenes. Meanwhile, the US women can still be able to find jobs of their own and lived in a safe space.
Sex trade, on the other hand, plays such an integral part in trying to explain this gender discrimination that have targeted women. According to Amee chew statement, due to the economic hardship that Iraqi woman have faced, many of Iraqi women are forced to given up their sexuality as a means of attaining money for the sake of their survival.
However, in reality, Iraqi women are being kidnapped and trafficked to a great extent, gender based violence such as rape are being used by militias as a strategic approach to strengthen their power where women suffer quietly as they fear stigma, reprisal and even execution. These women are then will be sent to military brothels to be used as a sexual slavery. Having said that, it can be seen that women are being degraded in many ways; women is seen as a sexual object that can be traded easily to satisfy man militias in the war conflict and women are being used as a powerful tactics for them to exercise their power.
Women and Wars by Aluna Khansa – Temporaktif
