University of Dayton eCommons Philosophy Faculty Publications Department of Philosophy 2010 Feminism, Cultural Violence of Danielle Poe University of Dayton, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/phl_fac_pub Part of the History of Philosophy Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons eCommons Citation Poe, Danielle, "Feminism, Cultural Violence of" (2010). Philosophy Faculty Publications. 10. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/phl_fac_pub/10 This Encyclopedia Entry is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. 132 FAILED STATES AND CONFLICT International Committee of the Red Cross; Intervention, Straw, Jack. "Failed and Failing States." Speech given by the Humanitarian; Law, International; Nation-States, Causes British foreign secretary at the European Research Institute, University of Birmingham, 6 September 2002. of Conflict in; and United Nations, subent1y on System in Tedesco, Laura, "The Latin American States: 'Failed' or Foreign Policies of States.] Evolving?" Working Paper No. 37 of the Fundaci6n para la Relaciones Intemacionales y el Dia.logo Exterior (FR.IDE), BIBLIOGRAPHY May 2007. African Studies Centre, et al. Failed and Collapsed Stales in the Thiirer, Daniel. "The 'Failed Stale' and International Law." International System. Leiden: African Studies Centre; International Review of the Red Cross, no. 836 (31 December Amsterdam: Transnational Institute; Coimbra: Center of 1999): 731- 761. Available at http://www.icrc.org. Social Studies, Coimbra University; Madrid: CIP-FUHEM, 2003. CR! TOFFOLO Akude, John Erneka. "The Failure and Co ll apse o[ the Afi-ican State: On the Example of Ni geria." Fundaci6n para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Dia.logo Exterior (FRIDE), September 2007 . http://www.fride.org/publication/262/the­ FEMINISM, CULTURAL VIOLENCE OF. For most, failure-and-collapse-of-the-african-state-on-the-example-of­ if nol all, self-defined feminists, feminism means support nigeria. for equality between women and men. The difficulty with Chomsky, Noam. Failed Slates: The Abuse of Power and the this definition, though, is determining what one means Assault on Democracy. San Francisco: Owl Books, 2008. by "equality," by "women and men," and by "sex" and "Failed and Collapsed Slates in the International System." "gender." For some feminists, equality requires that differ­ Leiden: African Studies Centre; Amsterdam: Transnational Institute; Coimbra: Center of Social Studies, Coimbra ences between women and men be acknowledged and University; Madrid: CIP-RUHEM, 2003. valued. For other feminists, equality means that the cate­ "The Failed State Index." Foreign Policy (July-August 2007): 5~3 . gory 'buman" encompasses women and men and that "The Failed States Index 2008." Foreign Policy (July-August the differences within a sex are greater than differences 2008). http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?page= l& story_id=4350. between the sexes. Feminists also differ on what they Haims, Marla C., David C. Gompert, Gregory F. Treverton, and mean by "women" and "men"; these terms can be Brooke Stearns Lawson. "Breaking the Failed-State Cycle." defined biologically, genetically, culturally, religious! , Occasional Paper of the Rand Corporation. Santa Monica: or psychologically. In academic feminism, convention RAND Corporation, 2008. has dictated that sex is defined by biology and thal Klare, Michael T. "The Deadly Connection: Paramilitary Bands, gender is defined by culture, but the debate continu s Small Arms Diffusion, and State Pai.lure." Chap. 5 in When as to how biology and gender influence each other and Stales Fail: Causes and Consequences, edited by Robert I. Rotberg. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. where one ends and the other begins. These debates Llosa, Alvaro Varga. "The Failure of States." Mother Jones, 8 about the nature of feminism have helped nurture September 2005. an understanding of the complex interrelationship Mallaby, Sebastian, "The Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, between biology and culture and have helped to Failed States, and the Case for American Empire." Foreign Affairs 81, no. 2 (2002): 2- 15. broaden scholars' and activists' attention to different / Porter, Keith. "The Failed State Is a Real Threat to Our ways that oppression manifests itself. Peace and Security." US Foreign Policy (8 November 2006). Cultural violence is violence thal is part of a larger social http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/ocl/backgroundhistory/a/ structure. Since cultural violence belongs to the inner faileclstates.htm. workings of a society, it is usually invisible to those who Rotberg, Roberl I. "Nation-State Failure: A Recurring are within that structure. In order to reveal the violence, Phenomenon?" Unpublished discussion paper given as part of the NIC 2020 project. 6 November 2003. feminists turn their attention to the ways in which th e Rotberg, Robert I. "The New Nature of Nation-State Failw-e." structures systematically disadvantage women. Once cul­ The Washington Quarterly 25, no. 3 (2002): 85-96. tural violence is revealed, the violence can be challenged Rotberg, Robert I, ed. When States Fail: Causes and Consequences. and corrected. For example, many would point to Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Condoleeza Rice as an example of a successful woman Rotberg, Robert I., eel. "Repressive, Aggressive, and Rogue and as evidence that sexism and racism are no longer Nation-States: How Odious, How Dangerous?" In Worst of the Worst: Dealing with Repressive and Rogue Nations, edited active in U.S. politics, but when we examine Rice's collu­ by Robert I. Rotberg, pp. 1-39. Cambridge, Mass.: World sion with the administration of George W. Bush, it is Peace Foundation; Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution evident that she is part of an institution that plays on Press, 2007. [Seep. 6- 7.] gendered stereotypes to justify wars in both Iraq and FEMINISM, CULTURAL VIOLENCE OF 133 Afghanistan. This example is particularly illustrative to gender differences in moral development and has because freeing women in Afghanistan was central to the helped to undermine abstraction as the most advanced United States' justification for invading Afghanistan, form of moral reasoning and to reveal the complexity which plays on stereotypes of women as victims in need of many kinds of moral thinking. of rescue. In the war in Iraq, however, women were used The French philosopher Luce Irigaray has also been as weapons to control prisoners, as evident in pictures instrumental in feminism's ability to deconstruct patriar­ from Abu Ghraib. chal language in psychoanalysis, philosophy, and sociely. In her 1915 speech "What War Is Destroying," Jane Irigaray first gained recognition in 1974 with the publi­ Addams gave what might be the most compelling argu­ cation of Speculum, de l'autre femme (Speculum of the ment against the myth that war can promote peace. War Other Woman), in which she deconstructs psychoanaly­ destroys the conservation of human life by diverting sis and philosophy from Freud to Plato in order to time, talent, and money from social programs for chil­ demonstrate that psychoanalysis and philosophy depend dren, the elderly, and the disabled. The ascent of human on covering over the role of women and the feminine in life is halted, because instead of advancing our sensitiv­ order to elevate men and the masculine to a privileged ity to human life between generations, war makes us less position in which everything masculine is the norm sensitive. Instead of building on the achievements of the and everything feminine is nonmasculine and therefore last genera ti on, those who have gone to war and suffered deficient. Throughout her work, Irigaray demonstrates through war must begin again, because war produces a that the Western philosophical canon (Plato, Aristotle, hardening toward human suffering. The costs of war Spinoza, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, and others) that Addams enumerates serves as an important remin­ depends on a forgetfulness in which the feminine's only der that war takes its toll on some of the most funda­ role is to support the masculine. In 1990 she released mental relations of cooperation between people. She Sexes et genres a travers les langues (Sex and Gender points out that wars, even justified wars, destroy far through Language), which outlines the results of ongoing more than is apparent on the surface. Feminists have research by Irigaray and other linguists on how women sought to combat cultural violence against women in and men, girls and boys use words in French, English, three areas, language, imagery, and global conflict. and Italian. The research revealed a hierarchy between the sexes in descriptions of the sexes, grammatical privi­ Cultural Violence: Language lege, and the value of each sex. For example, masculine A groundbreaking moment for discovering patriarchy's pronouns were used more frequently by both sexes for hold on language came in 1982 when Carol Gilligan descriptions of admirable traits or activities; feminine published In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory pronouns were used more frequently by both sexes for and Women's Development. Through years of studying undesirable traits or activities. For Irigaray,