NCJ Number
191748
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 7 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2001 Pages: 999-1023
Date Published
September 2001
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This article examines why rape is common in association with ethnic conflict and war, with attention to the dynamics of the ethnic conflict and war in the former Yugoslavia.
Abstract
This article suggests that the blending of nationalism and militarism at the time of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia led to the revival and relegitimation of traditional gender relations, creating a broader archaized (return to earlier values and traditions) social environment. Nationalist propaganda on and off the battlefield played a key role in this. An archaized social environment, as defined by the author, refers to a culture that attempts to resurrect and institutionalize traditional gender relations and thereby relegitimize patriarchal domination. Relatively rapid social change occasioned by the fall of communism, economic recession, tense ethnic relations, a rise in nationalist sentiment, and a militarization of daily life combined to create an archaized environment that placed some women at an increased risk of gender-based violence. Factors that contributed to violence against women were the condoning of violence at the governmental or quasi-governmental level; militarization; and interaction among male soldiers to create a peer influence toward violence against women. 19 notes and 55 references