Cultures of conflict:Protests, violent repression, and community values

What are the cultural origins of societal conflicts that revolve around democratization, women’s rights, and modern libertarian values? We propose that deep-seated differences in community-based collective values (at the micro-level) may be related to why people support anti-government protest and why they support repression of such protests (at the macro-level). The hypothesis was examined among residents of Turkey (N = 500). Cultural values, measured at the individual level and community level with the community collectivism scale, correlated with political orientation and emotions, as well as with subsequent support for anti-governmental protest or its repression. The main conclusions are that both support for protest and support for repression are related to the cultural values people hold and their subsequent political orientations and emotions. Micro-level cultural values in local communities may thus play a role in explaining macro-level socio-political divides

The Vulnerability of the Penis: Sexual Violence against Men in Conflict and Security Frames

Sexual violence remains a persistent scourge of war. The use of sexualviolence against men in armed conflict, however, remains underresearchedand is often sidelined. As an explanation, this inter-disciplinaryarticle situates the issue of sexual violence against men within a newanalytical framework. It does so through a focus on the core subtext whichthis violence reveals – the vulnerability of the penis. Highlighting criticaldisconnects between what the penis is and what it is constructed as being,it argues that the vulnerable penis is deeply destabilizing to the edifice ofphallocentric masculinity, and hence it has wider security implications.Conflict-related sexual violence has increasingly been securitized within theframework of human security. The concept of human security, however, isdeeply gendered and often excludes male victims of sexual violence. Thisgendering, in turn, reflects a broader gendered relationship between sexualviolence and security. Sexual violence against women manifests andreaffirms their long-recognized vulnerability in war. Sexual violence againstmen, in contrast, exposes the vulnerability of the penis and thusrepresents a deeper security threat. Fundamentally, preserving theintegrity and power of the phallus is critical to the security and integrity ofphallocentric masculinity, and thus to maintaining a systemic stability thatis crucial in situations of war and armed conflict.<br/

Gendering Violence: theorising the links between men, masculinities and violence

When gender analyses are used in government violence prevention discourses, the focus is primarily upon women as victims, sometimes with an acknowledgement that most of the perpetrators are male. Many violence prevention advocates maintain that men’s violence against women is substantially different to men’s violence against men, on the basis that most violence against women occurs in the home, while most violence against men occurs in public settings. They also suggest that while the patterns and dynamics of men’s violence against women are gendered, men’s violence against men is not gendered. The main argument of this chapter is that men’s violence against women can best be understood in the context of men’s other violences, including men’s gendered violence against other men. The implication of the interrelatedness of different forms of men’s violence is that strategies to address one form of men’s violence need to address other forms of men’s violence. Consequently, we cannot eliminate men’s violence against women without also understanding and addressing the other violences of men in patriarchy