Terrorism that's personal
April 17, 2010 8:13 AM   Subscribe

 
There are no words.
posted by XMLicious at 8:31 AM on April 17, 2010


Unfuckingbelievable. What the hell is wong with Homo sapiens?
posted by ixohoxi at 8:31 AM on April 17, 2010


Violence against women is a hate crime.

.
posted by availablelight at 8:31 AM on April 17, 2010 [3 favorites]


w[r]ong, of course
posted by ixohoxi at 8:32 AM on April 17, 2010


Finding Face: The film contextualizes acid violence in Cambodia as both a human rights violation and a gender-based form of violence. In it, human rights workers and survivors of acid attacks discuss the many challenges faced by victims, as well as what they see as a culture of impunity surrounding violence against women.
posted by gman at 8:34 AM on April 17, 2010


This happens in Hong Kong as well, albeit on a lesser scale.

Sometimes the victim is male; a husband cheating on his wife, for example. The rest of the time the knives come out. Sometimes someone is stabbed or chopped, and then the perpetrator, thinking he/she has killed their spouse (whether true or not), jumps from the window.

More on point with the post: these images are horrifying; I feel intense hatred toward the men who carried out these attacks, as I feel disgust and rage toward men who commit "honour killings" owing to some fucked up religious code.

Any man who visits such crimes against women does not deserve to draw breath for even a minute longer.
posted by bwg at 8:42 AM on April 17, 2010 [2 favorites]


What a piece of shit society if only 2 percent of cases are prosecuted (also gotta wonder how harsh the penalty is for conviction).
posted by norbulator at 8:46 AM on April 17, 2010 [4 favorites]


I mean convicted.
posted by norbulator at 8:47 AM on April 17, 2010


a culture of impunity surrounding violence against women.

There's your root, right there; so long as it's accepted/not well-prosecuted, it will persist.
posted by emjaybee at 8:55 AM on April 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


Hard to believe that the same species who are responsible for this sort of thing is also responsible for Beethoven's 9th symphony, Michaelangelo's David, and Shakespeare's plays. Truly horrifying to inflict this kind of hurt and suffering on another.
posted by Daddy-O at 8:56 AM on April 17, 2010


well i won't bother clicking on this FPP link then. its a lovely day here in england, sunny, with blue skies. why depress myself over something i can do fuck all about on a day like this.
posted by marienbad at 8:57 AM on April 17, 2010 [2 favorites]


Violence against women is a hate crime.

No, what makes these hate crimes is the implied threat against other women. It's violence against women for being women.
posted by kafziel at 9:00 AM on April 17, 2010 [8 favorites]


No, what makes these hate crimes is the implied threat against other women. It's violence against women for being women.

Yes, that's correct.
posted by availablelight at 9:08 AM on April 17, 2010


Did we break it? The link isn't working for me. I get a fatal error, which I am sure is not meant to be ironic.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:09 AM on April 17, 2010


I photographed an acid attack survivor a few years ago as part of a series of portraits of people with severe facial burns. Like most of the other subjects, she wanted people to be able to stare at her without feeling uncomfortable about it.
posted by unSane at 9:10 AM on April 17, 2010 [7 favorites]


Nevermind, it's working now. Unfortunately. Fucking hell. Where are the optimists now?
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:10 AM on April 17, 2010


This was posted on reddit as well, so we might be tanking their servers.
posted by desjardins at 9:16 AM on April 17, 2010




Sigh. :(

Intellectually, I think the world would be a better place if no one ever killed anyone else for any reason.

Emotionally, I want someone to kill the sorts of people that do this.

Ugh.
posted by kavasa at 9:32 AM on April 17, 2010 [6 favorites]


Happened in Vermont too. Carmen Tarleton - her ex husband got 70 years after pleading guilty for pouring lye on her and beating her while they were separated (and headed for divorce). Here is a 5-part report of her story. I wish the other stories in the post were able to be as detailed. Just like in the main post, the pictures in the report are heartbreaking and sad.
posted by furious at 9:33 AM on April 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


Often its women who are the worst offenders, as is the case for the majority of the bride burning stories out of india and the little snippets every so often in teh news about a young mother or bride setting herself alight cos she can't take the torture meted out by her inlaws anymore.
posted by infini at 9:40 AM on April 17, 2010


Fuck.
posted by Splunge at 9:48 AM on April 17, 2010


Most violence, from war to bar fights to these horrific acid attacks are committed primarily by males. We should ask ourselves why now and then. (I know that there are exceptions, and I know that many people have simple genetic or cultural answers, but I still think it is one of the most important questions we face these days. The destruction of our home planet is on another thread.)
posted by kozad at 10:07 AM on April 17, 2010


This is monsterous. It must be stopped and the men who do this need to go to jail for life.
posted by Skygazer at 10:22 AM on April 17, 2010


Wow. I had thought that throwing acid in someone's face was a fairly unusual crime but looking through the Google News archives it seems like it's been pretty common since the end of the 19th century. (When people could first easily get hold of acid, I'd assume?)
posted by XMLicious at 10:29 AM on April 17, 2010


very common in india when a girl has the temerity to turn a man's (mostly unwanted) advances down. oh wait, it gets worse
posted by infini at 10:41 AM on April 17, 2010


And it's not even just adult women: "At the age of five Najaf was burned by her father while she was sleeping, apparently because he didn’t want to have another girl in the family."

Not that it would make it any better if this was only happening to grown women, of course, but there's something about the idea of pouring acid on a sleeping five-year-old that just... goes beyond words.
posted by Catseye at 10:49 AM on April 17, 2010


Fuck.

How do we stop this?
posted by paulg at 11:01 AM on April 17, 2010 [2 favorites]


My outrage reactor just melted down and when when the melted fuel rods hit the pool of cynicism at the bottom of the containment building it all went up with an Earth Shattering Kaboom.

Maybe by tomorrow I'll be able to feel something other than white hot misanthropy again.
posted by localroger at 11:07 AM on April 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


paulg: How do we stop this?

I wonder if arming women, teaching them how to fight, and educating them in the idea that they really don't have to take this sort of thing? I doubt that would go too far in the cultures in which this occurs, though - but maybe it would start the change.

Alternately, a lot of these countries have problems convicting and punishing people who do this sort of thing because sympathetic lower courts either refuse to convict or slap offenders on the wrist. Perhaps this could be solved by creating some sort of 'human rights' court in these countries, with the power to overturn lower court decisions and created specifically with the agenda of fighting this sort of thing.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:12 AM on April 17, 2010


This is the kind of shit that challenges one's belief in deities and the fitness of human civilization to continue on.
posted by kaiseki at 11:26 AM on April 17, 2010


Oh, shit. There is nothing I have to say about this that is remotely fucking positive.
posted by adipocere at 11:41 AM on April 17, 2010


Oh, shit. There is nothing I have to say about this that is remotely fucking positive.

[I guess that's my one hesitation when it comes to FPPs like this-- at a certain point, once people are aware of the issue (and this is not a new topic), there is nothing to really say but, "how awful," "how infuriating," "how tragic."]
posted by availablelight at 11:50 AM on April 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


how deeply rooted in culture and society that I have given up wishing for change
posted by infini at 11:53 AM on April 17, 2010


The sooner these places become westernized the better.
posted by eeeeeez at 12:03 PM on April 17, 2010 [1 favorite]




There's no need for that here.

posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 12:16 PM on April 17, 2010 [2 favorites]


eeeeeez: "The sooner these places become westernized the better."

Well theoretically there are other solutions, there are a huge number of cultures where assault is not so casually accepted, many of them not "western". But this is clearly an example of the fact that not all traditions are worth preserving.
posted by idiopath at 12:22 PM on April 17, 2010 [2 favorites]


We should ask ourselves why now and then.

I'm sure there are a lot of people trying to understand this, but teasing apart biology, culture, and what's just a physical power differential has got to be a hard problem.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:24 PM on April 17, 2010


paulg: How do we stop this?

Donate to organizations that educate girls. It gives them options and stops their families from seeing them as burdens. it is important in many places to try and send your money to an organization that only educates girls and employs female teachers or the families won't let them attend.

Also donate to organizations that provide lawyers to go after people who do this shit. They exist in most countries.
posted by fshgrl at 12:33 PM on April 17, 2010 [8 favorites]


yeah, there are such movements - i've linked to a couple of initiatives in the indian news in my linky comment above
posted by infini at 12:59 PM on April 17, 2010


How do we stop this?

I was going to recommend sending books, volunteering, or sending a donation to the Mukhtar Mai Women's Welfare Organization. We talked about her here before (2005, 2006) -- a tribal council ordered Mukhtaran Bib to be gang raped to punish her brother. Instead of killing herself, she pressed charges, and they were found guilty (until their convictions were overturned -- now the case is languishing in their Supreme Court).

She was awarded compensation money, and so she used the money to start the organization. It's a school, a resource center, and a women's shelter (video). It has been raided, the electricity has been shut off in hopes that it will close.

But in looking for a link to post here, I found recent articles about Mukhtaran. She's recently married. She didn't want to marry the man (who was already married to one woman), but he threatened that her sisters would be divorced if she didn't marry him, that he would divorce his first wife, and that he would kill himself. The divorce would leave the women as outcasts in their society, so she negotiated with him that "he had to transfer ownership of his house to his first wife and give her a plot of land and a monthly stipend."

"So I married him on humanitarian grounds. I didn't want three families breaking up because of me," she says.

The website for her organization is gone.
posted by Houstonian at 1:21 PM on April 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


paulg: "
How do we stop this?
"

Acid Survivors Trust International seems to be doing a lot of good, perhaps you could give them a donation? As someone who formerly worked for a nonprofit, every $5 helps.
posted by julie_of_the_jungle at 1:31 PM on April 17, 2010


Ugh, I forgot the link:

Acid Survivors Trust International.
posted by julie_of_the_jungle at 1:31 PM on April 17, 2010 [4 favorites]


I was wrong! Mukhtar Mai's organization dropped one of the letters in the website address. It is now here.
posted by Houstonian at 1:41 PM on April 17, 2010


Donate to organizations that educate girls.

I agree, but it seems to me that MEN are the ones who need educating here.
posted by duvatney at 2:18 PM on April 17, 2010


paulg: How do we stop this?

This is a function of the primary worth of women being their appearance. It's a type of social castration: "it's all over for you now." Furthermore, it's a function of not only making these women not women, but making them monstrous: not people.

So the foundation of opposing this the creation of a climate that provides a view of women as people. People with opinions, politics, and ideas that differ from each other.

Which means: women represented equally in the workforce, in schools, in the media, and in politics.

Which means good old fashioned fuddy-duddy feminism.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:16 PM on April 17, 2010 [8 favorites]


Where do they typically get the acid from? If I wanted to throw acid on someone I wouldn't know where to start in acquiring it so unless there's some big stash of it I'm unaware of you'd have to put a fair amount of planning into an acid attack, which makes them even more unsettling.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 3:38 PM on April 17, 2010


infini: Often its women who are the worst offenders, as is the case for the majority of the bride burning stories out of india and the little snippets every so often in teh news about a young mother or bride setting herself alight cos she can't take the torture meted out by her inlaws anymore.

The fuck? Seriously? That's what you're taking away from this, that it's still women's fault somehow?
posted by geek anachronism at 4:13 PM on April 17, 2010


That's ... one way to interpret what infini said, I guess. A slightly less insane interpretation might be that the "fault" lies with a culture in which this is desirable behavior for anyone, rather than with a particular gender.
posted by kafziel at 5:52 PM on April 17, 2010


kafziel: That's ... one way to interpret what infini said, I guess. A slightly less insane interpretation might be that the "fault" lies with a culture in which this is desirable behavior for anyone, rather than with a particular gender.

Because nothing says 'culture' like "Often it's the women who are the worst offenders..."
posted by geek anachronism at 6:07 PM on April 17, 2010


Nearly every criminal, no matter what their crimes, has some, possibly many redeeming and wonderful and positive aspects of their personality. For the safety of themselves and those around them, we choose to restrict their freedom by incarceration, remove them as a risk to society by imprisonment, and, occasionally, impose the ultimate sanction of death.

Some cultures are criminal, and no matter what their redeeming or even wonderful aspects, unless they choose to be rehabilitated, the world is better off without them. And I'm looking in the direction of these deeply, profoundly, CRIMINALLY mysoginistic cultures in that part of the world.
posted by chimaera at 10:10 PM on April 17, 2010


chillax, I was referring to bride burnings for dowry and the everyday 'atyachaar' (torture? abuse? oppression?) of daughters - in - law by their mothers - in - law in India (and one could extend this to pakistan but I don't know how it is there)

dude, If i say this its because I see this behaviour against women, as posited in the FPP, as being from the same pool of behaviour that allowed my ex mother in law to hold my hand against the electric coil on the stove.

men, women, whatever the fuck. as long as there is patriarchy and cultures that treat the female (child, girl, woman, widow) as a commodity, this will continue - regardless of the gender of the perpetrator

meh
posted by infini at 11:04 PM on April 17, 2010 [2 favorites]


I've absolutely seen photos and articles about this phenomenon before--and it never fails to horrify and enrage--but I've never before seen a photo of a burned woman pre-plastic surgery.

For those of you for whom this is familiar territory and even for those of you for whom this is exceptionally difficult, I would urge you to look at the photo of Shahnaz Bibi in the article linked in the FPP. That is what a victim of these attacks looks like when she survives but there is no money for reconstructive surgery.

If you feel moved to donate, I would urge you to look not only at an organization that works for the education of women and girls (for the long-term goal of eradication of the actions) but also for an organization dedicated to helping victims rebuild their lives through surgery and other means (for the short-term goal of recognizing and working with these strong women and girls to better their lives). I had a bit of trouble finding a reputable charity that didn't seem to have concerns attached to it, but agree with julie_of_the_jungle that Acid Survivors Trust International seems to be the real deal.
posted by librarylis at 2:17 AM on April 18, 2010 [1 favorite]


The sooner these places become westernized the better.

What a bigoted response! Chinese water torture for you!
posted by strangeguitars at 6:14 PM on April 18, 2010


Some cultures are criminal, and no matter what their redeeming or even wonderful aspects, unless they choose to be rehabilitated, the world is better off without them. And I'm looking in the direction of these deeply, profoundly, CRIMINALLY mysoginistic cultures in that part of the world.

I submit that the occurance of this problem across cultural boundaries suggests a cause other than "culture." Misogyny is rarely best solved through racism.
posted by Amanojaku at 10:09 PM on April 18, 2010 [1 favorite]


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