The Spoils of War: ANZAC Day, war and the military rape of women

This article originally appeared on lipmag.com
(http://lipmag.com/opinion/the-spoils-of-war-anzac-day-war-and-the-military-rape-of-women/)

On ANZAC day it seems pertinent to point out that this is a tradition that exemplifies the masculine aspect of Australian culture and history.  In high school, my sociology/psychology teacher enacted a social thought experiment, asking us to draw a picture of our conceptualisation of “A Quintessential Australian”. In a class of thirty young adults I was the only person to depict my Australian as a woman. People drew bushrangers, swagmen, male indigenous Australians (in terrible tribal stereotypes), surfers, “bogans” and other stereotypical depictions of the Aussie Bloke archetype. This is Australia. This is Australian culture. Although around 51% of the population is female/woman-identified, Australian cultural past times exude a male ethos. The central values of “Australian-ness” are concepts of the “Fair Go” (as long as you’re a white Aussie bloke who likes sheilas) and “Mateship” (Maaaaaate!). These are all stereotypes which may not be as relevant today, however, come Australia Day or ANZAC Day, these old generalisations bubble up from the cultural-historical ooze, along with the Southern Cross symbology, Australian flag thongs, cork hats and other articulations of patriotism.

Throughout my public school primary education nearly every year from as soon as we could read and write, we were taught about Australian history and culture, even if it was as basic as colouring in a flag, a map or a vegemite label. We had ANZAC and Remembrance Day observations in which the minute silence, for a hyperactive tomboy 8 year old, seemed like the agony of war itself. Through all this I didn’t learn much at all about women’s place in Australian history apart from the fact that it was women, like my grandma, who baked Anzac cookies which were sent to soldiers in the war.

When we commemorate soldiers as the fallen heroes of war, though a legitimate and necessary practice, it is largely forgotten that women are also major victims of war. In 1998 at a conference in El Salvador, Hilary Clinton said that:
‘Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising children’. My grandfather died from a heart attack caused by the mental illness he developed from his experiences serving in the navy during the Second World War. When my grandfather died my dad was only sixteen. My grandma was left a widow, never re-marrying. The effects upon the experiences, emotional structure and individual subjectivities of my dad’s side of the family have been profoundly shaped to this day by what happened to my grandfather. However, it was my grandma who pulled everyone together.

War has the most tragic impact upon women in that throughout history military conquest has been almost inseparable from mass rape. Saint Augustine stated that rape in war is an ‘ancient and customary evil.’ When a military body invades another nation it seems to go without saying that the women of the attacked culture will be raped. Rape and Pillage, since the dawn of civilisation, from the Vikings to US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the UN Security Council described rape as a strategic ‘weapon of war,’ and that it is. Women’s bodies symbolise the culture of a civilisation, and by their literal penetration and defilement, an attacking force symbolically infiltrates the attacked nation causing not only individual trauma for women raped, but widespread social despair.

In the 1970s-80s women controversially demonstrated on ANZAC day to raise awareness of the impact of war rape on women. These protests were met with scorn from RSLs and authorities, claiming that feminists were sullying the honour of Our Nation’s Heroes. When we use the words “Lest We Forget” we must use them to include not only men who fought for our country, but also the women everywhere throughout history, long before Gallipoli, who have fallen prey to war, which Jocelynne Scutt describes as ‘a madness of a particularly male kind.’ 

Abortion Debates From Australia’s Deep South

This article originally appeared on Lipmag.com 
(http://lipmag.com/opinion/abortion-debates-from-australias-deep-south-tasmanias-battle-over-reproductive-rights/)

Like countless other young women, the “war on women” during the 2012 American presidential election campaign was a shock to my system. It can seem so easy to take our rights for granted in a time and culture where postfeminist discourses tell us that we can “have it all,” where Beyonce’s power-femininity dominates the all-American-male past time of the super bowl, whilst here in Australia we have women in some of the highest echelons of political power. As Gen Y’s we have grown up amidst a sense of girl-power, freedom and mobility as women. However, moral and political debates on abortion rights bring me back to earth in the stark realisation that in some areas of privileged, democratic and “egalitarian” Western societies, women still do not have full reproductive rights, and the road ahead is a steep and rough climb.

Access to safe and legal abortions has been a long-standing goal of feminist movements internationally since the early days of Women’s Lib. The issue is fraught with political, moral and religious discourse, producing highly emotional responses. The termination of pregnancy symbolises death, the opposite of life, in a Christian-influenced culture where birth and motherhood have been consecrated and valorised as ideal functions of femininity. Although pregnancy is an internal state within an individual woman’s body, it becomes a social and political issue when a pregnancy is unwanted and zygotes are personified as human. Individuals who have never had to face the reality of an unwanted pregnancy, the hollow feeling of having something inside your own body that could threaten your social, economic, physical and mental wellbeing, are quick to label the choice to terminate pregnancy as “selfish” or “cruel.” Such sentiments arise in a culture that values feminine self-sacrifice over individual women’s subjectivities and what they can contribute to the world in and of themselves.

I have always associated heated and concerning debates on women’s reproductive rights with American republican politics. I have felt secure in thinking that misogynous religious fervour is something that happens in the Deep South, but not here, not in Australia. Recent events in my home state of Tasmania have caused me to rethink my naivety. 

The Tasmanian minister for health, Michelle O’Byrne, has recently proposed changes to abortion law endeavouring to make abortions legal and supported under the public health system. In Tasmania, abortions are the only medical procedures that remain under the criminal act, making access difficult and stigmatising for many women. The public response against the proposed Reproductive Health (access to terminations) Bill has been alarming. Full-page anti-abortion advertisements funded by conservative church groups have been rife in local newspapers, many of them shaming women who choose abortions. A (predominantly male) group of church leaders have banded together to oppose the apparent ‘Culture of Death’ new abortion laws, along with proposed euthanasia, same-sex marriage and same-sex adoptive parenting rights reforms would bring to Tasmania.

This is nothing new or very shocking, and these groups have the right to protest their views as much as pro-choice groups do. However, there has been public uproar over an anti-abortion protest staged in the last week by primary school children from religious schools, supported by school officials and affiliated religious groups. Amidst this silent protest were girls as young as nine holding placards with slogans such as ‘Abortion Is Murder’ and ‘Protect Unborn Children.’

This shocking display of religious indoctrination particularly upset me in that these girls will grow up to be young women who may one day be faced with an unexpected pregnancy. As is the case with purity balls, abstinence and the general glorification of virginity, a young woman faced with an unexpected pregnancy who is situated within such an ideology would experience intense stigma and shame that is unhealthy and cruel and may result in self harm or the seeking of a back yard abortion which could severely threaten her health and even her life. This would perpetuate more of a “culture of death” than allowing women equal, legitimate access to safe and legal abortions under the public health system in Tasmania.