TW Women’s Hour - Christina Lamb

[Lolapusht]

Discussion on sexual violence in war.

UN repeatedly invited and refused to respond.

That was a good listen. It's the first item on the programme. It's good to have Emma Barnett back (although the rumours are she will be leaving soon).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001tb8t

She's brilliant. I do recommend people read her book if you can face it - it's a deeply harrowing read.

What is the book?

https://www.waterstones.com/book/our-bodies-their-battlefield/christina-lamb/9780008300043

Thanks!

Thanks for the links.

'Rape may be as old as war but it is a preventable crime. Bearing witness does not guarantee it won't happen again, but it can take away any excuse that the world simply didn't know.'

From the book blurb.

When I tried to say some time ago now on another board that the poor girl pulled out of the truck by her hair by a Hamas terrorist and moved to another one, whose track suit bottoms at her bottom were covered in blood, was most likely raped - someone said I was jumping to conclusions as it might very likely be faeces stains from fear. I am sure it was blood ( not that fear of that kind is not also bad enough).

I think people just shut-down about believing how real and common rape is, and especially likely when people having an orgy of rage and violence can also feel righteous and sanctioned about doing it.

There is even some Islamic idea that in a jihad, a female non-believing prisoner can be taken for sex, and that would not be Haram.

What is the ruling on intimacy with slave women? - Islam Question & Answer

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/13737/what-is-the-ruling-on-intimacy-with-slave-women
https://islamqa.info/amp/en/answers/13737

I actually someone say with “evidence” that it was most likely her period had started early because she was in a stressful situation.

I was equal parts incredulous and revolted that anyone looking at that single clip could surmise that it was a stress induced period rather than the fact she had been violently raped.

In reference to the wider topic, Christina said that an editor said to her once that no-one really wanted to read about rape so that’s why it wasn’t really covered.

Is there a 2nd thread on the sexual violence in Israel btw?

The conversation has sort of carried over onto this thread. It includes the goady poster from the first thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4960196-does-feminism-have-an-anti-semitism-problem

I would also like to know what modern Western armies do to stop their soldiers becoming rapists.

In Vietnam it was called standard operating procedure. What does the army do if someone who might have been a brave and good soldier rapes?

There were plenty of U.K. and American soldiers who were rapists in WW11. Some of us must have had sweet Dads, Uncles, or Granddads who were some of them. Isn’t that horrifying to take in?

I think that is why people don’t want to read about it and also men want to carry on as they are and see it as just one of those unfortunate inevitabilities of war.

I think some men more or less out of their mind in a war go savage and when they realise later, will never get over it.
(See Vietnam testaments in ‘Winter Soldier’)

A good army should not only protect women, but their own from acting in ways which some men will never forgive themselves for later. No wonder there are suicides in the longer term from what they’ve done or what they’ve seen.

Last week, BBC News used that footage and insinuated that she had been raped. I have attached a link. It is harrowing.

Israel Gaza: Hamas raped and mutilated women on 7 October, BBC hears - BBC News

I watched Owen Jones' video response to the Hamas footage.

I struggled, because a large part of me wanted to believe what he was insinuating - that it was all made up, that none of it happened. That nobody was raped and no babies were beheaded. (He didn't explicitly say it didn't happen, just carefully enunciated that <there was no video evidence> of these incidents>, and also talked about how Israel have fabricated news stories before.)

Because I really wish it was all made up. Unfortunately the stories coming out are believable. I'm not religious but god help these women. It's worse than death; its unbearable. And no, I don't have the stomach to read the book, but thank you to the author and thanks for the links. What a world.

ArthurbellaScott · Today 18:30
It's worse than death; its unbearable

I agree. That’s what men just don’t get.
They think being killed matters more and ‘it’s just very unpleasant sex’ when it comes down to it. They care more if it is ‘their’ woman though I think.

Many of these were tortured and killed too.

The young woman with bloody trousers also had bloody lines around her ankles. Evidently she’d been held to something by thin wires on her ankles and they had cut through her flesh.

Hamas were beheading people who were still alive and burning children. How on earth would anyone think a deeply mysogynistic society, fueled by a self-righteous blood lust, who do not consider Jews to be human beings, would not rape women? It would inconceivable if they hadn't.

“especially likely when people having an orgy of rage and violence”.

“People”? Let’s be more specific.

Yes outwith I noticed that. “People” doing rape and pillage also I think. This is really beginning to anger me. So often good commentary ruined by not recognising who is doing what and to whom.

I had already mentioned Hamas, and even included a link to some Islamic ideology, and it was perfectly clear who was being implicated in this specific context while also speaking generally.

Read what I wrote. I wrote HAMAS.
I wrote about an Israeli girl they had filmed that was over all the news reports right at the start. The context was absolutely clear.

However I should have said ‘men’, rather than ‘people’ though I did se a video of some women (I won’t be specific here) calling rape on another woman (whose views they didn’t like.)

I was commenting on the WH interview

I'm not sure how we got on to bloody Hamas but if we're widening this discussion then read what happened to the NGO in Israel that tried to bring a case on behalf of a 12 (or 13) year old Palestinian boy who was raped by Israeli soldiers/military prison guards.

Sexual violence is a form of power and control. Men (primarily) use it. Hamas using it or Israel using it, or our (grand)fathers using it doesn't really matter. The point is it's UBIQUITOUS in war. Nobody at all is better than anybody else in this. All nations, religions, languages and cultures have used it.

And I know if cases where women have used or been complicit in sexual violence too against both women and men, so I know that happens too. The overwhelming majority of it is by men. And I'm sorry to say it, but ALL men in war are likely perpetrators.

And I highly recommend Lurata Lyon's autobiography if people want a first hand account of some ways in which sexual abuses/torture (amongst others) in war can occur. But it definitely should come with a warning that it's a HARD read in places.

Very well said

Re the marks on that poor woman's ankles - I have read a suggestion that that they marks indicated that her achilles tendons had been deliberately slit. The effect of this would be that she would still be able to walk, but with her calf muscles effectively disabled she wouldn't be able to run.

Just watched the horrific and graphic reporting of what happened in October with a witness describing what she saw, on C 4 news. There is no doubt that porn fuelled men have done things that make us vomit and weep. How the survivors and witnesses are coping I cannot imagine. But there is still no justification in the “eye for an eye” retaliation . I cannot watch . Male violence as always