Sexual Violence As A Tool Of Genocide By Andrea Smith

Superior Essays
Merriam-Webster defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” However, Andrea Smith may argue that this definition can be expanded to include the destruction of a gender. According to Smith, sexual violence has been used as a mechanism to destroy native communities. From this view, Smith uses theoretical and factual examples to support her argument of how native women are bodily and metaphorically under attack.
In this paper, I will do an in-depth analysis of “Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide,” by Andrea Smith. In doing so, I will outline her argument, briefly explaining the many theoretical views Smith uses to support her argument, such as Kimberle Crenshaw’s “intersectionality,” among others. I will then focus on a comparison of Smith’s arguments with Charles Mills and Silvia Federici. I will make connections to both Mills’ arguments in The Racial Contract concerning various bodies and their moral status, especially of subpersons versus persons, and also Federici’s arguments from Caliban and the
…show more content…
concept of “white fear.” In his book Democracy in Black, Glaude define white fear as “the general frame of mind that black people are dangerous, not only to white individuals because they are prone to criminal behavior, but to the overall well-being of our society” (Glaude, pg.74). Just as blacks are viewed as a threat to society, Native women were viewed as a threat to the colonialism. Glaude also discusses how people have not tried to find a solution to white fear, but instead feels that in order to eliminate the fear we must eliminate black people. Therefore, he would argue that instead of addressing the fear of women’s threat to imperialism, society decided to eliminate the threat all together which according to Smith led to sexual violence as a tool of

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    How sexual exploitation made slavery especially oppressive for women The time of human slavery is long gone, but the effect of slavery still haunts the human society today. 17th, 18th and 19th century were crucial times in human history with regard to slavery. Much has been discussed regarding this topic of slavery but little has been discussed regarding the sexual exploitation which made slavery oppressive to women. Harriet Jacob’s book captures the oppressive slavery which women were subjected to from a rare perspective.…

    • 1562 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Video: “Rape in the Fields” in retrospective. Frontline, Univision, the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, and the Center for Investigative Reporting partnered a year long investigation, to tell “the story of the hidden price many migrant women working in America’s fields and packing plants pay to stay employed and provide for their families”. Their collaboration resulted on the hour-long documentary “Rape in the Fields” that aired June 25, 2013. The video shines a light one the agricultural industry nation wide, and sexual harassment and assault perpetuated on women. The most atrocious aspect of this story is that no rape or assault chargers have come to futurity.…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 2014, Indigenous women groups indicated that 4,000 Indigenous women were missing between 1980 and 2012 (The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2017). Additional reports made in 2009 state that 67,000 indigenous women aged 15 years of age or older had been violently victimized (Monchalin, 2016). Although these numbers are already elevated, they are expected to continue to rise, this is due to the fact that the cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women are due to various problems/factors, all of which are entrenched in colonialism. The roots of these colonialist ideologies date back to the initial arrival of the Europeans and how they treated Indigenous women. Today, colonialism is reiterated through the media portrayal and discussion of Indigenous…

    • 1413 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    But now there was a new fear in me - the fear of being killed just because I was black” (Moody, p. 107). This fear emanating from and surrounding the black figure in America is central to America’s racist…

    • 2399 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Oppression Against Women

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Section A 2. Oppression is experienced all around the world in today’s society- not only is it experienced, but nothing is being done about it. Over time, women have been seen as the weaker sex and is to meet up to the needs of a man- both socially and politically.…

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women are sometimes characterized as “sexual beings”. Their bodies are sometimes are the objects of sexual explication through media, music and literature. But sometimes women’s bodies can represent a sexual terror. Where their bodies used for power and control by another dominant figure. Their main objective is to brutalize and humiliates them, to show their complete dominance over them and that the women are weak and incapable to stop it.…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The poem and the song address an identical topic. That is, they address sexual violence, which the Center for Disease Control and Prevention defines as a sexual act committed against someone without that persons freely given consent. The CDC also divides sexual violence into seven different types. (CDC). This essay is limited to a discussion of one of the types, which is sexual violence that is completed or attempted forced penetration of a victim.…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The name of the article is called The Rape Without Women by Sharon Block. The author's purpose for writing this article is to inform his readers about how rape affected many men throughout this time. This was known as committing a sin and harm to society. Feeling comfortable with others was a sign of respect. In their society throughout this time period, the word rape was known their class status and who were the bosses.…

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the narrative of western history there is no shortage of Westerners oppressing people from different cultures. There is also no shortage of white, powerful men oppressing people within their own culture. Throughout colonial western European history, society compelled individuals to fulfill their assigned role that language stereotyped them as. If they did not, Westerns would destroy them so that there was no evidence they didn’t match the stereotype. When Colonizers encounter those they call savage and those “savages” don’t actually fit that definition, instead of revising the narrative to accommodate the reality, westerners destroyed as many natives and as much of native culture as they could.…

    • 1329 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Rape In The Holocaust

    • 1066 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the seventy years since the end of the Holocaust, historians have been attempting to document the tragic events that happened during this particularly morbid era. More recently, questions concerning the sexual assault and treatment of women in the Holocaust have become more of a topic of discussion. Sexual assault is defined, by the United States Department of Justice, as “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient”. According to the United States Department of Justice, the definition of sexual assault also includes forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. Records of sexual assault or rape towards women during the Holocaust have not been recorded…

    • 1066 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The academic journal article up for reading and discussion for this week is titled Blood Terrain: Freedwomen, Sexuality, and Violence During Reconstruction by Catherine Clinton. In this brief twenty page work, Clinton narrows her focus on the history of the Reconstruction era to the undersold experience of black freedwomen who underwent monstrous and routine sexual abuse and rape by white southerners. My initial impression of this article is that it succinctly captures the rotten history of America by explicitly exploring the experiences of sexual violence against black women during reconstruction, a history that implicitly the American public knows, or at least feels. The purpose of Clinton’s article is to convey and expose how white supremacism or racism basis has…

    • 887 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Gloria Anzaldua’s “La Prieta,” we are presented with the concept of being an accomplice to the oppressor’s ideology. Anzaldua describes how we are passing onto children the oppressor’s ideology regarding gender and social roles. Therefore, by being an accomplice the following issues arise: 1) it presupposes gender and social roles, 2) ignores personal aspirations, and 3) portrays women as weak thus limiting their autonomy. However, Anzaldua goes on to state that she will not be a part of the “same” process that has haunted her since her childhood. This reveals that changes in dominant ways of thinking must began since childhood in order to reconstruct the social and gender roles.…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The tragic history of violence against native women starts with colonialism. The taking of the land is also a metaphor for the body especially that of women. Many native women had a lot of control over land and thus when taken so are bodies. To discuss one without the other would to be leaving out a true representation of the violence which has taken place within the United States. Overall, the main point of this paper is that the violence of native women and the process of taking land is deeply connected and taking back the two is a deep part of the activism being done by native women.…

    • 926 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Colonization of Indigenous people resulted in the appropriation of lands and resources for the benefit of early European settlers. Through colonization, there has been an imposition of Western ideology which enforces a patriarchal view that had negative effects for Indigenous women. In this patriarchal system, Indigenous men internalize views of superiority resulting in violent acts on women. These views are illustrated by Sherene Razak, in “Gendered Racial Violence and Spatialized Justice”, by Kim Anderson, in “The Construction of a Negative Identity”, and by Lee Maracle, in her book Ravensong. Therefore, this essay will argue how through spatial segregation, Indigenous women lose entitlement of personhood through state laws and that violence…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Rape culture is very common in today’s society. Examples of rape culture are everywhere and have slowly made its way into everyday life that it is almost invisible. In definition, rape culture is a culture in where rape or sexual violence is condoned or normalized, but deeper in the definition there are other subjects such as victim blaming, objectification and much more. It is when the victims are told to avoid being raped instead of the rapists being taught to have common sense to respect individuals and not rape. Rape culture exists and is a great problem that needs to be terminated and addressed.…

    • 1415 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays