Structural violence is rooted in the patriarchy and the underlying fear of successful women
Hudson et al 09 [Valerie M. Hudson, Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University, Mary Caprioli, Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota–Duluth, Bonnie Ballif- Spanvill, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Women’s Research Institute at Brigham Young University, Rose McDermott, Professor of Political Science at Brown University, Chad F. Emmett, Professor of Geography at Brigham Young University, The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States, International Security, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Winter 2008/09), pp. 7–45]
The concordance between this list and the means by which gender inequality is typically maintained in human societies is clear. Gender roles lead to highly differential possibilities for personal security, development, and prosperity, even in today’s world. An example of this kind of exploitation occurs when women “naturally” receive less pay than men for equal work, or when domestic violence is considered “normal.” The second component, manipulation of consciousness to ensure acquiescence, is maintained through socialization, gender stereotyping, and a constant threat of domestic violence—all of which insidiously identify women as inferior. The perpetrators of female infanticide, for example, are virtually all female. The third component, fragmentation, is easily effected from women’s circumstances of patrilocality and greater family responsibilities (and in some cases, the practice of physical purdah), thus minimizing social access that could otherwise be used to build net- works with other women. And finally, marginalization serves to clearly distinguish men and women, with no doubt as to the relative status of each sex. Galtung posits that structural violence arises from cultural violence, that is, the day-to-day use of overt or implicit force to obtain one’s ends in social relations. Thus, while structural violence may obviate the need for open violence in the public sphere, it is based on open or implicit violence in the private sphere of the home. Norms of cultural violence diffuse within religion, ideology, language, and art, among other aspects of culture. “Cultural violence makes direct and structural violence look, even feel, right—or at least not wrong,” writes Galtung.44 Violent patriarchy is the primary basis of cultural violence in human collectives: although women have become active agents with notable success in the struggle for equality in many states, violence re- mains an enduring component of relations between men and women in the private sphere the world over, providing a natural wellspring for social diffusion.45 Gendered hierarchies also help explain the violence associated with nationalism, for the hierarchized difference between men and women that is at the root of structural inequality and violence diffuses to become an integral aspect of nationalism. Evolutionary theory tells us that clan or national identity is al- most exclusively male-defined, for in the evolutionary landscape, it was males who defined who was a member of the in-group, and who belonged to out- groups, based on male reproductive concerns. “Gender relations are a crucial, not peripheral, dimension of the dynamics of group identities and intergroup conflicts,” writes Spike Peterson,46 thus helping to explain the inherent nationalist antipathy toward feminist goals. Given this linkage between violent patriarchy and nationalism, any reforms of the cultural distribution of power between men and women will be viewed as a threat to nationalist efforts to protect or unify the community.47 Legitimized by gendered structural and cultural violence, patriarchal nationalism provides justification for advancing state interests through the use of force. In that light, we would expect that neither a meaningful decrease in societal violence nor a sustainable peace among nations is possible in human society without a decrease in gender inequality.48 But is that possible?