The Untamed Shrew

In March 2018, The State of Palestine (Palestine) repealed Article 308 of the Penal Code enforced in the West Bank when President Mahmoud Abas signed Law no. 5 of 2018. 1 The draconian article provided impunity to rapists by allowing them to escape prosecution and imprisonment if they married their victims and the marriage lasted for three years in case of a misdemeanor and five years in case of a felony. This was a giant stride in the emancipation of Palestinian women—a people abysmally affected by the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. They face a vicious concoction of violence inflicted on them by the Israeli occupation and from within their own communities.

Palestine, like most Asian countries, embodies a patriarchal society. It propagates the current power structure by upholding male dominance and enforcing gender binaries. Thus, women face repercussions of communal clashes at disproportionately higher rates than men, often in the form of gendered violence. It is not uncommon for women’s bodies to be used as weapons against them. By participating in resistance movements, they jeopardize their safety by exposing themselves to the risk of sexual assault at the hands of authorities. Palestine is not a solitary instance; gender-based violence in all forms—including systematic sexual abuse—is often deployed as weaponry during war.

In another case, the abrogation of article 370 of the Constitution of the Republic of India (India) in August 2019 marked the beginning of an epoch that will always be construed as a dark time in Indian history. The conflicted state of Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its autonomy and divided into two union territories. The aftermath of this intrepidity subsumed a media blackout as Kashmiris were left without internet and phone connections. Whilst wreaking this havoc, representatives from the Indian government made a spate of lewd comments about Kashmiri women. Vikram Saini, a member of the Legislative Assembly from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), voiced his unsheathed misogyny. “Muslim workers of the BJP should rejoice this move since they will now be able to marry white-skinned Kashmiri women”, he said.2 More notably, a retired officer of the Indian Army—Major General SP Sinha—advocated for the mass rape of Kashmiri women on live television; “death for death, rape for rape”, he was quoted saying.3 These spite-laced and farcical comments make obvious the fact that the conquest of Kashmiri land by India includes the subjugation of Kashmiri women too, de facto reducing them to a commodity that can be vanquished.

Unfortunately, sexual assault by Army Personnel has not been uncommon in Kashmir for decades. These are blatant attempts to attack the ‘honour’ that society attaches to women. A report published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights revealed that there have been at least 143 reported cases of alleged sexual violence by the Armed Forces in Indian-occupied Kashmir since 1989. 4 However, these numbers do not accurately represent the actual conditions; the stigma revolving around sexual violence often inhibits women from reporting cases.

The reporter believes that the pervasiveness of these misogynistic motifs is an outcome of normalising the dehumanising objectification of the female body. This perception is so deeply entrenched in minds belonging to patriarchal societies that women are forced to conform to heteronormative caveats of honour and femininity despite occupational oppression. Kashmir and Palestine illustrate how patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism work together to keep women on tenterhooks.

The participation of women in resistance and negotiation also renders women underrepresented. In the fight for Palestinian statehood, women comprise only a small chunk of advocates for freedom; only 8% of negotiators, 5% of witnesses, and 2% of mediators in major peace processes between 1990 and 2017 were female. 5 Moreover, out of the 11 agreements signed in 2017, only three consisted of provisions related to gender equality. This mirrors the Palestinian society’s lack of consideration for its women.

Even in Kashmir, guerilla outfits like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front primarily comprise of men. The women’s wings of these organisations—like the Muslim Khawateen Markaz—engage in a political and non-military manner by acting as couriers and informants while men take to combat. However, the role of women in this anti-colonial struggle has evolved from passive to active in recent years. Women have taken to the streets and started mobilising protests themselves. Yet, these acts of dissent remain largely undocumented.

Considering these examples, the writer theorises that war is a deeply gendered subject. Resistance movements against inhumane sieges are often perceived as an embodiment of masculinity and militarisation in popular culture and media. At the same time, peace and civility are connotated with femininity. Women in combat zones are left tangled in the constraints of occupational forces and their own society. Yet, they continue to wriggle within these traditional structures and truly define what it means to resist.

(Edited by Harsha Sista)