Raре as a weapon of war. Part 1/3 Although today is Valenti..

Raре as a weapon of war. Part 1/3 Although today is Valentine's Day, I would like to draw your attention to a phenomenon that is the exact antithesis of love — sexualized violence. Almost a year has passed since the beginning of russia's full-fledged invasion of Ukraine. And from the first few weeks on, it was evident that war crimes and human rights violations are follow the "russian world" step by step. In October 2022, Pramila Patten, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, emphasized that these crimes should be classified as the use of raре as a weapon of war given the systematic nature and prevalence of raре by russian soldiers. As of January 2023, the UN reports that over 90 cases of sexualized violence in Russian-occupied territory have been officially documented. This clearly is only a very small part of the actual number of these crimes. Even in peacetime, we are unable to accurately track the number of rареs, during the war it is nearly impossible. Fear, shame, pain, lack of logistics and monitoring issues prevent us all from finding out about the spread of raре. But why do Russian soldiers act in this way? After thoroughly analyzing the scientific articles on raре in the conflicts, I can identify several factors that lead to this. ♂ performing hyper masculinized militarized identities and roles. Raреs have always been crimes with a pronounced gender component, and during the war they reflect the problems with power asymmetry even more. Joshua Goldstein in his essay "War and Gender" focuses on how gender norms mold people to fit the needs of the military system. And occasionally, strong gender polarization is used as a tool for military socialization. This affects not only the use of sexual violence against women, but also the raре and even castration of captive men. As a result, they seem to lose their masculinity, and in the "image of values" of those who committed these crimes, move closer to the lowest gender position — that of a woman. Continued under the next photo.