Sexuality and Violence
Subtopic 2: How does Power Play?– An Introduction 

So far we have had a few discussions on what we mean by violence, abuse, and the connections it has with sexuality or how sexuality is used to perpetuate violence in many ways. In the next subtopic let us have some specific discussions on how sexuality and violence affects some people more than the others precisely because they belong to certain communities which have a marginalized status in the society.

Certain communities are marginalized because of how the society or the law perceives them with regard to their sexuality. For example, people who do not conform to the norms of gender and sexuality prescribed by the social order are marginalized and discriminated upon by society at large and the law more specifically. Sexuality is also used to perpetrate violence on many communities in a variety of ways. For example, we often hear of cases of violence on women by the armed forces in areas of conflict or that of lower caste women often targeted and violated sexually by upper caste men.

We know that there are many layers through which sexuality and violence operate and let us through this forum try to unravel some of them.

Many of us are aware that from Nov 25 – Dec 10, there is the 16 days International Campaign on Violence against Women. We are very happy to say that we are collaborating with the ‘Take Back the Tech’ campaign which is organised by the Association of Progressive Communications, Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) from November 25 – December 10, 2006 and focuses on reclaiming ICTs to end violence against women. You will be hearing more from them on this forum. They also have some thought-provoking banners on their website that you can download and use on yours. So check out - http://www.takebackthetech.net.

Violence of any sort is more a question of power and that power flows between individuals and groups. And though we know that men experience violence as well, keeping the spirit of both these campaigns in mind, we could focus a bit more on how violence takes place on women and specifically on women who are further marginalized because of their caste, class, religion, race, disability, disease etc.

We look forward to a vibrant and exciting discussion!

Regards,
Arpita Das (Moderator)
The South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality