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The essays are all rooted in a minute accounting of the site-specific historical record, frequently presenting rarely accessed sources and demonstrating methodological sensitivity to uncovering the presence and absence of women from the records and narratives of conflict. In a number of essays (e.g. Barber & Ritter, Gaca & Curry) the authors analyze the contextual, political and social factors making the type of sexual violence experienced in conflict zones more or less likely. Almost without exception, the essays illuminate the persistence of trauma for women and the devastation wrought on their social and familial status. The book’s primary contribution is to reveal in a comparative and detailed manner the specificity and historical pedigree of violence against women in war. As a number of authors rightly note, while there has been increased contemporary attention to the violence experienced by women in wartime, attention to the historical record of gender-based violence has generally been limited. In connecting to the historical experiences of women in war, primarily as victims, we gain a deeper understanding of the patterns and variances in sexual violence, understanding its deep hold on the presumptions of normality for combatants, and grapple with the difficulties of undoing the masculinities that give rise to the behavioral norms in the first place. By exploring the historical and jurisdiction- specific nuance, contemporary writers, including ourselves, gain a better understanding of the commonality of victims’ experiences, perpetrator motivations, the relationship between wartime and peacetime sexual violence. Taken together, the chapters support and explain the contemporary feminist human rights moment.
To read more, please see our related review forthcoming in Human Rights Quarterly, May 2012.
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