War

This weeks readings were sad. Yes, the others were sad too but reading about the discrepancy between men and woman is less painful when it does not involve murder, sex, rape, and abuse of women. In the article by Goldstein on Sex, Rape and Exploitation in war time he states that during war the amount of prostitution rises, there is more rape, women are used as basically a commodity. One large reason for this is because during war people feel that they can do whatever they want to. When you are killing masses of people everyday, something that normally you would go to prison for prostitution and exploiting woman does not look like a crime that would carry much weight. Because woman are seen as a symbol of the home country, the "mother land" raping the opponents women is usually done in war fare. Men raping other men is also common. During war a common weapon for degrading the opponent is to womanize or emasculation them which leads to sodomy.  The phallic symbol of weaponry is something that we have talked about in class as well as being mentioned in this article. I do not agree with the idea that men like to use guns and sword because it reminds them of their penis, but i do think that the power of using guns and weapons contributes to soldiers boost in feeling powerful. Power infiltrates to woman during war because when men are at war women must do the jobs that have previously done, taking women out of the home and into factories.