Wartime violence against women and solidarity

Abstract

At the Non‐governmental Organization Forum of the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, in September 1995, women from around the world came together and decried the diverse and gender‐specific violence that afflicts women everywhere. From systematic rape as a weapon of war to culturally sanctioned forms of domestic violence, women suffer from gendered violence that increasingly dominates discussions of women's solidarity across national and cultural borders. Yet violence against women is not new nor is the recognition that such violence might promote women's international solidarity. In fact, when we explore the first wave of the international women's movement, from its origins in the late 19th century through the ebb of the Second World War, we can detect the early murmurings of women against the rape of women in wartime.