MEN WON'T READ THIS POST-# OF VIEWS VERY LOW

Why everyday gender inequality could lead to are next war (hello Syria).

The United States has constantly been at war, in one form or another, since World War II.  Most of us would chalk that up to factors like our nation being beholden to corporate interests, acquisition of scarce resources, poverty, inequality, and weak social institutions.

But it turns out that studies show that there is a direct correlation between violence against women and the numbers of wars that a nation state engages in.  Violence again women is an epidemic in the United States.

FACT #1.  OVER 22 MILLION WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE  BEEN RAPED IN THEIR LIFETIME (NATIONAL INTIMATE PARTNER AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE SURVEY 2012)

Fact #2: 18.3% of women in the United States have survived a completed or attempted rape. (National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010)

Fact #3: Of the 18.3% of women who have survived rape or attempted rape, 12.3% were younger than age 12 when they were first raped, and 29.9% were between the ages of 11 and 17. (National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010)

Fact #4: Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.(Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) calculation based on 2000 National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice)

FROM WOMEN UNDER SIEGE

By Soraya L. Chemaly/Guest Blogger — September 14, 2011

What if I suggested that reducing the rates of rape and sexism in the U.S. would reduce our risk of international conflict? You might think that American girls and women who regularly adapt their lives to deal with “harmless” street harassment, or who are assaulted by American men, have little to do with, say, the Iraq War. Yet research shows an undeniable relationship between the treatment of women in everyday life and a nation’s propensity for engaging in war.
Such is the conclusion of a fascinating book, Sex and World Peace, based on studies that spanned 10 years. The authors—Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, and Chad F. Emmett—took the question, How does a nation’s security affect the status of its women? and flipped it: Does the status of women affect a nation’s security? Their results are startling in their power and clarity.

According to the authors, the very best indicator and predictor of a state’s peacefulness is not wealth, military expenditures, or religion; the best predictor is how well its girls and women are treated. And before you start making exceptions for the U.S., think about this: Democracies with high levels of violence against women are as insecure and unstable as non-democracies. Whether a country is a democracy or not is irrelevant.
Gender is the fundamental construct for how a society understands difference. Regardless of which state we are talking about, tolerance for street harassment, rape, domestic violence, and restrictions on reproductive freedom are among several indicators of gender inequality rooted in such difference

. These behaviors correlate to state security in multiple dimensions. In the simplest terms, states in which women are subjected to violence and uncontested male rule at home, where they are not allowed equal freedoms and rights to bodily integrity, privacy, and equal protection under the law, are those most likely to engage in violence as nations, the authors report. Microaggression against women in private connects to macroaggressive national behavior. The larger a nation’s gender gap in equality between men and women or the more violently patriarchal their structures, the greater the likelihood that a nation will resort to force and violence in the form of aggressive nationalism.