• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Friday Podcasts

    Alison Brysk: Urbanization, Economic Change Hidden Drivers of Gender-Based Violence

    February 28, 2014 By Paris Achenbach
    alison-brysk-small

    Gender-based violence in developing countries is more than just a product of culture, war, extreme poverty, or historical patriarchy; it’s also a result of rapid economic change and urbanization, according to Alison Brysk, a fellow at the Wilson Center and the Mellichamp professor of global governance at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

    Gender-based violence in developing countries is more than just a product of culture, war, extreme poverty, or historical patriarchy; it’s also a result of rapid economic change and urbanization, according to Alison Brysk, a fellow at the Wilson Center and the Mellichamp professor of global governance at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

    “I think culture plays an important role, but I think there are some broadly-based features of patriarchy that change and morph over time,” Brysk says in this week’s podcast. “If we compare, for example, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, these are countries that have very different cultural roots, and they’re all democracies…where the governance is troubled, but they’re not war zones and they’re not the poorest or most patriarchal.”

    So why do they have some of the highest rates of gender-based violence? Brysk hazards a theory based on her recent studies: They’re all rapidly developing and urbanizing. “There’s a dynamic process here,” she says. “It’s not just the static features, it’s not just, for example, poverty; it’s economic change, it’s inequality.”

    Brysk argues that crowding, resource competition, and breakdowns in urban governance fuel violence against women, as well as high levels of inequality and rapidly shifting gender roles. “It’s not just how urban a country is, it’s whether there’s a process of urbanization. Social change tends to be a driver and a tipping point for conflict and violence of all kinds.”

    Understanding the drivers of gender-based violence is only becoming more important as rates and intensity appear to be rising in some parts of the world. Mexico, for example, has witnessed an “increasing use of weapons in sexual assault,” and in Africa and India, there are more reports of gang rape and assaults on children, she said. Likewise, reported cases of sexual violence have increased 150 percent over the past five years in Brazil, and 14.8 percent of women report they’ve been sexually abused in their homes in India, which, she points out, is 60 million women minimum.

    How to reverse this disturbing trend is far from clear. “What we need is to assess what we’re finding out about drivers, and where the interventions are, and really do a better job about which interventions are going to get at which of these factors,” Brysk says.

    Alison Brysk spoke at the Wilson Center on February 18. Download her slides to follow along.

    Friday podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.

    Topics: Africa, Brazil, conflict, demography, development, economics, Friday Podcasts, GBV, gender, India, Latin America, Mexico, podcast, poverty, security, South Africa, urbanization

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • Rainforest destruction. Gold mining place in Guyana China’s Growing Environmental Footprint in the Caribbean
    ZingaZingaZingazoomzoom: US cleans up. China runs wild on free rein- A lack of international compliance mechanisms to hold...
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous souhaitons que le partenaire nous apporte son soutien technique et financier.
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous sommes une organisation féminine dénommée: Actions Communautaires pour le Développement de...

Related Stories

No related stories.

  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2023. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000