Spatialized Justice and Bodies of Violence

       Following the history of colonialism in western society, ongoing spatial ordering and exclusion has continued to be prevalent in today. The work done to maintain geographical imaginaries are shown through acts of violence. Spatialized justice has produced specific bodies subject to violence in western society. Social and cultural constructs such as gender, sexuality, race / class  will be further discussed.

Introduction:

Gender and power go hand in hand when discussing issues of violence. Men without doubt have been the ones to enforce power to stay in control of society. Social forces such as values and structures begins to form through hegemonic masculinity in Western society. These forces form gender role constraints against women, keeping them vulnerable and in fear if gender based violence.

The drive young males in today’s society have to prove and gain hierarchy in masculinity only creates a false perception of what “manhood” really is. Societal views towards women is perceived to be used to prove their “manhood” and crime against women may offer advantages to their masculine status. Lack of understanding and knowledge only enables these young men to believe the way they treat and view women is okay and socially acceptable. Rape, domestic violence and child abuse are all clearly gendered crimes, nearly always committed by men. “Fear of crime is a leading social and political concern in western cities and women's fear of male violence constitutes the core of the problem in terms of its quantity and nature” . Geographical imaginaries of the women's bodies as extension of this violence and crime because they are vulnerable. Pamela George, a women known to “belong to a space of prostitution and Aboriginality” was murdered by two 19 year old white males. The sense of space helps us see how inequality is structured. “The men leave their middle-class homes in the suburbs to spend time with each other in places “outside” civilized society” . In this case, the two white males were protected by a system in which was created to keep these two classes separated. Spatialized justice shows how imagined geographies are implicated in the distribution of violence and the distribution of justice in those types of violence.

Geography of Violence:

Expressions of sexuality cause issues of state governance and objects of political contest in and though one specific form of public space. “Sexual desire represents an understanding and expectation of the cultural traits” The dominant norm such as heterosexuality is maintained through geographical imaginaries and transgression disrupts it. Introductions of queer geographies has been successful with deconstructing gender and sexuality categories and helped destabilize what we take for granted. They have worked and are interested in the intersections of sexuality and space. Although there is an increasing social acceptance for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) bodies, violence against them continues. Neighbourhoods that are considered as “safe” spaces are still illustrations of spatialized justice and are subject to violence against LGBT communities. Prostitution and the “prostitute” body are shown to be those who inhabit space of violence or “stroll” are bodied extension of that violence. The idea of moral geographies of prostitution are seen as sexualized identity of space, not only as the result of struggle between dominant, heterosexuality and alternative homosexual identities.

“For many queer women of colour and Two-Spirit women, racist stereotypes about violence, racist-heterosexist barriers to accessing support or criminal justice system response combined with the reality of small friendship circles contribute to complex consequences for queer women of colour and Two-Spirit women speaking out about relationship abuse.” . Socio-spatial ordering results in “homosexual/gay men have[ing] much higher rates of victimization than heterosexual men” . This violence is used to maintain social orders. Signs are used to exclude certain people from certain spaces. Transgender bodies are especially susceptible to violence due to socio-spatial ordering due to not conforming to societal norms of gender and sexuality. A documentary called “Two Spirits” by Lydia Nibley displayed the tragic story of the loss of Fred Martinez, a boy with feminine nature who was also an aboriginal male. Already in a minority group being Aboriginal also had the sexual orientation that was not socially acceptable by many people outside his isolated remote reserve. Due to the fact he lived in a different society, he was more susceptible to crime. A space created legally where crime actively takes place. A space where many underprivileged aboriginal people face hate crime and violence.

Social Norms of Discrimination:

Social structures and norms make up today’s hierarchies that are constructed by the privileged, upper-class white males. The centre of society is where the beginning of values and norms are enforced into laws. This fluidity between values, norms and laws continued to keep the rich richer and the poor poorer. All norms and values are used to benefit the ones enforcing them and keeping them in power. The poor being the underprivileged minorities in society are left in the dark being silenced and neglected by their superior neighbours who are being served by society. In Canada, both the insiders being aboriginal as well as the outsiders being the immigrants can fit into the minority category and are discriminated against and affected by the societal norms. Both groups have fallen victim to society's powerful hierarchies of race and class which has kept them from pushing up the ladder. In societal hierarchies, “violence may serve as conceptual glue the binds them together” . In North American history, many aboriginal children were displaced from their homes but the powerful white male figures and striped from their own dignity, their culture, religion, and language. The social hierarchies are using violence, harm and crime as a social construction to form and maintain their privilege. The unspeakable bodies being the children, had no capabilities of speaking out. They did not know better and thought that it was a norm to have that happen to them. The children coming out of these schools do not have the access to be successful. They were taught the lower-class jobs and placed them into spaces of colonial geographical imaginaries or confinement. A documentary was made in the effects of speaking out and and breaking the silence that once was embedded in their souls. Challenging the harsh discriminatory realities will always be a constant battle. The powerful people the make the values and laws are traditionalist and are not going to be willing to make the efforts to change if the odds are not in their favour. Church Ladies for Choice, a protest group that contains all men fight for pro-life laws for women. It is a group standing up for the women who are found being silenced. More and more minorities are gaining the courage to stand up and fight for new norms. People who legalize equality are legalizing inequality for the majority of people being the “minorities”. These minority groups have started to challenge such realities but nothing will fully be changed unless new norms and values begin to evolve.

The superior figures such as capitalists in society have the power to sculpt everything from norms to values to then the laws that enforce society. The failure of the justice system starts by ignoring the need of change. This is because the system “provides benefits for those with the power to make changes” but chose to keep the poor unprotected. Crime helps maintain order, it is something society can not survive without and we need it to define values but is hard to monitor. Paddy Hillyard, the author to “Beyond Criminology” discusses how crime forms only a small and often insignificant amount of harm experienced by people. Custom and tradition play an important role in some types of violence, many forms are rooted in the inequalities and social divisions systematically produced in and by contemporary states. Violence is socially constructed in a sense that some groups have the ultimate power to decide what violence makes it legitimate, who defines what a crime is. It is hard to prevent acts of violence, when something happens so often it eventually becomes a norm therefore stopping it from being violence. The system is the divider that separates us.

Need for Change:

There is a striking need for a change of new norms. In order for there to be new norms, society will have to play their part in killing off the inequalities. This will take the superior capitalist figures to allow minorities to climb the ladder or hierarchy then eventually eliminated societal divisions in hierarchies. Creating societal values that accommodate all minorities groups will be hard to accomplish. If the powers of society allow for the underprivileged to start succeeding, the line between the two groups will diminish therefore lowering rates of violence. “Putting power in the hands of the powerless can change power as well as the situation of the powerless” . The spark of more minority groups overcoming their unspeakable harmful lived experiences, the more they continue to break the silence that has haunted them from the beginning. Different social relations occurring in different spaces contribute to how they are experienced. Gender, sexuality, and race shape how space is perceived and how is it a powerful tool in which to reproduce social order in a more positive and beneficial way for all. Education and social awareness are some ways that society can start to fix the distribution of justice in these types of violence .

References

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