Women’s Bodies as Battlefield

“There’s a global pandemic of violence against women.”

Susan Thistlethwaite is a Professor of Constructive Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary, and author of several social justice books including her latest, “Women’s Bodies as Battlefield.”  Thistlethwaite compares global violence against women to some of the kinds of war that we are experiencing today.  She says women’s bodies have been weaponized “rape as a weapon of war, most conflict today is not two armies meeting on a battlefield…today our wars are like ISIS kidnapping and raping and selling young women, or wars in the Congo.”

Thistlethwaite says that the US has its own issues when it comes to violence against women. “More women have been killed by their husbands, their intimate partners since the beginning of 2001 than the number of people killed in the Twin Towers, the number of US combatants in Iraq and the number of US combatants in Afghanistan.”  Thistlethwaite says that strategies used by the movement to end violence against women can be used to end war around the world “when you’ve got a body count, you’ve got a war.”

Dr. Thistlethwaite presented a workshop on Women’s Bodies as Battlefield, from 9:00am to 12:00pm on Saturday, September 19th, at Community United Church of Christ on Table Mesa Drive.