فصلنامه مطالعات راهبردی زنان
پیاپی 23 (بهار 1383)

Violence is among the rare words which has two contrasting groups of meanings. On the one hand, it disturbs living; on the other hand, it is the source of the glorification of human nature. Hence, to distinguish the values of violence from the non-values, it is necessary to identify the semantic content of the word, so that one can distinguish violent actions from the necessary useful violence. To do so, this paper studies violence under two categories: the way it actually is, and the way it should be. In the first part, after defining violence, the paper tries to classify it into permitted and non-permitted violence, physical and non-physical violence, and personal and social violence. Then, the sources of violence in the present society being mentioned, some moral instructions have been proposed to replace violent behavior with merciful behavior.

Violence and sexual abuse are, undoubtedly, among the oppressions women have consistently undergone. Now the question is whether there is such a situation in spousal sexual relations; and whether in Islam and the statute of Iran sexual violence have been permitted. These are the questions dealt with in this paper. The paper deals with submission, the circumstances and the restricts of submission, the correlation of submission and sexual violence, and the role of submission in strengthening the family unit; and finally a revision has been suggested in regard with the guarantee of fulfillment of men's delinquency, stated in article 1129 of civil law. The results of the study reveals that none of the spousal parties has the right to compel the other party for submission, and women are the most supported ones in the verses and narrations in this regard.

Rape is a phenomenon which was common in different societies from the far past. But, nowadays, the problem is widely intensified in many societies due to sex and violence, being indicative of the global violence against women. Studying the concept "rape" and its varieties, the paper elaborates on the characteristics of the offenders and the victims, the causes of the occurrence of the phenomenon and its unpleasant aftermaths. Finally, some preventing individual and social strategies have been proposed.

Enjoying a very decent position, women are highly valued and glorified in Islam. However, one may find narrations in some religious texts that apparently render a pessimistic view of women, and even in some cases, belittle their dignity. Such a pessimistic view of women is due to several different reasons, the most important of which is fraudulence of such narrations. The prohibition of recording narrations and the penetration of the second caliph's negative view on women are among the major for the spread of fraudulent narrations such as the Israelites. Therefore, it is necessary for such narrations to be examined in terms of plausibility and documentation. This work has selectively studied the plausibility and documentation of some of such narrations, revealing their being unauthenticated. The general content of these narrations include: corporeal punishment, the creation of woman from man and the Satan's deceit, prohibition of education, and withdrawal from community and getting housebound.

According to Shiite jurisprudents, men and women are retaliated for each other. But, the retaliation (qisas) of the whole body of a man for a woman requires the payment of the half of a man's blood money (diya). But, in body-organ retaliation, men and women are considered as equal in so far as the body-organ blood money amounts to one-third of the complete blood money; after that, retaliating a man's body-organ for a woman's body-organ requires the payment of the half of the blood money of the man's organ. In addition, the blood money of the whole body of a woman equals to half of the blood money of a man, but men and women are equal with respect to body-organ blood money until it amounts to one-third of the complete blood money, after which women's blood money reduces to half of men's blood money. This study reveals that the difference between women and men concerning blood money is one of the unchanging Islamic precepts and is not, therefore, liable to change. However, the Islamic government must compensate the losses done to women who are in charge of a family. Therefore, one should look for the philosophy behind this difference in the whole Islamic legal system. This precept does not, certainly, mean discriminating women due to their gender, belittling their human values and their right to live, or propagating violence against them. In general, this paper deals with subjects such as an explanation of jurisprudent's general idea, the philosophy of retaliation, explanation and criticism of the views of the supporters of the equality of men and women concerning blood money and retaliation, the role of time and space in blood money and retaliation, and the obligations of the government to women in charge of a family, along with a number of legal propositions.

Street offense, as an example of violence against women, brings about numerous damages to individuals, family, and community. Different approaches have proposed different analyses to explain the problem. In this paper, a compound model emphasizing on all the personal, familial and social elements, has been employed to explain this problem. Furthermore, considering the depth, expansion, and the increase of the street offenses threatening the female community, a number of resolutions and preventive strategies have been proposed.

Considering the gender differences or disregarding the differences in women's rights is major disagreement between Islam and feminism. The basis of this disagreement, resulting from the ontological and epistemological foundations of the two schools, is rooted in the fact that who should determine the expediency. In Islam this important task is devoted to Allah, whereas feminism lets man to decide on his/her expediency. Thus, in Islam justice is an intrinsic reality, and hence, since legal equality is against women's existential exigencies, it is considered as violence against women. But, in feminism, justice is completely relative and its meaning changes based on different human experiences, as a result the meaning of violence against women, too, is flexible. After presenting the views of two general groups of Islamic intellectuals in this regard, this paper explains the philosophy behind these legal differences from an Islamic approach. Next, the views of feminists on the role of gender in legal matters are briefly elaborated. Then, the paper deals with two general models: parity and transformation, and after explaining the philosophy of equality in feminism, it is compared to the Islamic philosophy in this respect.

Enforcing physical and spiritual violence against women at home is a reality whose acceptance may lead us to preventing and treating strategies. The Iranian legislator has provided legal description of physical and spiritual violence regardless of the gender of the offended person and the location of exercising such violence, and in a few cases, considered mitigation in the punishment of the offender with respect to the situation of the offended woman. And in some cases, the exercise of violence is legally considered an offense only if it is against women. In this paper, the behavioral violence of husbands_ e.g. physical, spiritual, and psychological violence_ against their wives, the relevant legal vacuums, and the statistics of violence at home have been studied, with some suggestions to remove violence against women being also proposed at the end. The result of the study shows that women and families should be specifically protected against violence and tensions. This becomes possible through codification of laws which punish the violator with the least interference in the private realm of husbands and wives.

Childrens, and especially girls, becoming mature enough to have penal responsibility is among the new problems into which enquiring jurisprudential investigations seems necessary because many children, especially girls, who have newly reached religious and sexual maturity age lack in the necessary intellectual growth for penal issues. The basic question is whether, from a jurisprudential viewpoint, such people are legally supported and are not responsible concerning penal issues such as civil affairs. The present paper, first, elaborates on the concept of "growth" and its relationship with madness and maturity and tries to prove that according to traditions growth is not merely limited to its civil conception and is generalizable to non-fiscal matters such as penal affairs. Then, the paper studies the foundations and proofs regarding the necessity of reaching maturity to have penal responsibility based on the Quran, traditions, and rational arguments, coming to the conclusion that the meanings of the words "roshd" [growth] and "ashadd" [severest] is relative, the claim being substantiated by proofs from the Quran and traditions. The rational proofs show that penal matters are much more crucial than fiscal matters, thus, growth is primarily a condition. To prove the claim, Primacy Analogy has been used, followed by an explanation of the conditions "kamal al-aghl" [perfect intellect] and "matooh" who do not have penal responsibility based on traditions. Therefore, reform in the age of penal responsibility is essential.

Violence against women, which is in the political and social agenda of the developed countries since 1990s', is among the important social problems in the West. The increasing forms of violence and discrimination against women and their harmful aftermaths for the Western countries have made these countries to seriously encounter this problem. Enactment of international conventions and strategies and codification and enforcement of internal laws are all in line with encountering the phenomenon. The recently published statistic researches concerning violence against women in France and the United States of America, presented in this paper, show that violence against women is increasing day by day in spite of all the attempts made to encounter the problem.