This study is part of an ethnography focusing on war rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators of violence. Twelve ex-child soldier boys, aged thirteen to eighteen years, from a reintegration facility were interviewed about their soldiering experiences and their perspectives on sexual violence. Transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Conceptual frameworks of militarized masculine identity and gender-based violence guided the process. Results revealed the systematic and violent construction of children into soldiers, inculcating a ''militarized masculinity''; a rigid set of stereotypical hypermasculinized behaviors promoting dominance by violating, sexually and otherwise, the subordinate ''other.'' This was achieved through terrorizing/coercing, use of indigenous preparations, substance abuse, and forbidden reflection. This article presents a more contextualized complex view of the violent perpetrator whose behaviors are a manifestation of the modes and mechanisms in which society has constructed/reconstructed gender, ethnicity, and class, and the power dynamics therein.
Much feminist work on women and computing has identified the difficulties women experience in gaining entry into and acceptance in this important and developing field. Socially constructed relations of education, training and workforce participation tend to perpetuate systems of disadvantage. Yet as the social relations of particular societies differ so the experience of women in different societies can reveal fissures in an apparently seamless terrain of reproduction. This study compares experience in Australia, Finland and Sweden and finds that there are possibilities which can be gleaned from cross-cultural research for women to break with patterns of gender segregation in computing work.
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