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Essay: A Decade After Abu Ghraib: Lessons In "Softening Up" The Enemy And Sex-Based Humiliation, Johanna Bond

Johanna Bond

A DECADE AFTER ABU GHRAIB: LESSONS IN “SOFTENING UP” THE ENEMY AND SEX-BASED HUMILIATION Johanna Bond* A decade after Abu Ghraib, there remains a dearth of analysis exploring the role that women played as perpetrators of violence and the socio-cultural factors that supported the abuse. This essay fills that gap in the legal literature. Although women were among the perpetrators of sexual abuse and men among its victims, the abuse played upon and reinforced gender-subordinating stereotypes that serve to regulate male and female behavior, enforce heterosexuality, and privilege whiteness. The sexual abuse became a process whereby the enemy was “feminized,” …