The UCI Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality presents:

"Ethics Workshop on Rape Laws, Religion and Southern Sociopolitial Attitudes"
with Rebecca K. Marino, Tiffany Williams and Alexander Ackel, UCI

Friday, June 3, 2011
12:30–2:00 p.m.
Social Science Plaza B, Room 5250

About Rebecca K. Marino and “What Constitutes Rape?  A Cross-Cultural Study of Rape Laws in Denmark, Germany, and Ireland”

How is rape defined? The answer is much more complex than one might expect and the legal definition varies from one country and culture to the next. This world-wide atrocity has existed throughout history and the law has only recently begun to respond to this vastly unreported crime more thoroughly. The countries discussed here, Denmark, Germany, and Ireland, have all recently increased entences for convicted rapists and each has broadened their legal definitions of rape. The gap between reporting rates and conviction rates must be addressed to begin healing this global epidemic.

About Tiffany Williams and “Religion, Secularism and Women’s Rights: Competing Paradigms? “

The last sixty years have seen the emergence of a dominant global discourse of human rights, codified by United Nations declarations, treaties and conventions. As this discourse gained widespread legitimacy, women's rights activists readily adopted the frame of women's rights as human rights. Within this frame, Western feminists have largely adopted a secular framework, arguing that the rise of religious fundamentalisms throughout the world pose the greatest threat to achieving women’s rights. However, this approach creates contradictions when applied to religious women. This paper explores the way arguments for secular and religious ways of life are fought out in the debate over women’s human rights, specifically the French debate over wearing the veil.

About Alexander Ackel and “Women’s Sociopolitial Attitudes in the Pre-and Post-Civil War South: The Journal of a Secesh Lady”

Although the social environment created by the civil war has been well documented through various journals and other primary sources, only a select few of these sources represent the social changes women experienced.  This paper will explore the attitudes of women in the pre and post civil war south.  In particular, this paper will provide an insight into the life of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston, a member of a wealthy South Carolinian plantation family.  This piece will analyze and contrast the attitudes of men verses the attitudes of women during this era, and will shed a light on a various tribulations for women during the civil war.

Please RSVP to cssem@uci.edu.