![]() ![]() The first, Helke Sander's groundbreaking film BeFreier und Befreite (The Liberators Take Liberties) (1991), documents the 1945 mass rape of German women and girls by the advancing Soviet army. Because the documentaries espouse different methodological approaches to their examination of wartime rape, they serve to summarize key arguments in feminist scholarship on wartime rape that evolved in the nineties, owing in part to a critical examination of the mass rapes in the Balkans. Through different lenses they offer complementing insights into feminist positions on wartime rape, and illustrate both advances in women's rights, as well as ongoing issues. Contributing to this discourse are two documentaries on mass rape in wartime that appeared in the 1990s. Feminist scholarship on rape in general and mass rape in wartime has specifically explored sociological, psychological, and political factors that perpetuate sexual assault against women as a strategic means of control, advancing in the process both discussion and awareness of wartime rape. ![]() ![]() Historians have long portrayed it as a "natural" consequence of war, as the price females pay for belonging to the conquered party. The phenomenon is nothing new: since the beginning of history, rape has accompanied war. Within the last two decades mass rape in wartime has received international attention. ![]()
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