VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: WHAT, HOW, WHY?
By: Hafza Girdap
Tags: Discrimination, Women, Womens Rights, Violence, Patriarchy

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: WHAT, HOW, WHY?

Violence against women is a worldwide, constant and catastrophic problem of human rights violation. It takes place regardless of religion, race, geography and so on. Unfortunately, in most cases, violence is not reported due to several reasons such as traditions, shame, patriarchal oppression, fear of stigmatization and of course more.

Violence emerges in different forms such as:

Physical

Sexual

Psychological

Emotional

Economical

Child marriage

Before starting the discussion of violence against women, I would strongly like to highlight that violence should/must be discussed with the notion of discrimination. Because in most cases, most contexts; violence occurs and is justified through discriminatory discourses. Regarding this, I assert that language is a very important dynamic in this problem, like in the debates of many problems. How so? I would remind the words, phrases we use in our daily lives — gender-based ones, for sure. When someone wants to humiliate another person or to curse them what examples would you think of?

Oh, look, he cries like a girl!

There are lots of nasty phrases that I do not want to write here, but let me just slightly remind: mothers are always part of the worst curses! In contrast with these degrading expressions; strong, powerful characteristics are attributed to men:

Oh come on be brave like a man, real man!

You see that woman, she is so resilient like a man!

Let’s remember some other aspects from our own lives. About cooking and other household chores, women ask for HELP even though all these activities should be responsibilities of everyone that lives in a house. Take preparing dinner as one of the simplest examples: Moms call kids or husbands to ask for HELP to set the table. Is it only the mom or the wife who will just eat?! As far as I am concerned, the answer is no! As a matter of fact, it should be a DIVISION OF LABOR, otherwise, if the most part of the burden is left to women in the house then it would turn into violence against them — remember different forms of violence mentioned above. While talking about daily life matters in terms of women’s issues, we need to take the workforce matter into consideration. Have you ever heard the phrase “pay gap” “glass ceiling”? I am pretty sure you have. Well; they basically mean that women and men work in the same positions, yet women get less money than men in return for the same work. This is discrimination, this is violating their rights, and I take this debate further by asserting that this is violence against women in the workforce since they work more and get less money than they deserve as a form of abuse. Furthermore, lots of giant barriers are put in front of women to be promoted higher positions. In addition to the employment issue, right to education plays an important role in the discussion. In some contexts, girls do not have equal rights to education, specifically higher education. Boys are more entitled to have this opportunity when compared to girls. There are different factors behind this; among them are traditions, social oppression, religion (or patriarchal interpretation of religion).

After this brief discussion of discrimination, I would like to shift gears to sexual harassment and rape issues. Regarding similar discourses I mentioned earlier like traditions, religion and also patriarchal mindsets, these violent acts are tried to bu justified with unfair arguments:

“Why was she outside at that late time?” “Why was she wearing those?” “Why was she behaving in an improper way?”

These are some responses given to sexual assault or rape cases. Nothing can justify or legitimize violence, sexual harassment, rape!!! They are crimes and crimes should be penalized no matter what. We can not let anything shadow justice!

I also would like to underline the political aspect of the issue which is my own research topic. Culture and politics, culture and laws, culture and public opinion.. there is a correlation between all these structures. More precisely, they influence each other reciprocally! As a scholar and as a Muslim woman, I study women’s issues by focusing specifically on Muslim majority contexts. And what I argue is that women’s status and women’s rights including their positions in the family and society, their right to education and employment, their body dignity and reproductive rights, their participation in the decision-making have been highly influenced by the rise of the Islamist approaches of the society as well as the leaders. What I mean by Islamism is using religion as a proxy for gaining power! Who claims for more power? A patriarchal society, patriarchal leaders and of course politicians! And using religion for more power also takes place as a shift from democratization to authoritarianism. Ultimately, this situation would bring more discrimination, more violence against women. As I mentioned earlier, girls’ and women’s right to education, work, familial roles, social roles, civil liberty, economic opportunities, participation in decision making are all shaped by society’s and politicians’ approaches to women matters. And if religion and traditions are used as a tool to have a dominance over women; women are apparently discriminated, abused, assaulted, and oppressed more. What is worse is that perpetrators would always have reasons to justify these acts in such a context.

When it comes to consequences of discrimination and violence against women, do you think that it is only women who would face the consequences? The answer is no! Children pay for it! Families pay for it! Corporations pay for it as they miss incredible opportunities when they disregard the contribution of women! Societies pay for it since violence would bring health issues (physically and mentally), economic issues since to compensate the harm done to women would bring financial responsibilities in terms of medical treatments, social justice issues since so many judiciary matters emerge.

So what should we do? Is there anything we can do as individuals? As communities? Well yes! First and foremost we have to be determined as individuals to make changes in terms of language, attitudes, respect and maintaining equality! Then we need to urge the leaders and decision makers from the lowest level to the highest! We could and should urge our fathers, our community leaders, religious leaders, managers/directors in businesses, politicians in office to ensure that women’s rights are respected and preserved, moreover that they are not discriminated. We should also make sure that the perpetrators of violence are brought into justice no matter what it takes. I want to emphasize that women who are exposed to violence — physically/sexually — should be encouraged to speak out. We can do this by breaking prejudices over! We must let women, who are victims or survivors of any kind of violence, know that they will not be judged! I think that if those who violate women’s rights are hold accountable for their violent acts, for their patriarchal mindsets that harm women, then we can change many things in our societies. And if women are aware of their civil, legal, economic, social rights and if they fight for them then we can change many things in our societies. I also believe that if men and women are together in this then we can change a whole lot of things and build a better future in terms of justice and equality!

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