Mindset of women too needs to change
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Up to 70% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.
Adding to this, the World Bank Social Development report on violence against women states that as much as 38% of femicide globally is committed by an intimate partner. In SA, a woman is murdered every three hours, and 51% of SA women have experienced violence at the hands of someone they are in a relationship with.
In the war against gender-based violence it’s easy to place blame and burden for change firmly at the feet of men as they are the predominant face and perpetrator. However, when you dig deeper into the way society has and continues to operate you will uncover an uncomfortable truth — that in many instances women are as guilty as men in failing to support the victim.
Though raging like a wildfire, the issue of gender-based violence is an ill that has plagued matrimonial homes since time immemorial. It is a well-known, but mostly unspoken, secret only ever shared when alcohol lowers the emotional barriers or as a result of subsequent death.
In African culture, marriage is a union of two families and historically, when a couple faced challenges they could not resolve, the wider family was summoned. Representatives from both families held meetings where men (and sometimes women) would be hauled over the coals and admonished for the mistreatment of their spouse and encouraged to do better. The victim would sit demurely, head hung low with an air of subdued triumph or frustrated defeat, depending on how long the charade had been going on.
At the end of the proceedings, families, consisting of men and women, would send the couple off with warnings not to repeat the offence. And that’s where the problem lies. Both victim and abuser would be sent off back to the scene of the crime for the cycle to repeat itself. The reasons behind this are not only varied but so ingrained in the psyche of human behaviour that it is deemed par for the course.
in her book Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi gives mothers this advice for their daughters: “Never speak of marriage as an achievement. Find ways to make it clear to her that marriage is not an achievement, nor is it what she should aspire to.” This advice would be easy ...
Adding to this, the World Bank Social Development report on violence against women states that as much as 38% of femicide globally is committed by an intimate partner. In SA, a woman is murdered every three hours, and 51% of SA women have experienced violence at the hands of someone they are in a relationship with.
In the war against gender-based violence it’s easy to place blame and burden for change firmly at the feet of men as they are the predominant face and perpetrator. However, when you dig deeper into the way society has and continues to operate you will uncover an uncomfortable truth — that in many instances women are as guilty as men in failing to support the victim.
Though raging like a wildfire, the issue of gender-based violence is an ill that has plagued matrimonial homes since time immemorial. It is a well-known, but mostly unspoken, secret only ever shared when alcohol lowers the emotional barriers or as a result of subsequent death.
In African culture, marriage is a union of two families and historically, when a couple faced challenges they could not resolve, the wider family was summoned. Representatives from both families held meetings where men (and sometimes women) would be hauled over the coals and admonished for the mistreatment of their spouse and encouraged to do better. The victim would sit demurely, head hung low with an air of subdued triumph or frustrated defeat, depending on how long the charade had been going on.
At the end of the proceedings, families, consisting of men and women, would send the couple off with warnings not to repeat the offence. And that’s where the problem lies. Both victim and abuser would be sent off back to the scene of the crime for the cycle to repeat itself. The reasons behind this are not only varied but so ingrained in the psyche of human behaviour that it is deemed par for the course.
in her book Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi gives mothers this advice for their daughters: “Never speak of marriage as an achievement. Find ways to make it clear to her that marriage is not an achievement, nor is it what she should aspire to.” This advice would be easy ...
