A home is supposed to be the safest place for a person, where one expects love, care, and support. Unfortunately, for many women, it is anything but safe. According to the National Women’s Commission, over 80 percent of violence experienced by women is domestic, perpetrated by those we are brought up to trust: husbands, brothers, fathers and grandfathers.
Why is domestic violence so prevalent and why are women most often the victims of it? Attempts to understand this phenomenon leads us to the earliest theories of gender relations which gave men divine rights over women. In modern times, the earliest theorists tried to justify it on the basis of evolution, speculating that domestic violence was necessary to ensure fidelity in women. [break]
The subsequent generation of sociologists believed that men committed violence when they lost control, but this was criticized by those who pointed out that such men did not lose control in front of authority figures. Today it is believed that violence is a factor of power structure. Individuals who are stronger—whether physically, socially or both—commit violence on those who are weaker. Women, traditionally at the short end of unequal power structures, have always been more vulnerable to it. And it follows that minority women, elderly women, and very young girls, who are lower on the power scale, are more vulnerable.
Accordingly, these days the definition of domestic violence has widened to include not just physical beatings but any act that exercises unequal power against another person’s wishes. It includes feticide and infanticide, faced by those who have no way of countering their abuse; neglect, which young girls face in the form of malnutrition and lack of opportunities in their natal homes where they are valued less than their male counterparts; forced marriage, which until recently was accepted as inevitable social rite; and isolation, which married women face more, as they are restricted from making or renewing relationships which are not approved by their families. Once we factor in all these occurrences, along with forced sexual intercourse in marriages, the scale of violence committed on women is staggering.
But awareness of the problem is in inverse proportion to its magnitude. Our understanding is still stuck at the first and second phases, which entitle men to rights over a woman’s life, decisions, and body. Because victims themselves have internalized the prevailing social fabric, this problem has become deeply rooted. Researches tell us that women condone violence against women if they have not fulfilled their duties like cooking and cleaning, or have cheated on their husbands. As a result, violence at home is not considered to be violence at all.
Education and awareness of this problem have been found to be important in ending this problem. Economic independence of women, which allows victimized women to seek alternatives, has been identified as another. Individuals who have faced violence or abuse in their childhood are more prone to repeat the behavior themselves. This indicates that violence is a learned behavior that can be controlled. We must learn to recognize it as such, instead of continuing to condone it as an unavoidable social reality.
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