It's Okay to Get Beaten, 'Once in a While'
A 2005 United Nations report said that around two-thirds of married women in India were victims of domestic violence and that one incident of violence translates into women losing seven working days in the country. Hence while on one hand women are increasingly occupying top positions in various walks of life, the culture of silence and impunity around sexual violence has not ceased to exist. What we need is a forum and a platform to discuss and understand gendered violence.
Women often tend to accept violence as a way of life as acknowledging it and coming out of a difficult marriage would mean that it would be very difficult for them to get married again and face the brunt of stigma in their social lives. Violence as you know could either be emotional or physical.
My understanding of sexual violence is that, men exercise force over women simply because they can. And this is how it works in our world. Just the way a powerful nation exercises power over others simply because they can and chooses to drop bombs indiscriminately simply because it has the technical capacity to do so. However it is only through dialogue that we can understand the situation better and find ways of dealing with it.
What however complicates the situation is that, 54% women and 51/% men in India believe that in certain situations it is ok for the husband to beat the wife. It is true that women since time immemorial have been the guardian of the household and have done a good job of it. The downside of this has been that they are seen as weak and not quite capable of finding their way in the world outside the comfort of their homes. Women need to realize that they have as much right over the household and the family property as the man.
Housewives have no reasons to perceive men as the master breadwinner of the house and in the process enslave herself to his whims and fancies. Though unfortunately she is not paid for her labour in taking care of the house, she is equal to her husband in every respect and should not complacently accept abuse or forceful sex.
Similarly, working women incase of abuse should under no circumstances accept violence on the part of their husbands. Breakthrough gives training to women working or otherwise, to help them free themselves of unhappy marriages and find a way of leading a free and independent life away from their husbands.
Tagged Marriage, UN, Violence, women
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Pratibha YadavSeptember 10, 2009 at 11:54 am
Hi all,
Gud to see such site which is a step for making women condition better. The main thing which i have found cause of all this is lack of knowledge and counseling. We Indian women walks on age old paths regarding relations, no one to guide ,no one to counsel. Mostly women cant take help of pyschologist due to lack of these professionals in every city. i have developed the system to reduce suicidal cases of 10 th and 12th standard students . That system can be used for this purpose also. Through that if it is liked we can save many lives.Its just a step which we can take.
Thank You
edSeptember 10, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Hopefully these women will gradually grow strong.