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Nov 29
2008
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16 Days: My Activism Against Gender ViolencePosted by Amina in women, Gender, Compassion   |
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And I am a little frustrated that I have to keep writing about it. But we all know that all over the world there are men using violence to keep their women "in check". Every corner of the globe, there is a man hitting his woman. We know that the problem is worst on our continent. We know that it happens in Kenya.
And we know what the problem is. The problem is more than the fact that it happens. The bigger problem is that there are few instituitions that protect our women. And those that do are not very accessible.
The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women's Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre .
The violation of women's rights, is a violation of human rights. She is your mother, your sister... another human.
All this really depresses me. Every time I meet a woman who tells me that her husband is hitting her, and that she cannot leave him because she cannot afford to, or because he community will cast her aside, I wish I could talk her out of the relationship.
Power is cruel. It is cruel when a man because he has economic and perceived social power, hits a woman. Beats her up to put her in her place.
Recently I caught up with a long lost cousin. A few years ago, she eloped with her Prince Charming. She was too young to marry you see. She knew her folks would object. But love spoke to her. You see, he loved her. He was good to her. They went to high school together. Then they moved to the US. He isolated her. Her parents did not know what was best for their relationship, he said. He was right, she said. Why can I not be with the one I love. So when they moved to the US, she had no social network. One day he came home, and the food was cold. She had made it too early. One would think he would heat it in the microwave, no? But, he would rather yell at her. And then he hit her.
You see my cousin is the daughter of a doctor. And her mother is a prominent business woman. So she was born into privilege, so she never saw herself as a victim. And when he hit her, she was shocked. But she loved him. And she wanted him to be happy. So she thought she deserved it. Nonetheless, the first hit was a shock.
Funny thing is, I think she learnt it from her mother. No, not taking the violence. Her father, he would never hit her mother. But he had other women. Another form of abuse. At first he kept a secret family, and then later he didn't care. The second "wife" she was young enough to be his oldest daughter. The "first" wife she held onto him. She loved him, she said.
And so my cousin learned from her mother. That a man can disrespect you, and get away with it.
So one day, with a black eye, she met a social worker at the supermarket (they call them grocery stores), and the social worker she knew that my cousin had been hit. And she gave my cousin a card. Call me, she said, you can find protection.
She was a foreigner. He told her, if she reported him to the cops, they would deport her. So she took the beatings. A part of her wanted to show her family that she could make it out there in the US. That her decision to elope was right.
But one day, yes in 2008! he beat her senseless. She was in bed for days. And when she got up, so did her senses. She dialled the number on the card. Moved into the shelter. She found that the state would sympathise with her case. She was married to an American. And on grounds of his violence towards her, she would get residency.
It's a slow process, but she is recovering.
There are milions of women out there like my cousin. Talk to them. That's your activism. You might not be able to change the world, but empower the abused woman you know in your life. It might take years, but one day she will make the right decision.
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written by curious , November 29, 2008
written by truthsseeker , November 29, 2008
written by Margaret , December 02, 2008
The outside world thought he was a great guy. My mom's brothers and sister-in-laws didn't take sides, because my dad was good to them. It's a lonely and frightening place to be when you are the victim of abuse. It was only when I, at sixteen, dropped out of school and started working and was able to help my mom make ends meet that she left my father. She had turned to people with all her self-doubt, not knowing how to ask for help, but in a typical white American nice-girl way, hinting that she needed help. It took raising a daughter who would stand up to her father and physically fight him if necessary, for my mother to feel it was time to go. I have 2 older brothers, one with a brain injury from a car accident, but the other one could have helped her pay bills, why didn't she go to him? Because men aren't held accountable?
Anyway, it's complicated. When women get hit and yelled at for the smallest infraction we must never cower. We must know our worth and hold our heads up and tell these men that they will not try to beat us down. WE, the women have the power in the relationship because only WE, the women can bear children. We, the women have power because WE, the women have the power over sexual intercourse and anything else is considered rape. We, the women have the power because we know how to love. Any man who does not understand this should be thrown out.
WE, the women need to show men that if they are not good, healthy partners to a relationship, they are not needed. We, the women need to get this message across to ourselves, our mothers and our children because it is the silence, the silent way that patriarchy is passed on in families that teaches girls, who become women that having a man will make you whole.
If being abused is whole I'll take a hole in the head!
I have sworn to help any woman I cross paths with who has been abused. But you can't help someone who isn't ready to be helped is the biggest hurdle. I think women hang in looking for a miracle to fix their husbands because they're so indoctrinated to believe that they are nothing without a man.
There's an old feminist saying, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." Sure, we want to be loved and maybe even financially taken care of, but selling our souls and bodies into an abusive marriage/relationship is not the way to attain happiness. No person will ever be happy in an abusive relationship.
The man who hits isn't the only man in the world.
written by Fwanyeki , December 03, 2008
Should every ralationship that at some point encounter these kind of problems end in divorce?no,no,no even God hates divorce.There is need for concerted efforts by the community leaders to encourage people to learn how to resolve their marital problems without hitting each other or denying them their conjugal rights.
I wish to encourage those organisations championing these issues to re look at their approach. Encouranging separation or even divorce does not solve the problem because that kind of a man may get married to another woman who will go through a similar experience.
I think its time that both men and women stoped casting aspertions on each other as the agressor in the family set up and realise both are potential aggressors and that both end up lossing when their is a family break down.People should start addressing causes of domestic violence, especially breakdown in communication if this calamity that is threatening the very survival of marriage is to be delt with.
written by mkosakabila , December 03, 2008
Good for you Margaret.
Ps: did anyone hear of some outfit called MAWE--men against women's empowerment?!
written by wanyeki , December 04, 2008
written by John Ongeri , December 04, 2008
You say God hates divorce. OK fine. I got married to someone I thought was a soul-mate, and angel. She changed to become an evil, manipulating, conspiring witch. We fought like dog and cat for 9 years and in the end for the sake of our kids we called it a day.
Your post makes me feel awful.
Why is religion so confusing? Is there a quota system for going to heaven?
written by wanyeki , December 04, 2008
Am sorry, for what you went through and i can't pretend to know how you feel ,whether you have healed from those wounds or not ,but what i know for sure is that nothing catches GOD by surprise,am sure he has seen you through and will continue to, because he loves us even when we distance ourselves from Him,but no matter how we hurt, no matter the pain, no matter how awful we feel,The word of God is Final ,He hates divorce.
The only time when divorce is allowed even in the bible is if there is marital unfaithfulness.I wish i could say it nicer, but know the trueth and the trueth shall set you free,He hates divorce.so like i said,divorce is not the solution.
As a man at times my wife makes me really mad but that shoul not be an excuse for me to hit her,if admitting i was wrong just to cool the temperature will save my married, so that we can talk about that issue when we are both sober and without emotions is the right thing to do,i will do it because,it does not affect who i am.
I wish we could all learn how to resolve problems without hitting each other,do we do it in the offices where we work?,do we fight our boses because they have made us mad,?no we don't otherwise we will get fired,so its not that we can't hit,i think its because we don't respect our spouces,that's why we hit them,and this should not happen.
If only we remember that whatever we do to our spouces we are doing it to ourselves, we might reduce the incidences of physical fights in the family. Disagreements will be there ,infact not expecting this is being naive but please ,no fights,no hitting,
written by Margaret , December 08, 2008
A conjugal right? Absolutely not, God gave us CHOICE. Choice is the gift God has given humankind. You even have the choice to believe in God, or believe in Buddha or believe in a gourd or anything. God is kind and wants us to find happiness through all the problems life throws at us. The Bible is a rough guide, written by people hundreds of years after Jesus died.
Look to Jesus and try to walk the same walk. Do you think that Jesus went to hell?
The beatings that Jesus took were taken for a reason. Jesus had to sacrifice himself in honor of all of us. I think it's a dishonor not to try every day to walk in his shoes. He leads by example, not by codified text.
It's your choice how you want to interpret the Bible, but to live by one book is certainly limiting to your experience of this world. Living by the one book is depending on one source of information to get you through everything in this world and the world is a billion times different than when the Bible was written, by the hands of humans. Question your source material before you accept everything in the binding. Also have you learned the original language? You're living your life by someone else's interpretation of the book. Have you truly considered the authors motives?
I maintain, God doesn't want anyone to be abused in a relationship, neither man nor woman. When people behave in a way that is safe and appealing in a relationship, great!
I have never read so many people saying, "God hates divorce." BALONEY! We all need to learn to make better choices and there should be no one fearing for their security so desperately that they will behave one way before a marriage and differently after marriage. We have a severely flawed world in which to navigate, and I think it's this way because God wants us to learn as much as we can and wants to see us take care of ourselves, because we are pieces of God's soul and we are to do the work of experiencing for God. Do you really think God wants you to sit dumbly and experience abuse on his/her behalf? No, God wants you to learn and make choices, sometimes very hard choices, but choices that will drive you toward the happiness that you and God deserve.
Allowing someone to beat you is allowing that person to abuse God. We are all God's children, right?
written by Ajiambo. , December 09, 2008
'We can not continue doing things the same way and hope for different results"-unknown.
Perhaps:
1. If we Taught our sons, nephews, brothers better, we might just end up with what we want.
2. If we did not confront men branding and generalizing them, they might just be willing to listen out.
3. If we became more tactical, we might just achieve what we want.
You see, these actvities do not know squat about what goes on in these victim's heads. They just meet at Serena, get UN to send them dollars, type thick reports, and lead college kids in placard carryin when a foreign meeting is in town. Thats all.
Perhaps if they invested in helping prosecute economic crimes, they'd start a chain of rxns that might just give the woman a sense of belonging.
I rest my case.
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