Public Awareness
OPDV Bulletin:
Understanding & Ending Violence Against Women
By Charlotte A. Watson
If we were to wake up to a New York Times headline that said that in the past year in the US, 1,200+ US citizens were murdered and as many as 3 million more assaulted by terrorists, a war would be declared. We would pull out all the stops to end this attack. Yet, in any given year, this could be the headline in regard to women who are murdered and assaulted by husbands, lovers, and boyfriends, reaching from California to New York, in what is sometimes characterized as a raging civil war. If seen as casualties in a war, these numbers rival any war that the US has fought, and they don't even reflect the numbers of women raped or stalked.
Most messages are aimed at the victim to leave as a solution. (Of the battered women who are murdered, about 75% are killed around the time of separation.) Very few speak to the perpetrator. This is an injustice to the perpetrator as well as the victim. To end domestic violence, we need men to speak to other men in regard to a change in values long before the behavior escalates to violence. When men laugh along with the man who tells the joke about a woman or nod in agreement or join in comments that put women down, they are inadvertently supporting attitudes and beliefs that underlie violence against women.
When the coach motivates the male sports team by calling the players girls or ladies, or a parent justifies aggressive or violent behavior with the phrase "boys will be boys," permission is granted to view women as objects to be done to and men as natural, uncontrollable aggressors. This is all seen as normal and acceptable until a man carries it too far and kills another man over a hockey game or kills his wife because she tried to leave him. Does a man really do his friend a favor by not speaking up in these early, more social displays of disrespect for women, by not setting social limits with him, and then later abandoning him because he went too far in acting on his socially condoned beliefs and harming another person?
These are old beliefs that have been handed down without question from generation to generation. They were once codified in the law. Our law in the US came from English common law where a woman was considered by law to be the property of her husband. As a girl she belonged to her father. The marriage represented a transfer of property rights from the father to the new husband. The husband was allowed to apply the rule of thumb to control his wife which meant he could beat her with a stick as long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb. There were laws in this country that prohibited him from beating her after 8PM or on Sunday because that would disturb the public quiet. In New York, domestic violence did not become a crime until 1977!
So, the idea that a man does not have a right to own or control "his woman" is a relatively new concept. In telling him that it's now a crime to beat his wife, we are also telling him that she is a citizen equal to him and respected equally in the law. Given our history, this represents a tremendous social change and may be difficult for some to accept. It may seem threatening. After all, we're changing what has been a way of life for most of us for a very long time. A common reaction is to view this change as pitting men against women in a way that values women and devalues men. In fact, it's just the opposite.
The change being effected in our society is one that values each human being equally regardless of gender, color, ethnicity, ability, age or any other defining characteristic. Because the scales have been tipped in any one direction, bringing balance will, in the beginning, require what may, on the surface, appear to be a singular focus. As balance is restored and equality achieved, the focus will shift toward maintaining equilibrium. Making this change requires patience, honesty, vulnerability, openness and trust. It's a long-haul effort. At the end lie true intimacy and an undeniable foundation for peace - peace in the home and peace in the world.
