"The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband"
1 Corinthian 7:3
It has been now a matter of concern that violence against women is not only happening in day-to-day life but also becomes universal phenomenon. And it's always unfortunate to learn that every morning many women are in a long queue before a dentist surgeon not out of diseases but due to a hard-blow from their own husbands.
You may come across when you pass through any Dental Clinics, and there you may often find women with a broken tooth at dental clinic. Surprisingly, most cases were the result of assaults by their own spouses. Why men are more violent than women?
As a matter of fact, so many more men died from self-destruction than women do and this reflects not only the profound despair men in our society undergo, but also their strength and moral courage that they could take this frustration out on others, on society, mainly on women.
Yes, there are men whose mental state is so unbalanced and lopsided that they lose touch with reality. They truly don't know what they are doing. Nevertheless this is a small minority. Most violent people are not profoundly insane and crazy in this way.
Let's rather think of it this way, most violent men do not try to rape or beat up their boss, a police officer or some huge, muscular-Hell's Angel. They are, in fact, not out of control at all — they know exactly who they are attacking. They choose their target — someone they think can't or won't fight back.
That 's it..! VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.
According to Pop-feminists Organisation, men are far more violent than women in many aspects. For verification, they turn to government statistics representing men commit most reported acts of violent crime.
In other words, even if the Pop-feminist allegations go unreported, we all have a far better chance of sustaining a permanently disabling injury in an automobile accident than women have of being raped, assaulted, or murdered. Hence, most of what we read and hear about male violence is a sexist, chauvinistic saga.
And from what we read in the newspapers, magazines, and e-websites, facts-findings mission and other investigations shows that the most violence against women happening in third world countries rather than in developed countries.
Even within the third world countries, it's more common in the rural and backward areas and hence women are more prone to violence and vulnerable than those who are in the urbanised and developed regions.
As in the case of America, Black male violence per-capita still exceeds white male violence by a wide margin, and Pop-feminists know this. (Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller, p 191) Despite that black men comprised only about 6 percent of the population in the U.S. they accounted for more than half of the murders in 1989, almost half of the forcible rapes, 41 percent of all aggravated assaults, and nearly half of all violent crime for that year.
By the hidebound logic of Pop-feminism, this means black men are the problem, and all women should fear them. But we can see with unbiased eyes that the violence black men commit is less a gender issue than an indictment of the social-policies that rule and oppress Blacks in general, and black men in particular.
What's more, few men, regardless of their race, commit acts of criminal violence. Even assuming the arrest statistics exclude individuals arrested more than once, and even assuming every arrest leads to a legitimate conviction, which would still indicate fewer than two men in 10,000 commit murder each year, three in 10,000 commit forcible rape, and three in 1,000 commit aggravated assault.
In other words, even if the Pop-feminist statement that most rapes go unreported is true, we all have a far better chance of sustaining a permanently disabling injury in an automobile accident than women have of being raped, assaulted, or murdered.
Hence, most of what we read and hear about male violence is a sexist, racist myth. (Giving new meaning to Robin Morgan's words, "the attitudes of racism and sexism are twined together.") Confronted with such racism, is it any wonder so many men anguish?
In 1994, the National Organization for Women, the Now Legal Defense and Education Fund, and other organizations finally secured passage of the Violence against Women Act, which provides a record breaking $1.8 billion to address issues of violence against women. Women are 10 times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate.
Young women, women who are separated, divorced or single, low- income women and African-American women are excessively victims of assault and rape. Domestic violence rates are five times higher among families below poverty levels, and severe spouse abuse is twice as likely to be committed by unemployed men as by those working full time.
Violent attacks on lesbians and gay men have become two to three times more common than they were prior to 1988.
Now coming back to the local issues particularly in the northeast region of India, Ms. Paramita Saha, Tripura University who presented a paper on "Violence against women" based mainly on newspaper reports. She admitted that there are many more women-related violent incidents which are not reported.
In most cases, all rape, assaulted and murders incidents are not revealed to the public. Therefore, to get a full picture and also totality of the whole state of affairs on the crisis, a more wide-ranging sociological study by selecting one rural area and urban area is inevitability.
One also needs to investigate whether violence against women in general is related with patriarchal culture which tends to promote hyper-masculinity enlargement. In such situation, women as a whole, are forced into sub-ordinate roles and statuses and also are at the receiving end.
One, therefore, tends to form a proposition that wife-beating, for instance, may be more common in hyper-masculinity familial relations than in a hyper-feminist family.
One finding which was published recently in The Telegraph, Guwahati showed that the rate of women-related violence is highest among the Khasi society in Meghalaya state which is, as we are all aware, a matriarchal society where women status is higher than a men. The women inherit all family properties and bring her husband into her home.
However, the other issue which deserves further investigation is whether hyper-masculinity or hyper-femininity inbreeds more violence against women. Next to Meghalaya, comes Mizoram which is patriarchal society. As the man's status is much higher than the woman, there is an Women's organization called Mizo Hmeichhia Inzawmkhawm Pawl (MHIP).
The MHIP has been trying to eradicate the commercialization of the bride-price; the dowry system; sexual exploitation of women of any kind; and inequality between man and woman. However, in spite of this movement launched by the MHIP, violence against women is still higher and it has become a matter of great concern.
The most unfortunate part is that the Young Mizo Association(YMA) which is meant to uphold the weaker section of the society rather used to commit atrocities against women on many occasions. And then come Arunachal, Manipur, Tripura and Assam respectively. Thus, the most controversial issue is: why are men so much more violent than women?
If men are more violent than women, maybe it's because men first try to communicate with women in a normal way, but failing to get through, many of them, out of frustration, either take it out on themselves and become suicidal, self-destructive, or th rebellious, challenging even society and tends to become almost a "terrorist."
In conclusion, for a simple remedial step on violence against women by men is acceptance of equal status and proper adjustment of power relations between husbands and wives and this is the need of the hour. Although the societies have been trying to enforce the idea that man is man and woman is woman, and they are separate.
It's bizarre..! How to separate ourselves from a woman without whom we cannot live a single moment?. Thus men can change their qualities into creative forces instead of wife-beating. And it's intrinsic to their being creative.
Saint Paul says, "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband.
In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife."
Isaac L. Hmar, a research scholar at Dept. of History M.U, writes regularly for e-pao.net .
He can be reached at [email protected]
This article was webcasted on November 17th, 2005
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