Gender-based violence is a serious issue during the present day that mainly affects women. It can be caused due to a person's sex, gender, sexual orientation, or even gender identity. It is proven that gender-based violence mainly occurs to women due to male dominance being a societal norm. Male dominance can be seen as an abuse of power since many men use their dominance to enact violence on women. Gender-based violence can be seen as a violation of a person's human rights and can also lead to life-threatening attacks being made towards a person.
When a person has power, it can lead to violence towards an individual/s. People who have power tend to take advantage of their privilege and cause violence towards the less fortunate. Frequently within society, it is mainly seen that men are the people who have power because that is due to the patriarchal society and its norms. With patriarchy and societal norms existing in our society, this leads to an unjust world for women to live in. Men can force women into doing something they do not want to do or even abuse them. In society, not every man but multiple men feel as if they could use their power to get whatever they want, whether it is a clean house, food on the table, or even sexual pleasure.
A man named Jackson Katz researches a lot on gender-based violence and even acknowledges that a lot of the gender-based violence that occurs is by men. In a documentary titled Tough Guys: Violence, Media, & the Crisis in Masculinity which can be found on Youtube, Katz goes into depth and explains why many males act the way they do. Katz mentions that society pressures men into being tough, independent, strong, and respected. If a man does not show these four strong traits, they will get called names and even get bullied for not presentitheir masculinity. This documentary was filmed back in 1999, and even though that was 23 years ago, not much has changed within society.
Abusive relationships are a form of gender-based violence that strongly affects women. When it comes to relationships, men are always seen to be the dominant person. Some relationships can be seen as abusive, and that is because the man in the relationship is abusing their power. For many people, abusive relationships can only be seen within the closed doors of a person's relationship. The way a couple is seen in public can be different from how they act alone. In society, we see many women getting abused by their male partners. This happens simply because the societal norm is that dominance needs to exist within relationships, and some men take their dominance to a different level by being abusive in relationships. While it should not matter who is seen as dominant in a relationship, in society, the norm of a relationship is that a man should be dominant while the woman is deferential. This causes many men to be abusive within their relationships since women are seen as the people who obey what their husbands or boyfriend would tell them. If they do not obey, this leads to them getting mistreated by their male partner.
Another form of gender based violence can be sexual harassment. In today's society, sexual harassment occurs and can be seen way too often. Sexual harassment can be seen in schools or work and is also something that is non-consensual. Consent is when a person agrees to engage with another person, but some men do not know how to respect no as an answer and would sexually harass women. Sexual harassment can also occur even if the harasser did not ask for consent; it can be seen as harmful and leave a person with life-long trauma. Sexual harassment can also cause psychological effects on a person, leading to dealing with anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, or even weight loss or gain. When it comes to sexual harassment, it is something that can heavily be seen within the workplace. Sexual harassment can happen to teenagers or even adults. There is no set age where a women could experience sexual harassment. For example, a person can decide to work at the age of 14 and experience sexual harassment, but a person who is 41 can also experience sexual harassment. Regardless of a person's age, in a sense, there is no escaping sexual harassment within the workplace for many women.
In an article titled Working Women Share Stories of Sexual Harassment While On The Job by Keturah Gray, Jeff Schnieder, Lauren Effron, and Kelly McCarthy, this article talks about different women who have experienced sexual harassment within the workplace and them being able to share their stories. One of the women who shared her story is named Madison and she said "They would come up behind me and just rub up against me. No one would ever say anything since they were so sure of themselves. One of my two bosses asked me to run a personal errand with him before the shift started one day. When I got into his car, he loosened his pants and exposed himself." (Gray, Schnieder, Effron, and McCarthy, 2018). This quote shows how easy it is for women to get sexually harassed. Some men would go out of their way to sexually harass women without fear of being caught, while fear is being placed onto women. Many women can get manipulated into a sexual harassment occurrence. As seen in the quote, Madison revealed that her manager convinced her into running an errand with him but used that as a disguise to harass her sexually. It is also crucial to note that Madison was only 16 when this happened. Getting sexually harassed at such a young age in the place of work can be traumatizing for young women and would make them fear going to work for many years.
When it comes to gender-based violence, it constitutes the breakage to a person's fundamental rights to life, liberty, dignity, and physical and mental integrity. It can lead to women feeling like nothing since their voice may not be heard. Women can also deal with lifelong trauma, and be seen as objects to men. Gender-based violence is a traumatizing thing that occurs within society and should be taken into account more simply for the safety of women. For a change to be made regarding this issue, it will take men to realize that they are abusing their power towards women. Men must recognize their wrongs for us to see a change happen in the near future regarding this issue. Society needs to teach men from an early age that it is okay to not be tough, independent, strong, and respected.
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1 comment:
After reading it one crime that happen in my country comes to my mind.
It was the case that a man that kills his girlfriend. in the same time era many similar cases were reported but the reason this case was a big issue was most of the scene was recorded by CCTV. In the record the man beat his girlfriend harshly and grabbed her hair and drag her around, she was passed out at that moment and after a few days, she died.
Females and Male are both precious human beings so we as an individual and also socially need to respect and keep more attention on each other.
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