GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN RELATION TO POWER

Over the years, there has been a vast definition of trying to elaborate on gender-based violence. It can be defined as a deeply rooted phenomenon focusing on inequalities among different gender and gradually remaining to be the highest violation of human rights across all societies. Members of both sexes experience this though the majority of victims being the female gender.

Gender-based violence unfolds inequalities of power between men and women, women commonly being the victims. Power imbalance manifestations are twisted to favor men by characterizing them as mostly patriarchal and different cultures globally. There are norms like female genital mutilation, child marriage, and dowry killings, among others, that support cultural practices that are harmful to the female gender but are accepted by various beliefs and social norms (Annamaria Milazzo, 2016). The prevalence of gender-based violence is still in practice, mostly in developing countries, female genital mutilation, and precise. For instance, in most African countries, a woman cannot be married if she has not undergone female genital mutilation. Some societies claim that she is unfit for any man, and thus she cannot bear children for any man. This has even become like a common practice that even women will disassociate from her. Mostly triggered by the fact men have in years believed to possess more political, cultural domestic, and general decision-making power than women. In these societies, most women who are empowered enough to understand the difference are not married, not because they are unfit but because men fear powerful women. Thus, able to do anything to prevent women’s empowerment.

2.0 Sexism Theory

Sexism is a theoretical framework that basically focuses on gender discrimination, terming women to be inferior and incompetent to men. It operates to maintain power and status conflicts among societal groups. This has been witnessed in schools recently. Developmental psychologists are concerned about it being directed to adolescents and children in a school setting. Boys have been observed to degrading girls in schools from the kind of activities they do, and girls will always play the simple and easy tasks while boys handle what’s riskier and more dangerous. Sexism cuts across all ages, where it appears to be an imbalance of power between males and females, giving men the structural power while women having the dyadic power (Leaper and Brown, 2014).

In a particular YouTube video, Jackson Katz demonstrates how we perceive gender-based violence. He gives an example by using a whiteboard indicating a gender violence scenario where women tend to take the blames for men. However, he breaks down and clearly shows that ‘John’ who is after every statement inflicts violence, thus allowing viewers to change focus point to how women are faulty, rather something being wrong with John (TEDx Talks 2013, 05:45). It shifts the views we traditionally have in those situations to focus on the perpetrator of the violence.

The society needs to invent ways of viewing the situation rather than focusing on the person. Isolating the person in a situation will transform the mind of how to perceive others as an equal. Naturally, men and women are not opposites, thus acting differently with time. They also seem to differ in making choices, which again reflects their stereotypical expectations. For example, globally, men prefer engaging in sports for exercises while women are busy with dancing or Yoga, among others (Christian Louboutin, 2012).

References

Eisler R, (2002), The power of partnership. New world library

Kimmel, M.S. (2002). Gender Symmetry in Domestic Violence: A Substantive and Methodological Research Review. Violence Against Women. Retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=198004

Koester, D. (2015). Gender and Power. DLP Concept Brief 04

Norton, W.W (2019), GENDER, SECOND EDITION: Ideas, interaction, and institutions.

Tantoh, Henry, and Tracey Mckay (2020. Investigating Community Constructed Rural Water Systems in Northwest Cameroon: Leadership, Gender, and Exclusion. International Development Planning Review