Changing Cultures to Value Women
by Csar Chelala, Published on Sunday, April 29, 2007 by the Philadelphia Inquirer
The following excellent article has been edited at the VCS Community Change Project to be in
accountable language. Edits include additions in bold and deletions in strikethroughs.
In February, Mexico's president, Felipe
Caldern, signed a law, passed by the
country's Senate in December, that
requires local and federal authorities to
curb (mens) violence against women, a
problem that has reached critical
proportions. Passage of the law is a good
step. Like many countries (including the
United States), Mexico needs to
acknowledge and confront (mens)
violence against women. But although the
law is a critical step toward (stopping
mens violence against women)
protecting women's lives, it won't have a
significant impact unless it is
systematically enforced and
complemented by a wide range of local
and community actions - and by a huge
effort to change a culture in which (men
are valued and) women are not valued.
In this, Mexico's situation reflects the state
of affairs in countries around the world.
Domestic violence is part of the wider
issue of gender violence, which most of
the time is (mens) violence against
women. According to the Mexican Health
Ministry, about one in three women (are
harmed by their intimate male partner)
suffers from domestic violence. About
6,000 (men murder their intimate
partner) women a year die from domestic
violence (as compared with the U.S.
figure of 1,000 (men a year) women a
year, which is still an awful number). And
this culture of violence branches out in
horrible directions: (Men have killed)
More than 400 women and girls have
been killed in Ciudad Jurez and
Chihuahua in the last 14 years.
(Routinely, the men rape and beat
women before they murder them) Rape
and beating routinely precede the murder
PDF Created with deskPDF PDF Writer - Trial :: http://www.docudesk.com
of women. In addition, thousands of
women have become desaparecidas, or
missing.
This is not an evil that affects only
individual women. It's actually something
that is holding Mexico, and many other
countries, back. As Noeleen Heyzer,
executive director of the United Nations
Development Fund for Women, puts it:
"(Mens) Violence against women
devastates people's lives, fragments
communities, and prevents countries from
developing."
It's woven so deeply into Mexican culture
that (when men harm or otherwise
abuse women) most women don't report
it, or, if they do, do not carry it to the
courts. In Mexico, and throughout the
world, a range of cultural, economic and
social factors - including shame and fear
of retaliation from their (men who are
their) partners, or their partner's friends or
family - contribute to women's reluctance
to report or denounce those acts.
UNICEF Mexico reports that four in 10
women report acts of (their husbands)
spousal violence carried out against them,
but only one in three commence legal
proceedings. Women who do seek to
prosecute or denounce (mens) domestic
violence face serious obstacles. As in
many other countries, violence is
considered to be a "private matter," part of
the "normal" conduct of relationships, a
fact reflected in many Mexican
telenovelas or soap operas that show
scenes of men slapping, striking or killing
women.
The real nub here is that many men in
1
Mexico consider themselves superior to
women, who are rightly subject to their
whims. South American machismo more
or less depends on such ideas - but
machismo of some sort exists almost
everywhere in the world, with gender
chauvinism deeply written into the culture
of many countries. In India, for example,
law-enforcement officials - despite
growing efforts since the 1980s to bolster
India's laws - often ignore or minimize
women's reports of (mens) violence. If
women succeed in getting a case to the
courts, lawyers (even women's lawyers)
have been known to conspire with men
being accused to subvert cases.
It's probably unnecessary to mention the
wide range of physical problems
(suffered by women) - organ damage,
gynecological problems, miscarriage, and
exacerbation of chronic illness - that can
result from (mens) domestic violence,
damage so terrible that suicide is not
uncommon in the most extreme cases.
Although some may sneer at the idea, it is
crucial to realize that the notion of
(mens) "violence against women" must
include the psychological: (his) name-
calling, (his) withholding money, (his)
forbidding the woman to work or see her
family, (his) ridiculing her or insulting her
in front of family or friends. Studies make
it clear that, in many cases, (his)
psychological violence can be as
devastating, or even more devastating,
than (his) physical violence.
Because of these effects, and the extent
of the problem, many experts and
organizations - including the Pan
American Health Organization and the
Inter-American Commission of Women of
the Organization of American States - are
calling for domestic violence (mens
violence against their intimate
partners) to be treated as a public-health
issue. As Carmen Barroso, director of the
Western Hemisphere region for the
PDF Created with deskPDF PDF Writer - Trial :: http://www.docudesk.com
Planned Parenthood Federation, recently
said: "Health systems should be the main
door for detection, treatment and support
for victims of (mens) violence against
women."
Several Latin American countries have
made progress toward equality between
the genders. But a profound change -
forbiddingly profound - needs to take
place regarding (mens) domestic
violence (against women). This includes
the creation of a nonviolent culture. That
will require education, starting at the lower
grades, an education aimed at sensitizing
both men and women about their rights
and responsibilities, and of the dramatic
consequences of not assuming them.
This cultural change must extend to the
law - namely, to implementing the
antiviolence laws and policies that exist in
many countries. Biggest of all, the laws
need to be enforced. Women need to
know that, if they complain, they will have
recourse and protection. (Women will
only know that when) Judges will not be
reluctant to apply the laws. In this regard,
programs are being implemented in Costa
Rica to provide sensitivity training for
judicial personnel from Supreme Court
justices to social and judicial workers.
Domestic violence is obviously not limited
to Latin American countries. In China,
according to a national survey, it visits
one-third of the country's 270 million
households. A survey by the China Law
Institute in Gansu, Hunan and Zhejiang
provinces found that one-third of surveyed
families had witnessed family violence,
and that 85 percent of victims were
women. Because not only men but also
many women consider violence as a
normal part of family life, only 5 percent
among those surveyed said that their
marriage was unhappy.
There has been some recent progress.
2
Some roadside and subway
advertisements in China now decry the
harm this scourge (mens violence
against women) does to society. (You
can see similar billboards in Mexico.)
Special refuges and community support
groups for victims are becoming more
numerous. The All-China Women's
Federation has been playing a significant
role in bringing the issue into legislation
and policy. A range of organizations have
allied in a project called "Domestic
Violence in China: Research, Intervention
and Prevention."
In Russia, estimates put the annual
domestic-violence death toll (of men
murdering their intimate partners) at
more than 14,000 women. Natalya
Abubikirova, executive director of the
Russian Association of Crisis Centers,
drew a dramatic parallel: "The number of
women dying (being killed) every year at
the hands of their husbands and partners
in the Russian Federation is roughly equal
to the total number of Soviet soldiers
killed in the 10-year war in Afghanistan."
There are shelters, hotlines and crisis
centers in a number of cities, but nothing
close to an adequate, systematic
approach. Truly stringent laws have yet to
be enacted and enforced.
Domestic violence is also rife in most
African countries - for example,
Zimbabwe, where, according to a United
Nations report, it accounts for more than
six in 10 murder cases in court. In
surveys, 42 percent of women in Kenya
and 41 percent in Uganda reported having
been beaten by their (the men who are
their) partners. Although some countries
such as South Africa have passed
legislation, the big test - full
implementation, with teeth - has not been
passed.
In case one thinks the United States is
somehow immune, think again. According
PDF Created with deskPDF PDF Writer - Trial :: http://www.docudesk.com
to the FBI, one out of every four women is
a victim of (an intimate male partner
or) domestic violence at least once in her
life. The Office of the U.S. Surgeon
General says that domestic (mens)
violence is the leading cause of injury to
women between 15 and 44 - more than
car accidents, muggings and rapes
combined. As mentioned, about three
women die each day from some form of
domestic (mens) violence. And our
culture, which is thought to be based on
equality, still has not fully acknowledged
the seriousness of the problem. In Senate
Judiciary hearings that led to the 1990
Violence Against Women Act, it was
famously reported that there are three
times as many animal shelters as there
are shelters for battered women
(batterered by men) and their children.
While that ratio has changed, the animals
still have more shelters.
Mexico's new law is its first-ever federal
measure to combat domestic violence and
other (of mens) abuses against women,
although similar measures were already
on the books in many cities and states.
For Mexico, and for women's rights, it is a
crucial step forward. The question now, in
Mexico and throughout the world, is
whether the will exists to implement the
law. That will be a measure of the
Mexican government's ability to end this
tragic epidemic.
3