Most leaders and the press view violence against women and children as just “a women’s issue” or “a children’s issue” – in their minds, a secondary issue. But it’s not only that millions of women and children are victims of violence in their homes every year; the fact is that intimate violence provides a basic model for using force to impose one’s will on others.
When children either experience or observe violence against their mothers in their homes, they learn that it’s ok, even “moral,” to use violence to impose one’s will on others. This is why throughout history, the most violently despotic and warlike societies have been those where violence, or the threat of violence, is used to maintain domination of parent over child and man over woman.
We see this connection vividly in many regions of the world that have spawned terrorists, regions where women and children are literally terrorized into submission. But the link between intimate violence and political violence is not limited to so-called “religious fundamentalists.” It was present in the European Middle Ages, in Hitler’s Germany, and in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Neither is it coincidental that in the U.S. today those pushing “crusades” against “evil enemies” oppose equal rights for women and advocate harshly punitive childrearing.
The time has come for progressive leaders to make ending violence against women and children a top priority. The good news is that the United Nations is recognizing that violence against women and children as the most ubiquitous human rights violation worldwide. Another piece of good news is that the issue of “domestic violence ” – that is, beating of women by men who say they love them – is also gaining world attention, and though more slowly, so are the sexual mutilation of girls that is practiced in many parts of Africa and the Middle East, the bride burning still common in parts of India, the global sexual slave trade, and other horrible human rights violations.
Yet many customs and public policies still condone the subordination of women and support, and even promote, intimate violence. If we are serious about social justice and peace, we must give primary attention to the formative gender and parent-child relations. Only through an integrated progressive agenda that takes into account both the personal and public sphere can we build foundations for cultures of peace rather than war.
An initiative I’m passionately involved in is the Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence (www.saiv.net). SAIV brings a strong – unconscionably still missing – moral voice to ending violence against women and children by engaging spiritual and religious leaders to make healing intimate violence a priority. This initiative is one of many we can – and must – support if we are to end intimate terror and create a more peaceful world.
Thanks for this diary, Riane. It is perfectly timely now. Wish I could recommend it over and over.
Thanks, Alice. If enough of us show this link, we can make change happen.
Yes, very good diary. Thank you.
After 9/11 I developed an insatiable desire to read about the lives of women in the middle east. As I learned more, I began to think about the short leap is was from dehumanizing the 1/2 of the population who happen to be women, to thinking that anyone who doesn’t have the same religious beliefs is an infidel. Then I could bring that thinking back home to the US and why we seem to have such an endless appetite for bullying the rest of the world.
Thanks for your tireless work on thie Riane!!
I wish more people did what you are doing — partnering in the essential task of showing people that you can’t expect human rights and peace without also addressing these in family and other intimate relations. My new book The Real Wealth of Nations addresses this issue once again in relation to economic justice.
In my mind the problem with the whole ‘debate’ about violence against women as a ‘women’s issue’ has to a certain extent been a red herring…violence against women is a serious problem but the issue isn’t a women’s issue but a male issue. Until we change the language and incorporate the words male into the dialog we won’t be able to get the half the population doing the violence into the debate and solution. Men have to become involved in this to much huger degree than they are currently involved. You would think they would as almost every male probably has a sister, wife, mother, aunt, cousin and so on who has been the victim of this violence. They have to be involved in speaking out much more than they already have. Yes this should be one of the top issues in this country as it effects every single family in one way or another and goes to the very heart of family in this country and the mental and physical well being of all the people involved….which means it also effects the country as a whole also. If you have a population where almost half the country has hidden or not so hidden mental traumas you have a break down of a healthy society able to carry on and eventually everyone is poisoned in some way and unable to deal effectively with others.
This is the same thing with the ‘Take Back the Night’ coalition that is mostly women who march in this …we can march all we want but until men join, support and are actively involved we can’t accomplish much more than marching and raising a bit of awareness. We already know what the problem is, and it isn’t the women who are marching.
Great comment c.i. Violence is a human problem – no matter who the victim. The aim is always to terrorize, marginalize and oppress the victim, to feel more powerful than someone else.
Not to stray to far from the subject of violence against women and children but in my mind also much violence, violence against any human as you said Toni is wrapped up in the real original sin…which is prejudice.
Based on what I’ve read of Riane’s work (the author of this diary), the root that binds all of this is our current habit of orienting our relationships in terms of “heirarchy” and “dominance” instead of “partnership.” That makes a lot of sense to me – it explains how folks get rank ordered in their place in the power structure. And you can see it in all forms of relationships from the family to ethnic groups to foreign relations.
I remember the first “Take Back The Night” I was involved with — maybe twenty years ago. Some men wnated to join in, but the organizers were adamant that they could not. They felt the presence of men would indicate that we needed males to protect us.
It made me sad that people who were willing to work on the problem were excluded on the basis of their gender.
there have been numerous incidents in Australia where men have asked to walk in the ‘take back the night’ marches, and have been politely declined, and I wholeheartedly agree with that decision.
Take Back the Night is about women marching together to own public space without fear. Allowing men to march very much dilutes the focus and the visual impact that is created, and it also yet again, even by well-intentioned men, sends a message that women just can’t ever be allowed to own public space by themselves.
The many wonderful men who support it can show their support by providing childcare to let as many women march as possible, or by standing along the route of the march. Many men do this in Australia, holding candles, signs and clapping, and it creates a wonderful atmosphere that enhances the march’s message, not distracts from it.
Of course, there have been incidents in Australia where men have asked to march, and when they have been told ‘no’, have thrown tantrums, tried to take the march organisers to various Anti-Discrimination Tribunals, etc. Nicely illustrating the problem in the first place, and why it is so essential IMO for women to be affirmed in their right to march together without men, not have their statement diluted.
I’m saying that in Australia at least, asking men to play a different/supporting role for Take Back the Night is not exclusionary, and has very valid reasons.