Essay on Violence Against Women

When my roommate was in elementary school, the boys in her grade would not let her play sports with her. The reason they gave her was that she was a girl, and sports were not for girls. She was told that she was not strong enough to play, and that sports were a boy thing. They then told her to go play house or kiss tag. When they said that, she proceeded to beat the boys up, making them look like the ones who weren’t strong. While violence is not the way to prove someone wrong, this story has a point. Taylor wanted to play basketball, but she was told she couldn’t because she was a girl. This might seem like innocent children making assumptions, but this is where it begins. These children will grow into adults that watch movies like Pixel, where the woman who is objectified is literally turned into an object, watch television shows like Two and a Half Men, which glorifies the manipulation and sexual conquest of women, and read books like Lolita and take it seriously. This idea, while developed in other places as well, is created through the media.

Rebecca Solnit’s article focuses on the ways male violence negatively affects women. Harassment from men directed at women keep women from speaking up, and many women are living in constant fear of male violence. They live in a constant state of fear because they are aware male violence is taking place around them. Women are also afraid of potential male violence because men openly express authoritative behavior. She explains men feel they have the validity to control and abuse women. Specifically, a man will approach a woman with the expectation that the woman will return the man with a sexual favor. For example, “a woman was stabbed after she rebuffed a man’s sexual advances while she walked in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood late Monday night…”

Feminism has not changed today, but its focus has changed. Many women today have good education and employment opportunities just like men, as the early feminist fought for them. Now, after getting all these, men are now discriminating them and at times abusing them in order to undermine their hard work and potentiality. Men are doing all they can to undermine the success women have been able to acquired, however, today’s feminism is struggling to protect women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment, and rape as well as discrimination.

There is a level of degree that the most violent types of crimes are more severe toward women. Solnit combines rape and violence, “We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this earth though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or even human rights issues.”

Throughout history, women have continuously found themselves as the subjects of oppression. Although the treatment of women has drastically changed over time, women are still exposed to much of the violence that exists today. Per the National Organization for Women, “young women, low-income women and some minorities are disproportionately victims of domestic violence and rape” (National Organization for Women, 2016). Women-centered violence is highly prevalent and reoccurring all over the world, even in our local communities. Individuals may be hesitant to consider just how much violence against women affects their communities.

Currently Mexican and Chilean women and society have experimented many changes in their living standards. There has been an incredible change in the way that women are being treated, especially by male gender. Nowadays, Femicide is one of the most important issues in Chile, where exists a huge amount of cases of it, additionally it has been considered that more than one hundred women have been murdered by their husbands, boyfriends or friends during the last years. In relation to this, Chilean government paid little attention to the situation, because until 2010 violence against women had been considered domestic violence and not as femicide.

Another negative effect of gender inequality is the increased fear of violence for women. Women are often portrayed as weak and helpless beings that can easily be taken advantage of. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon states that, “Violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence –yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned” (Unite to End Violence Againist Women, 2006). Violence against women in the form of rape, spousal abuse, child abuse or spousal killing has become routine behavior over the years, so it rarely even makes the news anymore. “Women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, motor accidents, war and malaria, according to World Bank data”( Unite to End Violence Againist Women, 2006). Women are often blamed and questioned about their actions if they become the

Central American women are at an even greater risk of experiencing sexual abuse and other types of violence during their migration to the United States, especially in recent years, because of the spreading of gangs. In 2015, “nearly 110,000 people fleeing worsening gang and other violence in Central America’s northern triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras sought asylum abroad.” Many times, Central Americans are attempting to escape the possibility of being sexually assaulted by gangs. However, not everyone has the time to apply for asylum because they are in immediate danger. For example, Sara Rincon, a college student from El Salvador testifies: ““He said no woman had ever turned him down, and if I refused to be his girlfriend, he would kill me and my family. I didn’t want to leave home but after that we couldn’t stay; we left for Mexico in the middle of the night.” Because Rincon and her family had to leave spontaneously, they are most likely going to be traveling undocumented, just like many other immigrants attempting to escape gang violence in Central America. Therefore, they must migrate through Mexico with the possibility of even more traumatic events ahead of them.

Many women are experiencing violence against them, whether it be physical, mental, or verbal. According to Kirk, Terry, Lokuge, and Watterson, “Violence against women (VAW) is a major issue worldwide, with an estimated 35% of women, or roughly 1 in 3, experiencing either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime” (p. 2). There have been many groups that have been created to combat violence against women. The group I will be focusing on is White Ribbon group. The White Ribbon are the defenders of women.

Did you know that every 9 seconds a women is being beaten or assaulted? It is known that around the world, at least one and every three women has been beaten into having sex or some rudely thing in her entire lifetime. There are many cases where the abuser is a family member. Domestic violence is that the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sex crime, and different abusive behavior perpetrated by an intimate partner against another. It is a virulent disease touching people in each community, notwithstanding age, economic standing, race, religion, status or academic background. Violence against girls is usually amid showing emotion abusive and dominant behavior, and so is a component of a scientific pattern of dominance and

It is evident that violence towards women has become an important matter that needs to end and more awareness has been brought to the issue. Most people are disturbed when hearing about violent crimes that are committed towards

These trends, however, do not account for the whole country because they differ from place to place. The case of Ciudad Juarez is particularly extreme and, sometimes, shocking. Ciudad Juarez is a city of 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas. Although Ciudad Juarez is incredibly rich in nature and culture, in the last couple of years, it has not been known because of these virtues; instead, it has been all over the news due to its homicide rates, which have had peak rates greater than many war zones. One particular aspect that characterizes the homicides of this city is the high level of “feminicidios” (femicides or feminicides in English) that have taken place in the last two decades. In fact, more than 300 women have been murdered

In general those who live in Ciudad Juarez know about the recurring murders over the past decade involving women. Despite of that there are still millions that are oblivious to this occurring or choose to ignore it. It also gets less talked about comparing to other issues occurring around the world. Those who choose to talk about the subject eventually give up because they saw no immediate results or any progress at all. As stated before some chose to ignore the issue because they felt it was the easy way out and had fear of their own lives as well. Especially, the residents of Ciudad Juarez were in fear to speak of it because they felt they would put their lives endangered. However, to truly understand the severity and seriousness of this subject like many other issues you need to have some idea of how and why it started and the history or facts surrounding the issue. That is why the main focus is finding the factors that may have contributed to the recurring murders of women in Ciudad Juarez. Moreover, the effects of the murders on the victim families, the public in general, and the city. Also finding if there were any motives behind the murders of the women. Lastly, finding if there are any solutions for the murders to come to an end, any way to deter people from doing it, and has there been something done in the past decade to tackle the murders from happening again.

Sadly, many countries and/or communities still have that macho way of thinking, believing that a woman only has two jobs in life, serve her family and bear children. Unfortunately, in many cases, these women are being mistreated, beaten and/or shut down. We can see examples of these situations in some countries of the Middle East.

Violence takes many forms: it can be physical, psychological, sexual, economic, and even within families, or combinations of one or more of these. In most cases, the violence has been “acceptable” because of the cultural traditions that are largely respected. However, with the increasing emergence of the women’s movement internationally and even within Mexico itself, many Mexican males regard their roles as belittled. There has been a subtle and sometimes obvious backlash against the women’s movement, especially if women have independent living or income possibilities. In a culture in which violence is the norm, beatings, rape, torture, mutilation, and even murder are frequently overlooked. This has been painfully evident in the cases of mass murders of young women in Ciudad Juarez.