Aggression And Violence Against Women

Aggression and violence can stem from several reasons, often from a primal hatred for a person that is different than the perpetrator. These attacks can fall under several categories, like aggression towards a homosexual out of homophobia, aggression towards a member of the other race out of racism, and violence towards the other sex out of misogyny or misandry. It is a recognized issue though, that when it comes to gender based aggression, its fury “disproportionately victimizes women and girls” (MacKinnon). The term “violence against women” was created to fit this definition, a phrase that has in recent years recognized as a worldwide issue. A more formal definition created by the United Nations (UN) states that violence against women is “"any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life," (“Fact”). The World Health Organization (WHO) has found that as many as 35% of all women in the world have experienced some form of violence, sexual or not, and while 38% murdered women were killed by an intimate partner, only 6% male murders were committed by their counterpart (“Fact”) (“Violence”). The United Nations (UN) created the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) under which the general recommendation no. 19 states that participating countries should see that laws mandating violence against women provide adequate protection for the victims, and see that there are effective methods of legal action and punishment for perpetrators (Handbook, 5). Such international action cannot be ignored, and to say t...

... middle of paper ...

...ing experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Several forms of violence against women tend to go unreported, the victims fearing to go against their set cultural norms which “offer social standards of appropriate and inappropriate behavior.” (Changing). Domestic partner abuse leads in causes of violence against women, and in countries such as India, Nigeria, Ghana, and China, men have the right to “assert power” over women and punish them when their behavior deviates (Changing) (“Violence”). In fact, in South Africa, while violence is considered an okay way to deal with someone in an intimate relationship, the actual practice of harming one another is considered taboo (Changing). Altogether, the combination of these types of traditional and cultural acceptance of violence against women in these many assorted countries shows why it is a global issue.