Education is key

Two women a week die at the hands of their male partner in the UK.

Just let that sink in.

Two women a week.

This is a poor reflection on our society and should be a source of shame, yet this is not something that hits the headlines in a big way, if at all. Crimes such as petty theft and robbery make more headlines than women being murdered by their partners, many of whom suffered relentless domestic abuse before hand. So we need to ask ourselves, why?

I ended my last blog post stressing the importance of education. As if it was fate, I came across information of a children’s puberty book discrepancy. It stated that one of the functions of breasts is “to make the girl look grown up and attractive” on first reading this I, for once, was speechless. Not just that some tactless misinformed author had written this, but also that this book will have been proof read and re-read by publishers and other literary people and still, NO ONE FLAGGED THIS UP. What makes this worse in some respects is that this is a children’s book for boys. Referring to my previous blog, herein lies the problem. It would be interesting to go back through centuries and read similar genres of books to see how they dealt with this ,because if this was published in 2013, I dread to think what was being written, and accepted, before.

For those who don’t know, i’m currently studying a BA in Criminology. I’ve come across some equally shocking and riveting literature, studies and statistics into the way women have been treated. Many academics began to look at the history of men’s control over women and asked searching questions about the ways in which both men and women came to accept it as ‘normal’. And that’s just it. ‘Normal’, how have we come to define being beeped at by four males in a car as ‘normal’? Being wolf whistled down the high street is ‘normal’. Being grabbed in a club is ‘normal’. But it’s entirely the opposite of normal. It’s grotesquely abnormal.

After publishing my post I had an influx in feedback from friends, both male and female. This idea of shared experience struck me. Everyone has experienced some level of sexual harassment. The question that kept reappearing was, ‘when you are being cat called or beeped at, do you ignore it or confront it?’ Women, myself included, have a constant battle between ignoring the behaviour, turning our music up louder in our earphones and walking away that little bit quicker, or, deciding to call them out on it. This potentially can go two ways however, firstly…

...they stop.

Result.

But more often than not, the second reaction... They somehow get off on it and all decide to join in, insulting you further and leaving you feeling that in you replying, it gave them some sort of ‘free pass’ to put their remarks into overdrive. Ignoring or confronting, you’re left feeling defeated. So is there ever a right way to deal with it? Or should we not be asking ‘how is best to deal with this situation?’ and more, ‘why is this situation a common occurrence?’. It’s a constant victim blame, that even the victims automatically can’t help but blame themselves. But it is not our fault. Media needs to start looking at how they portray this idea, by aiming it at men as opposed to ‘how to deal with..’ to women.

#debate #women #experience #education #feminism #harassment #society