Domestic Violence

Sandy Gowtham

Human are considered to be most intelligent and improved community among all the animals in the world. What makes us different from others? Is it his ability to think or is his ability to give reasons? Due to these abilities he dominated the whole world. At the same time matriarchal society is converted in to patriarchal society. Men started to feel superior to female. This is history; now, for generations women have been treated inferiorly in our society. There are many reasons why females are considered as the lower class in society. One of them is masculinity of a man makes him feel superior. As women are physically weak and therefore men felt they can control them, slowly this search for control leads to violence against women, commonly known as domestic violence. Domestic violence is not limited to under develop or developing countries, it is seen worldwide. Even the most developed countries like the US and the UK have rates of 50% in domestic violence (amnesty.org). In almost all cultures, men are most often the abusers, and women the victims of domestic violence. Women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victims of domestic violence by intimate partners. Nearly 1/3^rd of women report that they have been physically or sexually abused by their partners. (helpguide.org).

The magnitude of the problem of violence against women throughout the world is visible through the rising statistics. Out of the worlds population 49.7% are female. It would be 51% if included who never born due to gender-selective abortion or died in infancy due to neglect.  Out of 49.7%; 16.7% of the women are exposed to violence, such as beatings, in their life time. About 10% of the women are victims of rape or attempted rape. In the US, every 15 seconds one woman is battered by her husband. In Russia, 36,000 women are beaten by their husband everyday. About two women per week are killed by their partners in the UK. In Pakistan, 42% of the women accept domestic violence as their fate and in Bangladesh, 50% of all the murders of women are committed by their partners. In the country of France, 25,000 women are raped everyday (amnestry.org).  While Western countries are facing mild domestic violence, some of the Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh women are facing more dangerous violence in the form of Dowry (Death by fire, Mala Sen). Dowry is the payment in cash or a kind of asset by the bride's family to the bridegroom’s family along with the giving away of the bride in Indian marriage. Also domestic violence is alarmingly common in low-income families. Women from lower income families are not much educated so they do not know about their rights, or they do not know about organizations and help lines set up to assist them.

After reading the above statistics do we feel proud of ourselves?  This type of violence against their female partner does not happen in other animal group. All other animals, (so called un-intelligent) lead a happy life with their partners. Instead some animal species like peacock attract their female partner with their beautiful dance. We, human beings; misuse our intelligence. Because of our ambition to rule the world we made most of the animals to become extinct. Is humanity defined as being considerable to others and living environment friendly life or is it defined as intelligent and being able to give reasons?