Essay on Gendered Violence

Introduction

Gendered violence can be described as aggression or harmful actions directed to individuals according to their gender. Gender-based violence starts as a result of gender discrimination, power abuse, and also harmful cultures. Gendered violence is a severe violation of human rights; it threatens the life and health issues of an individual. Although gendered violence is extreme, it can be normalized and prevented by individuals if they enact good rules to prevent it. In most cases, this kind of violence is controlled, it becomes invisible in society, but later it is reproduced after some time.

How Gendered Violence is Normalized

Normalization of gender-based violence can be done if all people accept that violence is an unchallengeable part of people’s lives and that descriptions of violent behavior have no real-life penalties. Every person should take that it is the victim’s responsibility to prevent violence from happening but not the responsibility of the perpetrator. The use of media can also normalize gender-based violence. Through repeated exposure of the effects of gender-based violence to the public, media has the power to normalize people’s view of the violence. The exposure can make individuals change their perception of gender-based violence and accept responsibility to normalize it in their daily living.

How Gendered Violence Become Invisible and Reproduced

Gendered violence becomes invisible when the victims of the violence decide to hold the matter and fail to report the incidences to the concerned authorities. In most cases, the affected members of the violence choose to hide the issue and keep it as family secrets in fear of exposing their families and the occurrence of more violence. In this way, the gendered violence may seem to have ended in the society, although it is still there. The invisible causes of gendered violence are later reproduced and seen in the community.

Gendered violence is reproduced when the victims of the violence or, in most cases, the parents who have suffered the violence expel their frustrations on their children and other people. By venting these frustrations to children or those around them, they transmit and intensify the negative experiences (Barbara et al., 2017). Having learned the violence from their parents, the growing children end up growing knowing that violence is the best alternative means to solve conflicts and misunderstandings in communication. Hence in this way, violence becomes reproduced and perpetuated among society.

Strategies to Eliminate Gendered Violence

Several actions can be taken to eliminate gender-based violence in our societies. Addressing inequality in gender power relations should be upheld in the community (Shrivastava et al., 2018). This will foster good relations among both genders as no gender will be given much power over the other. Women’s participation in civil society should be funded and supported entirely to encourage them to speak of their rights and ideas in the general community. The facilities of health in lower communal levels should be provided with gender-based clinical services to reach all the people regardless of their social status. Gender-based violence can also be eliminated in societies by developing practical guidance to the public, which will help build the whole system.

References

Barbara, G., Collini, F., Cattaneo, C., Facchin, F., Vercellini, P., Chiappa, L., & Kustermann, A. (2017). Sexual violence against adolescent girls: labeling it to avoid normalization. Journal of Women’s Health, 26(11), 1146-1149.

Shrivastava, S. R., Shrivastava, P. S., & Ramasamy, J. (2018). The necessity to Address Gender-Based Violence in the Conflict-Affected Regions of Myanmar: United Nations Population Fund. MAMC Journal of Medical Sciences, 4(2), 105.