The shift towards inclusivity that embraces the visibility of women is definitely, happening; but it is painfully slow and moreover, stymied by many contemporary realities.
A FRANCIS
Beyond the momentum of the celebration of the International Women’s Day, some countries dedicated a full month as National Women’s History Month to honour the contributions of women to respective nations and the world, at large. Countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America have been celebrating it in the month of March, where as Canada opted for October. We might wonder why many countries don’t have national celebration of Women’s History Month! On the upper arc of that intriguing musing curve, we could place another relevant question: ‘If women’s history is part of the social history, why do we set women’s history apart?’ We could perhaps take a leaf from the wisdom of Erin Blakemore, who authored the book, The Heroine’s Bookshelf: “Until 20th century, history books focused on society’s powerful – white, wealthy, male.” Despite human history is built by all kinds of people and more than half of them are women, in the traditional ways of recording the social history, women are asmuch as marginalized as the disregarded, the anonymous. With this ‘culturally determined and psychologically internalized marginality of women’, as rightly pointed out by Gerda Lerner, the Austrian-born American historian, we could also observe the socio-political phenomenon, that the world has been celebrating heroes; sheroes have been deliberately ignored. By the way, the word ‘shero’ has been around for a long time; but just like the incredible share of women in history, the word too is ignored.
The tremendous effort of placing women in history, a major focus that women’s movements all over the world are single-mindedly committed to is, no doubt, transforming
our social history from a monographic and monolithic male-oriented account to an inclusive one that is predicated on the diversity of people, sexes and orientations. This shift towards inclusivity that embraces the visibility of women is definitely, happening; but it is painfully slow and moreover, stymied by many contemporary realities, all across the globe.
Our lived realities of today become the indelibly woven history of tomorrow. In the context of weaving women’s history, we cannot keep silence about contemporary lived realities that perpetuate suffering and alienation of women.
Misogynistic Household Killings
Heard about the term ‘everyday terrorism?’ Myrna Dawson, a Canadian professor, attributes it to the misogynistic household killing. That is, killing of a female in a domestic and household context by an intimate partner or a family member. The first time I read it, I thought it was
a ‘misnomer. It sounded rather hyperbolic
and extremely far-fetched! With broad
strokes, I dismissed it as nothing more than ‘magnification,’ a cognitive distortion that denotes exaggeration of a negative event.
Fair enough, my male chauvinist self hidden underneath a well-trimmed politically correct persona sneaked out with an instant social analysis, “A typical streak of feminism! They make a mountain of accusation out of a molehill of petty mistakes and shortcomings of every man.” Here we go again!
Reading further on Dawson, I could not, however, lean too long on my dismissive, stereotypic self reminder -cum-social analysis narrative. My skepticism, coupled with a personal research interest, propelled me to the UN Women’s Report 2020, Facts and Figures: Ending Violence Against Women. I was literally struck by a disturbing one-liner statistic: “Daily 137 women are killed globally by a member of their family.”
Good heavens, 50,005 women a year! Wait
a minute, this data captures only the femicides committed by intimate-partners and immediate family members. Just the tip of the ice-berg!
The Shadow Pandemic
COVID-19 has contributed a new term to
our everyday English lexicon, the ‘shadow pandemic’. Referring to the spike in gender- based violence against women and girls during lockdown, the UN Women broadcasted in April 2020: “We see a shadow pandemic growing, of violence against women.” PhumzileMlambo- Ngcuka, the executive director of the UN Women, explained that the violence against women and girls has skyrocketed to three times more than before.
Did we get the math? Well, prior to the pandemic, there were 243 million women and girls aged between 15 and 49 were subjected
to sexual or/and physical violence in a
period of twelve months. Now, do the math
of multiplication. SunitaToor, an academic criminologist, women and children’s rights activist holds the view that the vast majority
of victims neither come forward to report the violence they suffer nor they seek help. If that is the case, I don’t think our math could ever be correct, because the reality exceeds the math of multiplication!
Making of ‘Heroic Male and Degraded Female’
In proposing a solution for tackling violence against women, MadhumitaPandey, a lecturer in criminology offers an interesting perspective to the etiology of male violent behaviour. Using a developmental lens, she underscores the male-dominated home environment as the seedbed of misdirected masculinity in boys. Reflecting on her upbringing, she points out that in childhood/adolescent period onward the degradation saga of a female begins: “...when boys enjoy new privileges reserved only for
men – such as autonomy, mobility, opportunity and power. Whereas girls have to start enduring restrictions. Their parents curtail their mobility, monitor their interactions with males and in some cases even withdraw them from school.”
Home is the place where everything starts from, and so it does with the making of the ‘heroic’ male and the ‘degraded’ female, if I may borrow these terms from Judith Herman, psychiatrist and the author of the classic, Trauma and Recovery, to describe the kinds of pathological accommodations that we set our children up for. This means, there is much, so much, to change in our homes when we are thinking about ensuring women’s place in history, celebrating our sheroes, and above all, ending violence against women, whether it is verbal, emotional, psychological, sexual or/ and lethally physical. The starting point to these changes, certainly, is our commitment to weaving a new herstory in our homes!
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