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This is Step 1 because it is the foundation for ending male violence against women, not only responding to or managing its effects.
Gender inequality is rooted deep in societies all over the world–and Canada is no exception. Male domination and women’s subordination (male power over women) has been the legacy of history, and this explains why male power and control over women is still to this day a major part of our society. It is woven into all of our “systems”—family, law, education, health, government, social programs, business and religion. We see and experience it as women at home, at school, at work and in our neighbourhoods. Throughout human history, it has been repeated and supported in so many ways that we sometimes think it is “human nature” for women to be treated as less valuable than men. It isn’t natural. It has been created and built up over centuries. Women everywhere in the world are working now to take it apart and put equality in its place. There are many ways that one group can take and keep power over another—many tactics of control. - Teaching us to believe that unequal power and status is fair or normal is one way. Both the ones with the power and the ones without it are taught to believe this. These beliefs build attitudes; for example, that girls and women are not important, that they are less rational and more emotional than men, that they are there for the sexual use of men or that men are the leaders, women the nurturers.
Changing attitudes is important. But equality isn’t just about attitudes. It’s also about the reality of where and how we live our day-to-day lives and whether we can make the choices we think are best for us.
- Keeping women poorer is another way to take and keep power, for example by paying women less for their work or assigning most or all of child care to them. Making it harder for them to get education and job training, or keeping them out of ‘good-paying’ jobs (or any jobs at all) is another. These are the real conditions of most women’s lives in Ontario and the rest of Canada. Poverty and economic inequality sends a message that women are worth less than men. And it makes it a lot more difficult for women to escape abusive relationships, to fight back against sexual or racial harassment at work, or to leave prostitution, for example.
- Providing little or no public support and resources to reverse male domination is another. When governments refuse to offer programs and services that help poor women (or don’t provide enough), such as adequate social assistance, childcare, quality housing, education and legal aid, they are indirectly maintaining inequality and vulnerability to male violence against women. When immigration officers require that wives be “sponsored” by their husbands, governments are creating the conditions for some men to abuse their power and to control their partners with threats of deportation and loss of status.
- Male violence against women is itself an expression of gender inequality. Because in a society where women have been considered inferior to men and have been expected to serve men’s needs, physical, psychological or emotional abuse, rape, sexual assault and sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, trafficking and prostitution is a concrete embodiment of that relation of inequality.
It is male domination made visible.
In addition, violence against women creates fear, and it helps keep women who experience violence, and women who fear it might happen to them, under control. Violence against some women sends a message to all women that they are in danger and that they are not valued in their own communities.
When women are unequal and unvalued, men learn that they have a “right” to use any means, including violence, to keep women under control. Men who commit violence against women do it because of what they believe in, not because of what they “feel”. Woman abuse is rarely caused by mental illness or substance abuse: it is the result of a belief system that gives men the right to control women, to have sex with them when they wish, to be served and pampered by them, and to correct and to punish them when they are frustrated or disappointed. When a man kills his female partner, it is not because he has been provoked and lost control: it is often because he has lost control over her or wants to remind her of who is in control, and he wants to regain or strengthen that control or punish her for not respecting his wishes. The power and privilege that violence gives to men just because they are men, keeps women from being free. That makes violence against women an equality rights issue. The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women says that violence against women is “a violation of the rights and fundamental freedoms of women” that is caused by “historically unequal power relations between men and women”. In other words, women’s rights are human rights. Those rights include the right to be free from violence. For many women, however, inequality and power imbalance with men is only part of the picture. Their choices and freedoms are also limited by overlapping forms of inequity stemming from unequal power. Because violence against women is caused by women’s inequality in all of its forms, then ending the conditions that keep women from being equal is needed to end violence against women.
There are many steps the Province of Ontario can take to change the conditions that create and support violence against women. You’ll find some of them on this website. Include them in your demands. Some facts: - Every second a woman somewhere in Canada experiences some form of sexual violence.
- Over 86% of all criminal sexual assaults in Canada are against women.
- 30% of women in Ontario who are 18 years old or over will experience some form of criminal violence.
- Five times more women than men are murdered by their intimate partners. Women who kill their partners often do it in self-defence or after years of abuse.
- Although women in Ontario earn the highest incomes among women in Canada, in 2003 the average incomes for all women earners in Ontario reached only 60% of their male counterparts. The Canadian average was 62%.
- Women spend over one and a half times more hours than men doing child care and housework. In over half of families where both partners work full time, women do all the housework.
More resources: New Federal Policies Affecting Women’s Equality: Reality Check (Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, November 2006) Women’s Civil and Political Rights in Canada: 2005 (Feminist Alliance for International Action, 2005) Equality for Women: Beyond the Illusion (Status of Women Canada, December 2005) Measuring Violence Against Women: Statistical Trends (Statistics Canada 2006) Women in Canada: Fifth Edition. A gender-based statistical report. Statistics Canada (2006) Women’s Studies Journal: Ending Woman Abuse, Winter/Spring 2006 United Nations Secretary General’s In-depth Study on all Forms of Violence Against Women. United Nations, 2006. |
