Every year we hear more and more statistics about escalating domestic violence. Recent reports from nearby Italy tell us that there is a woman killed every three days – a shocking number which should also alarm us here in Malta because of the similarity in our cultures and temperament.
What we hear from our own court reports points to a similar horrifying cycle of women being beaten by husbands and boyfriends. The stories which never reach the courts can only be imagined, while some only make it to court because the woman has been severely injured or murdered.
It is difficult for assertive, confident women, who would never allow themselves to be abused psychologically or physically, to understand just how other women can fall into this trap of domestic violence. We wonder why she does not simply leave. We ask: why does she go back to him, and forgive him each time? Publicity campaigns urge her to seek help from social workers, to come forward and file a police report, and yet we still hear of women who file a report – only to then change their minds. It is easy, however, to sit in judgment of women whose self-esteem has been so damaged that they are incapable of making that first step and leaving an intolerable situation. One would have to imagine being in their place, when every day you are told you are worthless, useless, disgusting, and the reason he is hitting you is because you have done something wrong. You live in constant fear and you are not in control of your life. With every insult, every blow and every demeaning word, a woman’s spirit is eventually broken.
This is why we need to shift our focus to the root of it to try and understand why girls and women enter into these types of unhealthy, dysfunctional relationships in the first place (the signs of which are not always apparent at first). We also need to question why so many men feel they can only be “real men” if they act macho and try to prove their superiority and dominance by the way they treat women.
It is also crucial for us to re-examine the usual stereotypes as to who may or may not become a victim of domestic abuse. It is not just women who are financially dependent on their husbands.
According to a recent study reported in The Telegraph, “women earning more than 67 per cent of the total household income were seven times more likely to experience psychological and physical abuse compared to women who earn less than 33 per cent”, the study found. “Whenever power is unevenly allocated in a relationship, the chance of physical and psychological abuse increases,” said sociologist Heidi Fischer Bjelland who carried out the research. “And the abused partner is usually the one with the higher status. Violence or control is used as a compensation for the partner’s weak position in the relationship, and may thus be regarded as an attempt to balance what is perceived as an uneven division of power.”
These findings mean that we need to be more careful in the messages which as a society we are transmitting to both women and men.
It is interesting that while we have more women graduates than men, and girls seem to be doing better at school than boys, pointing to a changing trend in the balance of the ratio of female to male academic qualifications (what we might call intellectual power), when it comes to emotional power, the relationship between the two sexes can still be off kilter. One side might feel the need to dominate the other, and while those who have a relationship based on true equality and mutual respect do exist, in unhealthy relationships, the more controlling person has a need to keep the meeker, more submissive person under their thumb at all costs.
Could it be that as women become more qualified and educated, some men are finding it difficult to know what their own role within the relationship should be? The uncontrollable rage which builds up inside some men, leading them to inflict physical harm, has as its beginnings a need to control. When decision-making is no longer in their hands, men (and women) with anger issues lash out verbally and physically, externalizing their own feelings of inadequacy, real or perceived, on the person closest to them.
Educating our sons and daughters, not only in academics but more crucially on how to respect one another’s needs, must begin at an early age. For this reason, the decision by the Ministry of Education to integrate boys and girls through co-ed schooling can only be applauded. Both genders need to understand that being feminine or masculine does not hinge on who is superior to whom, but are simply physiological differences which should complement one another.
Only in this way can we start to get to the root of this unfortunately pervasive social reality.
Mrs Mizzi is a standing Member of the European Parliament and a candidate in the forthcoming European parliamentary election
[email protected]; www.mizzimarlene.com