"Stop disguising violence against women". Guest column by Fazeela Jiwa

Honour Killings? Domestic Violence? Let’s call it what it really is: male violence against women.

The debate rages. How do we classify the alleged murders of four female family members by Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their son Hamed? Is this crime a tragic case of domestic violence?

Do we dare attribute the crime to cultural practice? If there is any culture to which we can attribute the murders, it is not one that is defined by geography, skin colour or race, but one that is defined by gender - a patriarchal culture.

Read the story: Parents charged in killing teenaged daughters in Canada

“Domestic violence” should not be used as a euphemism for a phenomenon of violence, which is mostly perpetrated by men against women. Undeniably, it is women who fill transition houses and keep rape crisis lines busy across the province of British Columbia.

I do not want to be misinterpreted – I am fully aware that men are attacked; they are deserving of help like any victim of violence.

As a feminist, I find it highly offensive when some dare to insinuate that we love to hate men. Firstly, acknowledging the fact that most violence is perpetrated by men is not misandry – I know not all men hurt women and it is a baseless assumption to allege that any feminist would suggest this.

Secondly, what informs my theory that male violence against women is not an individual, situational act but a worldwide phenomenon, are the 120 battered women that we have housed every year since 1973.

To insinuate that I take pleasure in knowing that men have broken their trust and their noses just so that I can slander men is a vile, insulting assertion.

Ignoring the fact that women are disproportionately the victims of “domestic violence” grossly misrepresents acts of violence as the individual acts of madmen with no patterns or themes.

It is not accurate to pathologize perpetrators of violence – men who attack women are not biologically fitted to violence; nor are they psychologically troubled.

Violent men merely know that our society is fitted to a masculine perception of the world; thus most can get away with beating their wives and raping their daughters.

The system in which we operate is patriarchal; meaning that the abuse of women is validated and even encouraged by Western institutions and houses of worship, just as in Eastern cultures.

From the perspective of a front-line rape crisis worker, I have witnessed countless women ask for help from the institutions only to be patronized by being told to “take a walk and calm down”, or even being arrested themselves for being “hysterical” after they have been threatened or raped or beaten.

I have worked with women who are told by their Western religious leaders to just wait through their beatings patiently until he asks her for a divorce, because to leave him would defile her in the eyes of the Lord. (What about his behavior in the eyes of the Lord?)

There are women who are trafficked to Vancouver from poor countries around the world to be sex slaves to their pimps and procurers, and our precious institutions are talking about legalizing prostitution as a legitimate profession.

How can anyone say that Western culture does not tolerate the abuse of women, and other cultures do?

There is no need for anyone to racialize these murders by calling them honour killings. Honour killings are simply another manifestation of worldwide oppression of women through violence.

Women from a myriad of backgrounds are murdered for a myriad of reasons every day. In Canada, approximately one woman a week is murdered by her male partner – many of these murders also include their children.

Violence against women is a worldwide problem, not one that rears its ugly head in a few non-Western cultures.

It is cowardly to make the issue more palatable by attributing it to one area or race or culture, or by calling it names that obscure the problem and thus delegitimize the solutions – a guaranteed livable income, affordable housing, and transition houses that save women’s lives.

If you are in a violent situation, please call us at 604.872.8212 and we will help you get information, plan your escape, and offer you safe shelter.

Fazeela Jiwa | Rape Crisis Line and Transition House Worker
Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter

http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/
604.872.8212
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