Blog#2: Violence Against Women: Beyond Statistics

The article I choose for this week is entitled Violence Against Women, Beyond Statics. It's main focus is not only on the statistics that surround Violence against women but what needs to be done to change the unspoken societal ideal that says that violence against women is normal action in society. A study was done by the Pan American Health Organization, World Health Organization and the Center for Disease and Control here in the United States on female violence in Latin America and the Caribbean. Between 17 and 53% of the women in these countries have been physically and or sexually abused by their partner; however 28 to 64% of those same women did not report the incident or speak to anyone about the incident. I believe a real unspoken tragedy concerning this issue is that statistics such as these doesn't really surprise people anymore. It is as if knowing facts such as these and wanting things to change but making no effort actually enforces the idea of women as the inferior gender hence making violence against women either stagnant or growing statistics wise.

The article goes further on to speak of female violence as a common evil, world wide, that can only be changed by not political change and judicial change. However I think the solution to this problem is much bigger than just change with in government and the judicial system. There would have to be a revolution of sorts in the thinking of women and their role within this country, Latin America, the Caribbean and the world.  Most societies and countries if not all of them are focuses on men, patriarchal in all avenues of life. The article states that experts say that a sexist society is hard to eradicate. Maybe it has to do with me being a young woman but I just don't believe that to be true. I see it as more of a crutch that people lean on to not push boundaries, push simple-minded thinking and force people to change. I think the world has grown into this mindset of complacency because the idea that harm against any human being, male or female, is a societal norm borders on being completely and totally insane.  

Jacelle Cannon
02/13/2013
5:51PM

http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1094751&Itemid=1