Men’s
violence against women compromises women’s health and well
being in a wide variety of social settings. It takes various
forms, and the extent to which it is condoned or stigmatized,
open or hidden can vary considerably. Violence against women is
typically enmeshed in a complex web of institutionalized social
relations that make women particularly vulnerable to it. Women
often put up with men’s violence because they see no
acceptable alternatives and their lack of alternatives is often
part of the larger cultural logic that sanctions the violence.
The experience of women’s organizations working to reduce
violence against women suggests that it is necessary to
undermine both the individual victim’s acceptance of violence
and its support by the society or subculture.
Background
of the offence
The
patriarchal system in Bangladesh isolates women within their
families and gives men control over most economic resources. In
the ideal version of the traditional rural Bangladeshi Muslim
family, women are secluded to protect them and maintain their
honor. Women’s work and lives take place within the sheltered
confines of the extended family home and compound. Men are seen
as the providers; they work outside of the home and control
interactions between the family and the world outside. In
contemporary rural life whatever high valuation of women
traditionally or ideally was attached to female seclusion is
largely absent. Often men cannot provide adequately because of
economic circumstances, but women remain dependent on them. Many
women have no independent sources of income, little or no
education and few marketable skills, no independent property or
money and no socially sanctioned identity outside of the family.
Discrimination against women and girls in everyday life is
rationalized by the fact that they are seen as an economic
burden. Girls learn to accept dependence and depravation
relative male family members. In extremely poor families where
frequently there is not enough for everyone, this means that
women and girls are most likely to go without a meal, to eat
inadequate meals, to go without warm clothing in the winter and
to receive minimal health care and education.
Statistics
of Deprivation of Rural Women
The
deprivation faced by poor rural women and female children is
starkly reflected in country –level statistics. Life
expectancy for women is typically somewhat higher than that for
men. But statistics in Bangladesh women’s life expectancy was as
follows
| Year |
Men |
Women |
| 1990 |
58 |
49 |
| 1994 |
58 |
58 |
In
1994 it was estimated a substantial improvement but still
reflecting extreme levels of poverty and sex discrimination when
compared with nearby countries such as Sri Lanka where life
expectancy was 71 for men and 75 for women in 1994.
Infectious
disease morbidity in Bangladesh is higher among women than among
men.
Caloric
intake is low and the rate of severe malnutrition’s nearly
three times as high among female children than among male
children.
Infant
and child mortality rates are substantially higher for females
than for males
Seventy-eight
percent of adult female were classified as illiterate in 1993,
compared with 53% of adult men.
The
percentage secondary-school age girls enrolled at that level
(14%) was just over half that for boys (26%).
Source:(
World bank 1990, UN Population fund 1995)
Early
Marriage
for low cost of dowry
Often
girls are married off early for fear that dowry costs will
escalate with their age at marriage and many are married to men
who are considerably older. In general, the early years of
marriage are a time when a young women is expected to prove her
fertility, and there is unspoken assumption that she is not
supposed to have independent desires and goals of her own, nor
make decisions, even in matters related to her own health and
welfare. Violence
against women tends to be most intense during the early years of
marriage.
Omvedt
observations of rural India
Omvedt
underscores the connection between violence against women and
their economic vulnerability in her review of the Resolution
document from a major women’s conference held in Patna,
northern India, pointing out that the relation between violence
and women’s economic exploitation and dependence is circular.
On
the one hand, she observes, the threat of violence keeps women
from gaining control of economic resource. It prevents millions
of women from claming their legal rights to property inheritance
and it often keeps them from going out of the home to take
advantage of economic opportunities, forcing them to do unpaid
or low-paid labor.
At
the same time, they are unable to combat violence because of
their economic dependence. When women are largely confined to
their homes they are relatively sheltered from external
“social violence” by local thugs, landlords, contractors,
police and others, but, as Omvedt observes; “the very family
that protects them is also the sources of the greatest violence
against them.”
Although
violence by men against women in Bangladesh occurs in most cases
within the home, in a large sense it does not originate in the
home nor persist only within the home. It is simply one element
in a system that subordinates women through social norms that
define women’s place and guide their conduct. Public
manifestations of violence against women in response to over
violation of gender norms are very much a part of the social
landscape of rural Bangladesh and take severe forms, but they
occur much less frequently than domestic violence. As with many
forms of social and political control, for the most part it is
the fear of rather than the experience of sanctions that coerces
both men and women into accepting and supporting the strictures
under which they live. In contrast to public violence, women in
rural Bangladesh not only fear but often experience domestic
violence.
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