Break The Circle - Part 1/2

Letís choose any point on our planet. It doesnít matter whether itís a big city or a small town; if it's on the sea or in the middle of the desert. It neither matters which language is spoken, which God is worshipped or which customs are followed. In any place, there will always be women and there will always be men. And gender violence. Always. Gender violence is a humankind problem. But letís do the following test: Letís open a newspaper and read the news on women violence. What do the headlines say? Do they tell us about a global problem or do they tell us particular stories about certain individuals? Insanity, passion, jealousy and even love stories aboundÖ Love can never ever explain violence. And insanity, jealousy or passion donít help either, because stories about people with irrational attitudes seem to be rare stories. And we said that gender violence is a humankind problem. For all this, letís find a way to explain what gender violence is, how it has spread worldwide and how to stop it. In order to do so, letís analyse what violence is. Violence usually begins in a relationship between two parts: one who exercises it and another who suffers from it. Letís think together about this example: Weíll call these two parts A and B. A and B can be two individuals, two groups or even two states. What is necessary for a violent relationship to exist between A and B? Firstly, this relationship is usually unequal; it must be a power relationship. Letís imagine that A and B are equal except for one thing: A has prestige. This is, A and B live in a society which appreciates A more than B. Then, what happens? A can demand that B do certain things based on the social prestige and power that A has. And B, on the other hand, may want to earn that prestige she or he doesnít have. This is a power relationship, because one of its components has more resources than the other. Prestige is a resource. Other resources can be money, physical strength, authority and education. But power does not equal violence. Thereís one more missing element. What is that element? Weíve said that A has prestige. Now, on top of that, letís add more resources: A has money--enough money for nurturing, clothing, education and leisure. B has this resource but not enough to achieve development. Therefore, B depends on A. So far, our first element: power relationship. Between a worker and a company owner there is a power relationship, and between a father and a son, too. But this doesnít necessarily mean there is violence. In the example, we now assume that A, threatening B with taking away the resource B needs, harms B either physically or mentally, or deprives B from access to other resources, for example, freedom of movement. A is using resources to threaten, harm or deprive B from something. That is violence. So now we have new concepts to explain violence: we talk of inequality, power, resources, threats and harms. But here, we want to explain one particular type of violence: gender violence. So, now itís time to ask what gender is. Gender is a group of definitions, socially built on what it means to be a man or a woman in our societies. What does that mean? It means that when we say ìIím a woman,î which is a social construction, weíre saying much more than when we say ìIím a female of the human species,î which is a biological composition. Saying ìIím a manî or ìIím a womanî is basically stating a whole group of ideas, values, beliefs and rules that come from the society we live in. This group of ideas defines which attitudes, activities and behaviours are expected from us if weíre men or women --itís the social is-ought. And although every society is different, the groups of ideas that define what is to be a man and what is to be a woman are alike throughout the world. To understand it better, letís imagine that our planet is a great stage, and that when weíre born weíre given a script. This script represents the ideas that groups follow, and there is one script for men and a different one for women. This script says how the play director, or society as a whole, expects us to move, to talk, to think, or to act. Weíre going to develop that social is-ought, according to what the group of ideas shows is our gender role throughout our entire lives. This is because gender roles not only define what is to be female and what is to be male, as in a dictionary, but also enumerate different rights, responsibilities and acknowledgments for each of us just because weíre men or women. And not only that--these ìscriptsî or groups of ideas justify the reactions the community will have against those who ìdonít fit in;î that is, how the play director or society as a whole will react if somebody improvises or doesnít follow the script. And one of the ways to punish those who donít follow the script is violence. Weíve said that for violence to exist, there must be inequality. Therefore, Where does this inequality appear? Because in this scenario men and women could be the protagonists, even playing different roles. The problem is that the play director or the society as a whole values one of the roles more for certain given situations than others: the manís role. And do they all agree with this? No. But a great number of people do not argue about either their own or othersí roles. They think that what they do is just natural and something they cannot fight against because ìthis is how things are and theyíve always been this way.î This is called social norms naturalization and helps things to stay the same. Weíre surrounded by social codes which never stop telling us what is suitable for a woman to do and what is suitable for a man to do. Where are those speeches or the script content? Everywhere: In our families, at school, in the media, in state policies, and at work. Letís do another test. Letís turn on the television or glance at a magazine. What do their social codes on men and women say? What is it that they show as ìnormal?î In the first place, just like decades ago, what seems to be the natural thing is for women to take care of household chores. This presumes that she takes care of children and the old, ìdoes the housework, buy food, cleaning products and anything necessary to run the houseî. It seems logical that if the woman is the biological being who reproduces the human species, it should be her who should initially take care of the offspring. Men, on the other hand, appear to be the ones responsible for working outside the house, earning money and carrying out ìproductiveî activities. They also choose how to spend the money on possessions, housing, automobiles, holidays and anything outside the home environment. We all know that today many women work outside their homes. Why? There are multiple answers, but there is a common factor which let us generalize: societies are changing, and so does the îstage.î However, the script or the group of social ideas still says that women are the natural homemakers. How can we understand this? Simply put: Women now do both jobs. In order to see the effects this role division has,