Preventing DV by changing our culture of violence - Notes from the conversation
 |
| Image shared by Valini Leitch |
The lead facilitators were Alexandrina Wong – Gender and Health Consultant and Salima Hinds – Gender and Development Specialist
The moderator was Vidyaratha Kissoon
This conversation follows one previously held on Healing for Survivors of Domestic violence
These notes reflect some of the discussion.
Change
Change is difficult but necessary. Changing self is needed before community or family or culture could change.
We have to change how we view power, power in the family and in the community. We have to understand how people see power as something to abuse. We have to look at how power intersects with gender in the home ; in the work place, in the country.
We have to look at how the abuse of power in the society and culture affects what happens in the home. And that dominance in the society is often replicated in the home. We cannot change domestic violence without looking at how the society tolerates the abusive displays of power in other settings.
There is an acceptance that it is okay to beat children, can we prevent domestic violence while saying it is okay to beat children?
We have to look at how we deal with conflict, and how we resolve and transform conflict.
We have to change how we accept aggression and violence as social norms in our interpersonal lives, and how we promote masculinity as aggressive.
In addition to talking about abuse, we also have to talk about what makes a healthy relationship. We have to examine what equal partnership looks like, and how respect operates in a relationship.
Culture
The group discussed the various aspects of culture – films, songs, etc which promote gender inequalities. There was sharing of the views like “ladies must be seen and not heard’ and that what a ‘young lady’ must do versus what a ‘big woman’ does and that those distinctions help to enforce silence when abuse happens.
Religion
“Man must be head of the home’ is the teaching practiced, with all kinds of teachings of what head means. Some of those teachings results in encouraging abuse and violence and preventing survivors from seeking help.
One of the participants shared that “there is much more in the Bible about domestic relationships other than the man being head if home. There is so much more about the relationship for example the man needs to love his woman like Christ loves the church. Point is we need to highlight the other instructions in relation to domestic relations.” Another participant shared that “.. if we go to the Hebrew of that text we will get a very different understanding of the text"
Family
There was discussion about this push to do family reconciliation, no matter what the cost. One person shared a recent story about helping a neighbour to escape an abusive partner, and that the neighbour was under pressure to ‘make up back’.
Another person shared about her mother and aunt. Her aunt did not survive. She called for breaking of silences and not to keep protecting family secrets.
Supporting survivors
A survivor questioned the focus on looking and theories about the causes while there were immediate needs especially Covid. That there was limited support for survivors and that it was critical for helpers to be able to respond to those needs to ensure safety.
The discussion continued to reflect that meeting the needs of survivors was priority. There was also need to ensure that the perpetrators of violence are held accountable for their behaviour.
We discussed that we have to also look at the changes needed in our culture so that we do not have to keep living with domestic violence as a part of our society.
Action
One participant shared
“For systemic change, we need to think about prevention- advocate for reform of the educational system so that children learn about healthy relationships/communication, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, empathy, sexual diversity etc and build their skills in these areas from a young age- that's how you grow a healthier society. In terms of dealing with the here and now- survivors who need alternative housing, economic support etc- more needs to be done to pressure governments to fund shelters, counselors, etc.
We need to organize collectively more and work to get those holding the purse strings to realize that investing in "helping survivors" does more that that- it actually helps break the cycle of violence and builds a stronger, healthier society.
Helplines
Barbados - barbadosnow@gmail.com or National Organisation of Women on Facebook for safe space and related service for violence against women and girls.
Guyana
Comments
Post a Comment