Be your Sisters(and Brothers) Keeper!

I didn't know October was Domestic Violence awareness month until I saw a post about it, but while I  was completing a final review and wondered why so many women stay in certain situations and don’t report them and I found that, according to society:

Gender based violence is coercion that is understood, explained or justified in terms of gender roles, gender difference and gender inequality.

Three kinds of Gender Based Violence are: Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault and Rape.

The five characteristics that they all share are:

1. They are often regarded as private issues between a man and a woman that should not concern government and legal institutions.

2. Women are often seen as causing the violence against them, a situation we will label victim precipitation, thus relieving the male perpetrators of guilt.

3. Women are often seen as consenting to the violence of coercive behavior, which also shifts the blame to them from the perpetrator.

4. The legal and justice system traditionally either ignored these forms of violence and coercion or treated victims in such a way as to re-victimize them

5. Substantial change in the law, intervention, and social norms began to occur in the 1970s and 1980s, largely at the behest of the women’s movement and through organizations developed within the women’s movement.

Sadly, men remain in denial, describing their actions as rational responses to stress or provocations, especially the provocations of a woman who has stepped out of her proper place.

Women have been reluctant to report such violence because they said the violence was a private and personal matter that should not be brought to others attention. Or, police would not do anything, were biased or ineffective. The same can happen for men too, women aren’t the only ones in abusive relationships.

This is why it’s SOOOOO important to be our brothers keeper and remain concerned. When someone you know is going through something like this, it won’t be easy, but I say prayerfully get involved. There are many ways out. I’m not trying to be an advocate or condone anything, just sharing my perspective, what I learned and felt led to share.

-Tiffany