The Sunday Mail
Clemence Machadu Insight —
Howdy folks! Today is day number 10 in the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign.
The sole message loudly coming from all four corners of the globe is that violence against women and girls surely has no place in today’s modern world and its urgent elimination will buttress and accelerate the development agenda.
However, there still seem to be misguided notions amongst some folks in our good Republic and yonder, threatening the whole agenda. Folks, you will be quite appalled to learn that a significant number of men and women still believe that women should be bashed for various reasons.
In the 2014 Zimbabwe Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 37 percent of women indicated that they believe that a husband is justified to hit his wife. This for reasons ranging from going out without telling him, neglecting the children, arguing with him, refusing to have sex with him or burning the food.
And 24 percent of men believe so too, according to the same survey. What really worries me is why more women than men believe that a man should resort to violence to solve domestic conflicts with his wife.
Let’s forget what men think for a while, does it really mean that there are some women out there who “enjoy” being beaten by their husbands?
Why would they enjoy such a terrible thing — to be black-eyed or left with grievous bodily harm with permanent injuries? Does beating translate to some form of “make-up” whose aftermath can be worn with pride in public?
Does it re-shape and resize women to look more beautiful or does a clenched fist really “knock some sense” into women? Certainly not! Then what is it?
Some women are terrified to the point of grappling with the Stockholm Syndrome, that psychological tendency of hostage victims bonding or sympathising with their captors.
You see, when violence, abuse or threats are directed on someone for a long period, the victim might end up accepting it as a surviving culture. They will see nothing wrong with being beaten.
They can “understand” that their husbands or boyfriends had to beat them because they were “wrong”. They will begin to see themselves as always wrong, and that will affect their self esteem as they begin to look at themselves as inferior people incapable of being loved or liked by anyone else.
When they pass by people who are laughing, they will think that they are the ones being laughed at. They feel so lucky to have their husbands or boyfriends and view them as gods they cannot live without.
Folks, we cannot win the war on violence against women if women are not empowered to break the shackles tying them to any form of vulnerability. How often have you seen a woman who has been severely bartered by her boyfriend or husband actually refusing to press charges, but rather choosing to press some make-up on her face to hide the bruises under the thick layers of face powder?
Or they press charges during the night of beating and withdraw them on the morrow after being sweet-talked with a box of chocolates they can hardly chew.
Those who cannot hide larger injuries will create not-so convincing excuses like, “Oh, I slipped and fell in the tub.” Yet their eyes will be telling a different story.
Anything to let the man maintain his “good-standing” in the society! But where does it leave your psychological standing when you find yourself crying to sleep every night?
You may cheat the world, but you cannot cheat your own feelings and emotions! The sad thing is that the denial will make it difficult for the abused woman to be rescued.
One day, that man will “finish her off”, much to the bafflement of the people who may have been envying the couple. “So the husband has been beating her all along, but she always looked happy and content inga wani,” they will remark.
Folks, some women out there don’t need counselling as an immediate solution to their problems. What they immediately need is a negotiator to release them from the hostage situation they are misconstruing for marriage.
Counselling can come later when they are in a secure location. You have to pardon me, the plan was to mainly focus on economic abuse when I started on this instalment and then I got carried away.
But it’s still an apple not far from the tree. Economic abuse (not to be confused with abuse of the economy) is a form of domestic violence under the Domestic Violence Act (Chapter 5:16).
It occurs when an intimate partner has control over the other partner’s access to economic resources. Section 3(2)d of the Act says that economic abuse includes the unreasonable deprivation of economic or financial resources to which a complainant is entitled under the law or which the complainant requires out of necessity.
The entitlements might range from household necessities, medical expenses, school fees and rent payments. There are many men out there depriving their wives money to buy basic necessities such as food.
Remember that Epworth man who literally set his wife ablaze for not cooking sadza for him, and yet there was nothing to cook in the house because the woman had no control over how the money was spent?
Economic abuse has left many women under depression. Another serious form of economic abuse is when the husband denies his wife the right to seek employment or to engage in any income-generating activity.
Some women have been forced to quit their jobs after getting married, with the husband promising to take care of them. However, the husband later starts to deny her money to do her hair or nails, giving excuses such as, “Uchada kuonekwa nani iwe wakaroorwa?”
I have heard stories of husbands who actually go to the extent of confiscating their wives’ academic certificates so that they cannot apply for jobs and remain housewives.
The jealous husband’s excuse is, “Anozonyengwa kubasa ikoko”. Yet, some are just insecure and afraid that the wife might earn more money than them. Some men think that if their wives become financially independent, they might end up leaving them.
So, the wife’s standing has to decrease as they increase. Thus they try, by all means, to sabotage their wives’ employment opportunities by even harassing them at their workplaces until they get fired or just decide to quit.
Not long ago, there was a story about a man who went to his wife’s workplace and physically attacked her boss for promoting her, alleging that the two were having an affair.
Some men also forbid their wives from attending job training and advancement opportunities, especially if it’s going to last a few days away from home.
In fact, the mere mention of that opportunity can invite a thorough beating. Yet, if the husband were to get the same opportunity, he would grab it with both hands.
Folks, as we commemorate the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, one thing that we can already deduce from the above is we are not there yet.
If we have arrived, then how come 24 percent of men still believe that husbands should beat their wives? Worse still, how come 37 percent of women still believe that it’s good for their husbands to bash them? We should change this narrative urgently.
Later folks!
