Gender Inequality and its Impact on Violence Against Women in Australia
Discuss about the Reasons And Factors Of Gender Inequalities.
The perpetration of violence committed by men against women is perceived as a manifestation of historically unequal power relations that exists between men and women. In Australia, despite several legislative reforms and public policy being in place, the frequency of violence committed against women remains significantly high. Evidence suggests that the prevalence of gender inequalities in the social and economic context is likely to enhance the risk of offences committed by men against women, further, inhibiting the ability of the victimized women that strives to seek protection (Domesticviolence.com.au. 2018). However, while it has become imperative to ensure immediate safety is accorded to the women, which requires a stringent and effective legal framework that would enforce such safety and security, it is unfortunate that the statutory framework is failing to administer justice to women against the criminal offences on the grounds of gender inequality. This essay entails the reasons and factors that are giving a boost to the gender inequalities and are impeding the legal system in endowing women that are being subjected to abuse or violence to justice.
Australian women experience sexual violence, violence committed by their intimate partners and sexual harassment since as young as fifteen years old. Although majority of women experience such type of crimes in their homes and at the hands of men they are acquainted with, the impact of such violence reflects in the society altogether. As mentioned, gender inequality being the significant impediment to providing justice to the victimized women, is embedded within the society, requires to be deracinated (Finn 2015). In order to uproot the deeply rooted societal menace, it is more important to spread the awareness of violence and abuse and the factors that are accentuating its occurrence.
Gender equality is a concept that every individual must be acquainted with since a person embarks on his or her life’s journey. It must begin within the society instead in the courts of justice where women that are being subjected to abuse and domestic violence are traumatized. Finn (2015) states that even in this contemporary era which is known for technological advancements, is still lagging behind with respect to gender inequality. Females in the society are still subjected to unequal treatment in every aspect such as sports, employment in terms of different pay scales between male and female employees, male dominance in family matters etc.
Factors Contributing to Gender Inequalities
A lack of gender equality is persistently cited as fundamental determinant of violence committed against women. The attainment of gender equality is the fundamental objective in preventing violence against women by those who are interested in reducing or eliminating gendered based violence. In other words, if Australia must be free from all types of abuses and violence that are being committed against women, it is important to challenge the historically embedded behavioral patterns and beliefs that primarily influence commission of such crimes along with the political, social and economic structures and systems that extends support to such criminal activities (Finn 2015).
According to Renzetti (2012), the fundamental factors that causes violence and abuse against women include the beliefs, behavioral patterns that demonstrates disrespect for women, lack of knowledge or support for gender equality and most importantly, the adherence to the stereotype perception towards relationship, gender identities and gender roles. Salter (2016) believes that through increase public awareness within the institutions such as schools, colleges, organization shall enable to eliminate or reduce the myriad of damage caused by violence and abuse that it inflicts upon individuals, institutions, organizations and the society altogether.
Gender inequality builds the necessary social context, which influences occurrence of violence against women in Australia. Gender inequality is a social condition that is characterized by unequal value that is afforded to women and men and an unequal distribution of power, opportunity and resources between them. In the contemporary society, gender inequality is prevalent even today through social structures that persist to organize and strengthens the unequal distribution of economic, political and social resources and power between men and women.
It is important that education in schools include adequate information about gender equality and it significance. Although there has been considerable progress in accessibility to education but along with the increased accessibility to education, it is equally important to ensure that textbooks do not promote negative stereotypes regarding the concept of gender equality. This shall facilitate girls and boys who come out of school as citizens to understand the concept of gender equality and shape a better and an equal society. Similarly, organizational policies must be placed at workplace to ensure gender inequality in terms of job designation and inequalities in pay are prohibited (Renzetti 2012). The employees are the foundation for the global economy; hence, it is important to remove the structural inequality. Community interventions are also important to address gender attitudes and norms by empowering women and engaging them with men where men will learn to demonstrate a changing attitude towards the traditional gender norms and behavioral pattern.
Addressing Gender Inequalities and Violence Against Women: Measures and Strategies
Salter (2016) believes that using the criminal justice and court system do not address domestic violence that is prevalent in the Australian society as it does not facilitate in removing gender inequalities from the society. This is evident from the fact that people having previous record of non-compliance with a community-based order or has violated a bail condition or previous record of committing violence against their partners. This establishes that these people are given second and third chances knowing that they have such criminal records or violence mentality.
According to Hunnicutt (2009), feminists researchers, advocates and practitioners have recognized that women are primary targets of abuse that is committed against them by their intimate partners, ex-partners but instead of holding such perpetrators as liable for the violence, the victimized women are blamed for the offence due to dominance of male supremacy over women prevailing in the society. This notion can be related to the feminists’ theory of radical feminism which deals with the perspective that requires reordering of the society to eliminate the entrenched male supremacy in all economic and social context.
This concept considers patriarchy as the fundamental cause for women violence as the concept views society as a male dominated society where women are perceived as subordinate to men and are usually subjected to oppression and violence if they do not submit themselves before the men. The radical feminism theory states that the prevalence of male supremacy as an acceptable societal norms that causes violence against women can be reduced by eliminating male privilege along with gender inequalities (Hunnicutt 2009).
In Australia, significant measures like campaigns, workshops, and other relevant resources have been engaged to change the attitudes towards domestic violence and towards women which undoubtedly will take some time. It is important to understand the dynamics, causes and patterns that usually causes violence against women as it will help to ensure appropriate responses by the victims as well as towards such victims. Hunnicutt (2009) further points out that while it is usually believed that gender inequality between sexes give rise to environments and circumstances where men seek to exercise control over women and abuse them if they do not submit to them. In Australia, lack of public awareness and least consideration of the legal framework have fostered male supremacy as a significant societal norm (Davies 2011).
Nevertheless, the influence such stereotype male dominance have on the continuance of gender inequality is required to be addressed along with the problem related to oppression of women that is mainly created due to gender inequality. If the males are encouraged to evaluate their socially constructed gender profiles, it is possible to educate them regarding the manner in which their social role may affect gender equality. The social interpretation of gender is basically a power system that not only segregates men and women as feminine and masculine but also places men as well as their masculinity above women and femininity (Meyer 2016). Such social gender construction usually gives priority to those practices and institutions that either demonstrates masculine styles and traits or portrays male dominance (Salter 2016).
Role of Education in Creating Awareness on Gender Equality
From the above discussion, it can be inferred that as a society that has male dominance, which is giving rise to gender inequalities, as an embedded societal norms, often blame the victimized women for the violence or abuse she experiences (Tyson, Kirkwood and Mckenzie 2017). If she is raped in a public place, the first question that arises is why she was walking in the public place alone; if she is subjected to torture by her partner or husband at home, it is considered as dramatic and a mere misunderstanding which is normal between couples (Barnard et al. 2018).
Even in Australia, this victim blaming behavioral pattern is a significant concern amongst young people, in particular. This is because of ineffective and proper legal framework that fails to eliminate gender inequality, only to make the victimized women to suffer more and denied justice, given that gender inequality has become a social norm (Berns 2017). Therefore, it is important that a feminist criminology as well the legal framework must be developed in a manner that not only recognizes but also addresses the issues arising from gender inequalities and if possible, uproot the social menace replacing with a fairer and more equal societal norm.
References
Barnard, M., West-Strum, D., Holmes, E., Yang, Y. and Fisher, A., 2018. The potential for screening for intimate partner violence in community pharmacies: An exploratory study of female consumers’ perspectives. Journal of interpersonal violence, 33(6), pp.960-979.
Berns, N.S., 2017. Framing the victim: Domestic violence, media, and social problems. Routledge.
Braaf, R & Meyering, IB 2013, The gender debate in domestic violence: the role of data, The University of New South Wales.
Davies, P 2011, Gender, crime and victimisation, 1st edn, Sage, Los Angeles.
Domesticviolence.com.au. (2018). DOMESTIC VIOLENCE STATISTICS. [online] Available at: https://www.domesticviolence.com.au/pages/domestic-violence-statistics.php [Accessed 7 Jun. 2018].
Finn, M., 2015. Radical Feminism. Feminist Activism in Movement.
Hunnicutt, G 2009, Varieties of Patriarchy and Violence Against Women: Violence against Women, vol, 5, Sage.
Meyer, S., 2016. Still blaming the victim of intimate partner violence? Women’s narratives of victim desistance and redemption when seeking support. Theoretical criminology, 20(1), pp.75-90.
Renzetti, CM 2012, Feminist perspectives in criminology: Routledge handbook of critical criminology, pp, 129-137, Routledge, Abingdon.
Salter, M., 2016. ‘Real men don’t hit women’: Constructing masculinity in the prevention of violence against women. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 49(4), pp.463-479.
Tyson, D., Kirkwood, D. and Mckenzie, M., 2017. Family violence in domestic homicides: a case study of women who killed intimate partners post-legislative reform in Victoria, Australia. Violence against women, 23(5), pp.559-583.
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