generalspeaking

The Brutalization of Women

In Democratic Republic of Congo, both government forces and the rebel Hutu militia target women, raping and maiming them; no humane restraints on these activities which see women as conduits for men's rage with one another, and as convenient victims of power-lust. In Somalia, the Al-Shabab who have cornered the market in that war-torn country on brutality, women are targets of Islamist fixation on women's slight place in a society quick to condemn them to torture or death for perceived social slights.

And in Zimbabwe, as had been done in Kenya in contested elections, women were systematically raped as pay-back for resistance to the reigning tyrants. The Sudanese perfected their own system of horrendous mass rape of women and children, while brutally exiling Darfurians from their ancestral land. And even now, in refugee camps, continue their program of rape. Rwanda's genocidal turmoil saw women and girls maimed and raped and left for dead if not dispatched.

In Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran honour killings remain a traditional venting of male frustration at the very thought of women attempting to assert their human rights and move beyond the confines of the burka, the niqab, to find their place in life outside lifelong servitude to the needs of domineering men. From marriages forced upon girl children, to female genital mutilation, women trafficked as sex slaves, and on to mass rapes and intimate violence within the home, women are brutalized to keep them in their place.

Historically in the world of the west, through Christian doctrine and the social compact led by a patriarchal society women were seen starkly in the extreme colours of whore or virgin. They became either one or the other at the whim of public opinion and the gentrified men whose wives were representative of the latter while they sought the services of the former. Society and culture are resistant to change, and in fact, little has changed between the sexes, with men continuing to seek the services of the 'fallen', while purporting to respect the pure.

It remains vastly men - particularly and most offensively men who have dedicated their public lives to care for the downtrodden, taking on the mantle of gentle cleric - West or East - dispensing advice to the troubled in the houses of God - who betray trust and sully the virtue of womenfolk, and lust after the immature bodies of boys and girls in their parishes. The strands of women subjugated to the delusional imperative of control by men reach everywhere.

Oppression of women, of girl children and of boys to satisfy the incendiary hate and the lust of men knows no bounds. Sullying and tarnishing the greater body of men aghast at the persistent and gruesome need of their sex to objectify and blemish healthy relationships between the genders. The viral essence of misogyny and its lethal results in poisoning the lives of women remains humankind's greatest failure.

Labels: Human Relations, Human Rights, Traditions

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, December 10, 2009