Violence is Violence

Imagine a lovely couple who gets married. They are so happy that they have two kids but, a few months later, as in most of the marriages, they get divorce. There is someone else, that means the other one do not accepts it and the ex couple starts to send disturbing and insulting messages to each other via mobile. Both believe they are right and they can say whatever they want. One of them goes to a judge. Restraining order, as a result.

After a few more verbal fights, the victim calls the other one. “You need to go to our daughter's school because her teacher wants to talk with you”, says. When that one is there, the victim of the restraining order calls the police. “You should leave the place, your ex-partner is close to you”, the police informs the man. After a while, “you should come to the police office, you are detained after defaulting your restraining order”, the same policeman calls again.

Let´s be honest. Who do you think is “the bad” in the story? If your answer is the man, you affirm you are part of our patriarchal society. This real case [whose names we will keep] is part of what we call gender violence, which is not the same as domestic violence or family violence. In a heterosexual couple, if the man assaults the woman, physically or mentally, that is gender violence. Just because the victim is the woman.

If there is “any violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality”, according to The UK government’s definition, that is domestic violence.

Difference and association between gender and women focus the main problem on gender. So men, just for being male gender, are the aggressors. And if we take into consideration that, according to some statistics, in Spain between 2008 and 2014, 10.15% of the domestic violence is experienced by men; these women who killed their partners, did it because they behaved as men.

Score to our patriarchal society.

In fact, searching for those statistics and numbers about how many men are killed by women is not as easy as found in the other way around. Completely the opposite idea if we believe European barometer which affirms that 94% of people agree with equality between women and men as a fundamental right.

Coming back to our example, the female partner could use her advantage. Her male partner went to jail and is still waiting for the court to enter judgement. Is it fair and equal?

Sabela González