Cultures' Contribution to Gender-based Violence.

Cultures have highly contributed to gender-based , especially in the marginalised areas where women's education is not embraced while early marriages are highly accepted, because they feel that a woman is meant for procreation, should be submissive and has no voice whatsoever in society. Cultures have successfully made women a shadow of themselves.

Violence has been used by men to claim dominance over women. I term it cowardice because it is only a coward who would use violence to make a woman submit. This is an enabled form of violence because they view women as their property and term them as inferior hence have no say, should take in anything thrown at them and should not dare object to anything whether it sits well with them or not.

Masculinity, it baffles me that some cultures rank a violent man so highly, the more violent they are the more honour they receive not caring how their victims will be affected. Those cultures should be abolished and the perpetrators and supporters of them should face the law for violating human rights and endangering the lives of their women.

Domestic space is private, and other men have so much authority that family matters are not supposed to be taken out no matter the magnitude. Such cultures force isolation on women, legitimising domestic violence since they cannot seek intervention to address violence meted out on them.

Stigma and shame have made women shun seeking help as their culture views them as weaklings and at times blames them for the violence that was meted out on them. To avoid this they choose to remain silent. Also preserving family reputation discourages them from speaking up which should not be the case as family should be a source of security and not a threat to it, silence in pain is acceptable but speaking up is highly objected so the family name does not get ruined.

Early marriages automatically spell violence because as the girls grow up they learn way too much from their surroundings, become aware of themselves abs in return tend to want to have a say which they get deprived of and on becoming rebellious violence is used to get them back on track. Airing one’s concerns should not attract violence rather a room for conversation but such is absent in those cultures as the ladies mostly get married to men picked for them so even the connection is not there making the men ruthless and aggressive.

Addressing gender based violence requires abolishing those deeply rooted cultures that support violence and thorough education to show that there are different civilised ways to make women submissive without violence. Also, power imbalances should be revised to ensure that people are aware of what boundaries should not be crossed and how best to address disagreements. Violence sabotages growth, slows down productivity and even causes lifetime injuries and worse death. Cultures should protect and not endanger lives.