We’re seeing a lot in the media quite recently on sexual violence against women. Women are publicly confronting their abusers, which has sparked a cultural change in society when it comes to the topic of abuse of power.
We live in a society controlled by men, fact.
It’s called patriarchy, and whilst we are feeling more comfortable with the concept of confronting it (especially over the past few years) more needs to be done.
Men, drugs and control
We’ve seen it in the media, in the Gisele Pelicot case where a woman testified against her own husband for drugging her whilst she could be raped by other men. Her former spouse systematically filmed the suspected rapes by dozens of men — storing thousands of images that police investigators later found.
We’ve now seen the allegations against Sean Combs, of kidnapping, drugging and coercing women into sexual activities, sometimes through the use of firearms and threats of violence.
We’ve also seen it in the entertainment and finance industries, with Harry Weinstein’s and Jeffery Epstein’s “Lolita Express”. These were facilitated by such persons’ own assistants and internal structures, which also included women.
What I’m seeing here, is a lot of abuse of power. Some of the worst perpetrators of patriarchy are in fact women.
A 2019 Pew Research study found that 40% of women still believe men should be the primary breadwinners. In many cultures, women play a significant role in enforcing marriage customs, including arranged marriages and dowry systems. In the Amina Noor case, a woman was found guilty of aiding the female genital mutilation of a young girl in Kenya. We can’t ignore these very sad state of affairs, women are too a part of the problem.
So how as women can we turn the tables?
Women have power, we have just been told that we do not
The more we are either told or tell ourselves that we aren’t powerful, the more we’ll believe it. Harping on about the patriarchal society isn’t meant to disempower, it’s meant to raise consciousness so that we can do something about it.
Accepting that you are in an exploitative situation is the first step. We as women need to come to terms with that. We’ve been told to smile, in the face of adversity. A smile, however, can be disarming.
Women not only have the power to strategise, but to build communities. There are many women who are in abusive and/or sexually exploitative relationships, and don’t even know it yet. It took me writing out 56 paragraphs of domestic abuse, running it by a lawyer, to come to terms with the fact that I was a victim of abuse. Trust me – I’ve been there.
The importance of not only opening up the discussion of sexual violence against women is key, because we need to accept that it’s taking place right in front of us.
Opening up the conversation on how women can turn the tables on men, is ideal from my perspective. We are already on the back foot because of patriarchy, so some levelling up is required.
Let’s band together and strategise. All it takes is one really great idea, and tenacity.
