Mediocrity of Domestic Abuse

How many of us were brought up with this concept instilled in our head that women are multitasking? I was! And I certainly believe in this truth. The challenge is, however, in the transition. You might be wondering how this has got to do with Domestic abuse. By the end of this blog, you will be surprised to figure out how they are intricately related. Let me start by explaining what DA is.  DA is a pattern of behaviour which involves the abuse by one person against another in an intimate relationship such as marriage, cohabitation, dating or within the family. Forms of domestic violence include physical, emotional, verbal, economic, social, financial and sexual abuse, which can range from subtle, coercive forms of abuse to violent physical abuse that results in disfigurement, lifetime trauma, mental illness or death.

In trying to understand and correlate DA with multitasking women, let me define DA in a way not many know it to be, especially in our Nepalese pre-context. We need to create a culture where people can easily perceive and identify what domestic abuse/violence actually is! Let’s start with a one liner--He didn’t have to hit you for it to be an abuse! He can degrade, humiliate, blame, curse, manipulate, threaten or try to control you and that’s classified as an abuse. When a girl is denied a right to spend time with her friends in the name of traditional and honour barrier, when she is openly mocked for her desire to start a career and denied of her right to utilize her skills and knowledge, when she is scorned of her witty humour and easy going attitude, when her movements are counted, calculated, directed, controlled and spied upon, when she is restricted to access information, when she is constantly put down for being herself and made to feel she wouldn’t be “accepted”  if it hadn’t been for him, when her self-worth is crushed down every single time she felt a bit better, when her passion to pursue anything is subdued with a nonchalant dismissive “no permission” glance, and when her personal phone and social networking sites are being stalked upon, she IS being abused. Now to a modern day men and women alike, this definition of abuse sounds inexplicably and ridiculously too close to heart to even draw a thin line between a mediocre household scene and DA. I’ve often heard people say “but that is what being in a relationship includes! That is just being disciplined and committed NOT domestic abuse”.  I then ask why are women considered to be multitasking? People get shocked. They cannot comprehend why I am asking the question out of context. I ask why do we as women ourselves, take pride in being multitasking more so than men? Why?

Let me answer that for you. We are brought up believing that girls are multitasking (my opening line, this is where it gets tricky). In that very concept of “multitasking” society has tried to instil and create a lot of expectations from girls from very early on. We women are an epitome of multitask—we recreate, reproduce, work, love, study, manage budget, bring up kids…..easy examples are helping out with kids’ homework while organizing dinner, attending meeting while deciding on what clothes to wear for social party, thinking of stupid excuses to give while on dates, bawling our eyes out crying watching a movie while managing to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves from opposite sex, thinking about emotions and future while engaging in sexual activity, common, seriously who does that? Apparently most women do! Some men might do few of the things mentioned above, but women are conditioned to multi-think and multi-task on the go constantly. This practice is reinforced in a woman’s everyday living to prepare her to take any kind of abuse as a “part” of her conditioned “capacity” to deal with ANYTHING, mainly abuse. We women are expected to be virgin until the day we get married, and then we are suddenly expected to please and serve our partners sexually from the day we get hitched! what double standards of our society in encouraging girls to cop abuse!

 Domestic violence often occurs because the perpetrator believes that abuse is acceptable. This is particularly insidious within intergenerational cycles of abuse and cultural systems that condone violence. Extreme forms of abuse include various forms of honour killings where individuals, generally women, are killed for the perceived dishonour that they brought upon their family, such as for refusing an arranged marriage, coercive sex or having been perceived as violating traditional gender expectations. Awareness, perception, definition and documentation of domestic violence differ widely from country to country, and from era to era.

Individuals may be trapped in domestic violent situations through isolation, power and control, insufficient financial resources, fear and shame. As a result of abuse, survivors may experience physical disabilities, chronic health problems, mental illness, limited finances, and poor ability to create healthy relationships later in life. Victims may experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Children who live in a household with violence may continue the legacy of abuse when they reach adulthood.

So, next time your partner coerces and you are not enjoying it, it IS an abuse. When you pretend to be happy in your relationship ‘just for the sake of children’, be weary that children can “sense’ uneasiness and abuse by the vibes that inculcates in the household; don’t fool yourself in believing that kids will understand or appreciate sticking together as a family. In the long run, by submissive and tolerating abusive relationship, we are still creating a society that is promoting abuse. If we cannot identify and stand up for ourselves against abuse in our personal relationship, if we keep giving excuses to conform to the society for the sake of convenience and societal norm, how can we expect future generation to be any different? Would you bring up a child to be either a perpetrator or a victim and nothing in between? Would you still take pride in the phrase “women are multitasking”? Sometimes telling the truth is ugly. Sometimes we just have to be dark in coming clean. I wish everyone would give permission to themselves to bitch and come out clean .Once in every cancer moon. Because tolerating abuse is a form of apathy that is more dangerous than a bitch-fest. The world has never been destroyed by evil people, it gets thrashed and destroyed by the ones silently witnessing injustice and doing nothing about it. Changing one person at a time, understanding domestic abuse and its context in Nepal.  I have come off clean, will you??