CONTENTS
- The World Takes Notice
- Intimate Partner Abuse
- Sexual Coercion
- Impact on Reproductive Health
- Threats to Health and Development
- Health Providers Play a Key Role
- An Agenda for Change
HIGHLIGHTS
- What lies behind violence?
- Culture: a double-edged sword
- Child sexual abuse is widespread
- Violence harms women in many different ways
- *Pullout guide: What Health Providers Can Do
- Responding to violence: Lessons learned
Published in collaboration with:
6930 Carroll Avenue
Suite 910
Takoma Park
Maryland 20912, USA
Phone: 301/270-1182
Fax: 301/270-2052
The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) is a research and advocacy organization that seeks to integrate concern for gender equity and social justice into international health policy and practice. CHANGE staff can be reached by e-mail at change@genderhealth.org or at http://www.genderhealth.org.
December, 1999
Series L, Number 11
Issues in World Health
Changing Community Norms
A variety of norms and beliefs are particularly powerful in perpetuating violence against women. These include a belief that men are inherently superior to women, that men have a right to “correct” female behavior, that hitting is an appropriate way to discipline women, that a man's honor is linked to a woman's sexual behavior, and that family matters are private and it is inappropriate for others to intervene (210).
Programs designed to change these beliefs must draw people into discussion rather than alienate them by appearing to “demonize” men. To encourage people to consider new norms, programs have used such techniques as community theater and small-group work. In Cambodia, for example, the Project Against Domestic Violence sponsored a traveling theater troupe to encourage discussion about domestic violence and to portray models of new behavior. The troupe performed in 35 villages around the country and drew crowds of 5,000 to 30,000 people at each performance (19).
Laws can be changed and programs enacted that better protect victims of abuse, raise the social cost to the abuser, and influence cultural values. Perhaps most important, however, social attitudes must change so that women gain greater control over their own bodies, over economic and family resources, and over their lives in general.
Health programs and other institutions can help change the perception—often so deep-seated that it is unconscious—that women are fundamentally of less value than men. In the words of human rights activist Charlotte Bunch, “Only when women and girls gain their place as strong and equal members of society will violence against women no longer be an invisible norm, but instead a shocking aberration” (443).
