25.   VIOLENCE  AGAINST  WOMEN

                                                              Sarojini Henry


    Violence is often defined as an overt act of aggression directed towards an opponent causing much pain, injury and fear.  Violence is also taken as a demonstration of force and power against the other person.  In such a situation, violence becomes a monologue which treats the other person as an object to be manipulated and exploited.  Violence can also be covert, that is hidden, veiled, subtle, and this concealed act of repression can be equally disastrous and destructive.  We can look at a person violently, our words can be hostile and our attitude towards the opponent can be harmful and derogatory.  In fact, words and attitudes can kill.

Violence Against Women in the Church:
    It is this covert and hidden violence that women, more often, face in the Indian church today.  But the churches in India are not monolithic, they differ from one another in their cultural norms, traditional values and patterns of ministry and worship.  Unlike the churches in the West, where doctrinal and theological factors are the causes for much division and dispute, Indian churches are divided on the basis of caste, culture, language and community as well as on theological issues.  Since the status and role of women depend very much on caste and cultural conventions, it is rather difficult to make an overall statement on the church's attitude towards women and the violence involved.  Therefore, what is expressed in this section will apply more in some churches than in others.
    The violence that women experience in the church can be described as an intricate, interconnected network of attitudes and actions.  Patriarchal attitudes and behavior have confined women to passive and secondary roles in the church and its mission.  Women's service and their leadership potential receive very little recognition.  In the church, men have more opportunity for success and it is men who hold high offices such as those of bishops, principals of theological seminaries and the vast majority of chairpersons of boards and committees.  Churches and related institutions have come to appear to the public as centers of power, money and prestige.  And men are often unwilling to renounce their privileges and share their power with women.  It is interesting that men quarrel over many issues, but when it comes to patriarchy and suppression of women, there is always a silent acquiescence and consensus.  There seems to be a nagging mentality that women should not be allowed to excel over the male.  There is always a line drawn limiting the ministry of women to particular areas of the church's life and mission.
    It is evident that the church has accommodated itself well to the patriarchal model of Indian society.  The process of repression and subordination of women in the church takes place within the overall social and political structure, which makes them look normal in the social system.  The images and values of a society are soon projected into the realm of beliefs, which in turn seem to justify the social infrastructure. 
    The belief system soon gets hardened and is given a validity of its own.  For example, in the case of adultery, it is assumed that the woman is the sinner.   The guilty man escapes and the vulnerable woman is prone to punishment.  In a similar way, the legal system is biased against women.  The Christian community discriminated against women in matters of divorce and inheritance laws.  Culture and tradition teach us that the exploitation of women and their repression are normal and dull our senses from seeing them otherwise.
    Women also learn to look at their own subordination as if it were something normal in society.  The secondary status and role of women is so much a part of the Indian social system that many women are hardly conscious of the oppression and highhandedness of men.  From childhood, women are conditioned to look at themselves as inferior to men, lacking the intelligence and courage of the male.  The result is that they lack confidence in themselves and have the tendency to become submerged in the agenda of the man's world.  Lacking self confidence, women are often slow to recognize and trust the gifts and potentialities of other women.
    Women in general tend to trust and honor men more readily than they trust and honor other women.  Further, women do not try to explore their full capability and accept readily a secondary role. By and large, women have a fear of hurting a man's ego, particularly if the man happens to be in the family.  Therefore, women in the context of family, church, school, workplace and community exist by negotiating and compromising.  Women try to maintain relationships even if they are superficial and unsatisfactory, not realizing that it is a struggle for power that predominates in most of human relationships.  For the sake of security and safety in the home and in society women are often willing to accept injustice and thus carry on dull and restricted lives.

Negative Images of Women in the Bible:
    Christian women have also internalized some of the negative images of women found in the Bible.  While the positive images can be liberating and inspiring, negative images stifle their behavior, restricting their freedom of thought and action.  In the Old Testament, women are portrayed as the property of men, as temptresses and as unclean creatures.  Women are also nameless non-persons, identified only by their relationship to men, as for example Lot's wife and Jephthah's daughter.  The image of the woman as submissive is frequently based on Genesis, chapter 2, because woman is made out of Adam's rib, and created as a `helpmate' to the male.
    In the New Testament, the emphasis on the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is projected as a feminine quality, with the result that women tend to see themselves in the footsteps of the master as submissive suffering servants.  Women have been excluded from bearing witness based on the belief that women's words cannot be trusted.  In the gospels, Mary Magdalene tells the male disciples that Jesus has risen from the dead, but the men do not believe her.  Mary Magdalene, becomes the prototype of all women whose testimony is not heard, negated or denied.
    The negative images of women often projected in the Christian Scriptures reinforce the traditional images of women found in Indian epics and Dharmasastras.  According to the Dharmasastra of Manu, an ethical code containing injunctions on family life and household duties, a woman has to be under the guardianship of the father or the husband or the son.  The husband is not only the master of the wife but her deity as well.  The epics only confirm this image of the obedient wife, whose chastity is to be safeguarded for the sake of her husband's dignity and honor.  These images subtly but surely impress on women's minds, and these are the images that inform women as to the type of person they are expected to become.  Women, no doubt, internalize these images and use them unconsciously to build up their own self-image.
    On the other hand, the negative images of women in the Bible and in Indian cultural norms have served to bolster the ego of the male members in the society and in the church.  Boys grow up to be men believing that they are superior to women, and that women are only objects to be manipulated and exploited.  The dominant male, thereby, rationalizes the cultural exploitation of women and thinks that he has the right to reduce females to a powerless subservient status.

Violence Against Women in Society:
    Over the years, control over women and the exercise of patriarchal authority have resulted in various forms of gender discrimination, some covert and others extremely destructive and violent.  From this there has emerged over the course of time,  the widespread practice and tacit acceptance of a multitude of social evils such as sexual exploitation, rape, sati, demand for dowry and bride-burning. 
    A whole range of violent practices against women are on the increase in recent years.  There is also more openness to report about such issues in the media, press, and films.  We are exposed to more and more reports of sexual harassment and domestic violence which frequently lead to suicide or murder.  Life -- especially the lives of young married women -- has become endangered.  Every 102 minutes a woman is harassed for dowry; every 54 minutes a woman or girl is raped.
    Women's bodies have become commodities, whether for sale (as in dowry, prostitution), used to sell all kinds of products (in advertising), for pleasure and entertainment (in cinema or dance halls) or for exhibition (as in beauty contests).

Conclusion:
    In recent years, we are beginning to see some hopeful signs of change.  The emergence of a variety of autonomous women's groups which challenge the patriarchal system, have begun to exercise a liberating influence on both men and women.  Women have also come to realize that women's problems and issues can not be solved without altering men's attitudes towards women.  Thanks to hectic lobbying by women, many men have begun to understand and appreciate the potentialities of women and their contribution to society.  But prejudices remain.  Traditional notions and frozen ideas can not be erased overnight.  Women have come a long way,  but they have miles to go before they can be genuinely accepted as equal partners in the church and in society.