Why Do We Assign Violence A Gender - 1323 Words

Maisie McGregor Discursive Essay - Draft One Why do we assign violence a gender? â€Å"How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?†Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Emma Watson - UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, speaking at the UN Headquarters in New York on 20th September 2014 Imagine this – you’re lying on the bloodstained living room carpet in your flat in North London. Your partner has just stabbed you in the back of your thigh with a breadknife, following a row at the end of years of arguing and years of domestic abuse. Throughout the course of your marriage, you’ve been battered, bruised and broken so frequently that you’ve become accustomed to this abuse you’ve been subjected to on a daily†¦show more content†¦But, as is represented in the case of Lloyd Sinclair, I believe that while women are undervalued and treated as subordinate – domestic violence is an issue affecting both sexes. So is gender stereotyping - men are being denied the right to come forward as victims of abuse in the household – here’s why. Eighty five to ninety percent of the world’s convicted murderers are men. That means that around only one in ten are women. This figure should feel startling, but doesn’t – after all, aren’t men the more violent sex? Bear in mind, though, that over two thirds of all murder victims are men. In 2011, men were murdered at the rate of more than once a day. Men are more likely to become involved in gangs, drug related violence and street crime – but also more likely to be victims of it. While that probably isn’t likely to shock you at all, this might. In the years of 2011/2012, 40% of spousal murders in the United States were perpetrated by women. In the same year, more than 800,000 men were victims of domestic abuse. Now, the obvious question to ask is why domestic violence against men is underreported, and largely ignored by the general media. The answer always starts wit h the victim. When sociological theory arrived,