Essay by Durai Pavithra

The door groans upon hearing his heavy footsteps returning from work, the chair jumps hearing him yell his wife’s name, the clock winces as it watches his hand delivering a sharp blow to his wife’s face, but she does not groan, jump or wince. She stands there, lifeless; just like the door, the chair and the clock, staring into space with her eyes that were once filled with love and hope. After all, she was just a pawn in the game. She is one of countless women in my hometown, a small town in southern India that I visit yearly, a town with a small library that closes every Wednesday, a lake with fishes the size of my palm and a town where some of the strongest women I know live. It is nearly impossible to go against something that you have been taught is normal your whole life. These women grew up seeing other women in their lives go through the same experiences as them so often, that they are unfazed when they face the same signs of domestic abuse. Whenever I hold a conversation with them, I never fail to notice how their voice gets a tiny bit softer, a tiny bit sadder when talking about their abusers; their very own husbands, men whom they trusted their life with, whom they swore to be with till death does them apart. The worry lines on their forehead, along with the scars in their hearts deepening every year I visit them. 

“Often father and daughter look down on mother together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate.” – Bonnie Burstow, Radical Feminist Therapy: In the context of violence. The irony of it all lies in the fact that these women also become a part of the misogynistic and hypocritical society that they grew up in, creating the very same environment for the next generation, not allowing the society to improve or change in the slightest. They have been the victims for so long that they become the predators, putting down other women going through the very same thing. “It’s just a slap, you’re lucky your husband did not leave you.” “It’s just a kick, be grateful your husband left it there.” “Oh, I know it hurts, but you’re not thinking about divorce, are you?” But we cannot blame them, how can we blame them when decades worth of generational trauma is forced into these women? How can we blame the women that never got to heal? These women struggle to escape the domestic abuse they face daily as it is so normalised in their societies, which makes it even harder for them to seek help. This causes them to be sucked into an endless cycle of agony that they cannot escape from, a cycle which they also unknowingly pull other women into. These women struggle to break this cycle especially due to a lack of financial independence. 

Change is the only constant, change waits for no one. It does not favour the rich or neglect the poor. However, it is impossible to change the misogynistic mindsets that have been created through generations and generations overnight, but these mindsets are not set in stone. It is possible to slowly change these mindsets by educating our youth on the importance of eliminating domestic violence and its long-term vicious impacts that it causes through school education. For example, topics of domestic abuse should be openly discussed during school by teachers and even victims who have faced domestic abuse can come forward to share their experiences. More resources should also be spent to ensure female youth especially in rural areas get sufficient subsidies, allowing them to receive education to have their own financial independence in the future so they will be able to enjoy the freedom and self-determination that they are entitled to, just like any other person, just like any other man. This will slowly but surely break the cycle and change the society for the better, a society where every woman feels safe and loved in. Every woman in every corner of the globe deserves to be celebrated, whether she is rich or poor, tall or short, old or young, she deserves every single right that a man is entitled to. Every single right.