I came across an extremely powerful image of a woman’s hand recently!
Now what struck me about this picture and what I will always remember about it is how her beautiful hand clad with a wedding ring was attached to a chain. The most powerful thing about this image to me was that you aren’t able to see who holds the chain all you see and notice is that its attached to her wedding ring, it is an extremely powerful message... a sad one too because as a woman it tells me in no uncertain terms that in this day and age women are still the inferior sex, and we are still in some places considered the property of men.
This image was made as part of the 16days of activism campaign against Gender Based Violence. And while there are so many different angles I could take when discussing Gender Based Violence, and in spite of how I have chosen to begin this thought process I will restrict myself to contemplating passion killings. Why? Well honestly because it is the one gender based act of violence that is very visible in the part of the world I live in and also as an eternal student of law with a huge interest in criminology...passion killings are a puzzle to me, a phenomenon I need to understand.
‘Passion killings’ ... (Well, personally I dislike the term but my bias aside) are according to most legal definitions, crimes of passion, both a legal act and a defence because even though a crime was committed it wasn’t intentional or premeditated in the normal sense of the word, no, it was committed as a result of intense feelings and emotion (usually jealousy, heartbreak and anger) that overwhelmed the person committing the crime.
As a young woman living in Namibia myself I have had many discussions about why this is the case and interestingly enough it’s rare (extremely rare), to hear someone argue that these killings happened as a result of intense feelings or emotions. In fact quite a number of my male friends and indeed some female friends have pointed to the fact that a young woman’s death is to be expected especially where she was in a relationship with someone who showered her with material gifts and money, and all of a sudden for whatever reason she opted out. Sometimes I have even been left with the impression that somehow there is a sense that the death of a young woman... the victim here... was her fault because she may have accepted that a man, a boyfriend provide for her financially thereby indirectly becoming his property. It is almost like she signed up for this.
While I might not like this argument at all, I understand where it is coming from... but I guess this is the point where I go on record and say that I believe that the cause of the problem is deeper than that!
I must have been in my third year at university, in a gender law class to be specific when I first heard the idea from my lecturer that ‘more and more, young men are becoming emasculated’. We live in a constantly evolving world that embraces and promotes the idea that women can do it all, parent, work be independent, have an identity independent from a man and be the breadwinners of their families etc, we promote these things and at the same time we take away from what is considered to make a man... a man, including the idea of how much control a man has over a woman. In my lecturers view this was part of the reason we have so many passion killings in the country, it’s reactionary almost, because it is almost offensive that a woman would leave the relationship just like that. In addition there is a sense of a lack of respect on the part of some young men for women in general. The weird thing though is that despite our advancements for women’s rights, independence and equality, we still have young women who are prone to being romantically involved with young men with a sense of entitlement over them. Is it because of poor self-esteem, lack of confidence or a false misconception of what relationships should be like? I think so but I can’t be hundred percent sure...
I am sure though that this ‘passion killing’ phenomenon is a difficult thing to completely understand especially when one is trying to understand it solely through observations. I will say though that contemplating this topic is always interesting because like most causes of crimes the causes of passion killings are often psychological and maybe even culturally deeply rooted.
I guess the whole point of my post today has been to be part of a discussion that argues that we ought to start asking WHY... why are acts of violence against women so common still? why are passion killings in Namibia still prevalent? WHAT are we doing wrong, do we need to re-work the methods we use to campaign and fight for the end of violence against women? or maybe it is that we have we failed to appreciate how hard it is to fight something we do not always take the time to understand
