Is Violence against Women the greatest single cause of Human Suffering Today?

rea@umn.edu (Ron Anderson) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 21:11:14 -0500

Contemporary human suffering is the focus of Independent Lens PBS film documentary, Half the Sky, named after the bookby Kristof and WuDunn. This documentary aired last week on PBS, and can be viewed online until October 9, 2012. The 2009 book, Half the Sky, is available in hardback, paperback, and Kindle format. The DVD will be released October 20, 2012.

The Half the Sky film relates a story of a three-year old girl arriving at a clinic with clear evidence of rape. The picture on the right captures the suffering with horror that young girls must feel when they are hunted down like prey by men seeking to sexually abuse them. In many failing societies, the boys learn that it is OK to use weapons and whatever violence is necessary to gain control over the lives of innocent females.

Kristof and WuDunn make the claim, in both the book and the film that while the last two centuries were devoted to ending human slavery as the most serious humanitarian disorder, this century will be struggling against violence toward women and girls as the single greatest humanitarian disorder of the global community today.

Half the Sky claims that violence toward women kills more women between age 15 and 45 than die from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined. And a far greater number of women and girls suffer from sexual violence but remain alive, often with mental impairment.

Both the book and the film feature more stories than statistics. For example, in a chapter on “Rule by Rape,” they give the story of Ethiopian teenager Woineshet, who was severely beaten and raped many, many times by her would-be husband, but the local judge would never convict the man because their village tradition is for girl to be subjugated and punished by her male suitor or husband.

They tell a nearly identical story about Zoya in Afghanistan, except in this story the would-be mother-in-law was the one that repeatedly beat the young girl. From one beating, Zoya was not able to walk because her mother-in-law strung her upside down and beat her feet until they were useless. Their social customs approve of this type of violence intended to pass on traditions that preserve the status pro.

Other evidence that Nicholos Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have dug up includes the estimate that there are over 100 million “missing girls” lost to abortion and other rejection procedures due to the fact that, especially in Asia, boys are thought to be socio-economically much more valuable than are girls (UN Study On The Status of Women).

Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime (UN Commission on the Status of Women, 2000). According to the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women in 2008, approximately 100 to 140 million girls and women in the world have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting, with more than 3 million girls in Africa annually at risk of the practice. Worldwide, up to 50 percent of sexual assaults are committed against girls under age 16.

Even in highly developed countries like the United States, gender-based discrimination is surprisingly prevalent. Not only do women earn lower wages for the same job as do men, but women who work are also expected to do more housework and family maintenance than men do. These types episodes of mental suffering probably account for the higher incidence of depression among women compared to men.

Violence against females is an astounding problem in the United States. The National Violence against Women Survey (NVAWS) found that 17.6 percent (one out of every five American women) and 3 percent of surveyed men were raped at some point in their lifetime. Over 30 percent of female rape victims reported being injured during their most recent rape. Fifty-four percent of female victims and 71 percent of male victims were first raped before their 18th birthday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2003 reported that in America, the annual costs of intimate partner violence against women exceeded an estimated $5.8 billion. About two thirds of these costs are medical and the remainder due to lost work and productivity.

So, what is the answer to the question that we started with: “Is violence against women the greatest single cause of human suffering today?” While we don’t know how to quantify all of the dimensions of gender-based suffering, the data available point to the distinct possibility that gender-based violence and discrimination add up to the greatest source of human suffering today. This topic most certainly deserves more attention and research.

Business Model for a Compassionate Project

rea@umn.edu (Ron Anderson) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:44:21 -0600

Three marketing students from Lake Constance, Germany decided to break some rules of business by insisting that they and their customers serve the common good. Their first business partners are incarcerated convicts, who make handbags.

Similar Meditation in Buddhism and Christianity

bodea006@umn.edu (Erin Bodeau) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:33:59 -0500

An excerpt from Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic Between Buddhism and Christianity by Jean-Yves Leloup : "In Christianity as well as Buddhism and Sufism the goal of meditation is to purify our hearts and minds so that we become receptacles or spotless mirrors for pure light. When human beings are able to welcome this clear light, which is the radiance and the presences of uncreated Being, it instills in them a state of peace which is independent of circumstances, a state of peace that is not merely of the psyche but spiritual or ontological as well. It is the experience of this reality that early Christians called hesychia, the origin of Hesychasm."

Compassionate Societies - Relieving Human Suffering in Every Society

Is Violence against Women the greatest single cause of Human Suffering Today?

Business Model for a Compassionate Project

Similar Meditation in Buddhism and Christianity