parenting and society’s negative influence on VAW

During the past month we witnessed one of the most horrible murder incidents in Egypt’s history. We were all deeply grieving and still grieving the death of Nayera Ashraf, an innocent young lady who was cold bloodily murdered by a brutal killer who simply couldn’t accept rejection from Nayera and decided to take her life as a price for this. 

 https://twitter.com/Elif_Safak/status/1540049234229137409 

This news put up a fire on social media where people were speaking up, expressing their devastation, anger and sadness about what happened. On the other hand, there were sick minded people who are too far behind that kept justifying the murderer’s action and put the blame on the victim.

These people are the true fatal issue that we as an Egyptian society are facing regarding the violence against women issue in Egypt. These people are the mirror of buried mindsets, ideas, perceptions and cultural inherited ideas of how women and men should behave and function in societies.  

 https://twitter.com/cr7itx/status/1539573184684490752 

This wasn’t long till we heard another news in the same week about the murder of Jordanian student Eman Rasheed who was killed inside her university by a man who also couldn’t take a rejection. It marked another sad and painful day for all the women around the world. 

 https://twitter.com/SpeakUp_00/status/1539984030229475329 

Sadly these weren’t the only two. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of other victims of gender based violence and murder in the middle east. 

A lot of people blame this on the media, poverty and religious extremism. Yes, part of the problem goes back to these factors but we cannot ignore the roots which come from how the boys and girls are raised, what they get taught in school and how they are treated in different places by different people. 

A lot of men grew up to believe that they’re superior to women and that their masculinity is defined by controlling women, making them feel weak and defeated and of course silencing them and never taking a no from them. A lot of men also inherited toxic masculinity mindsets that lead them to disrespect women and have inner misogynistic ideas. 

How does this exactly happen? 

It happens in many ways. It happens when the kid sees that this is how their parents behave and live. It happens when the parents allow the brother to control the sister and make decisions on her behalf. It happens when families celebrate giving birth to a boy but feel the opposite when it’s a girl. It happens when the boys constantly hear that women aren’t equal to men and that “boys will be boys”. 

It happens when we witness an incident where the woman is a victim and we ask “what did she possibly do that caused this?” Instead of asking “how can we hold the aggressor accountable for this?”. It happens when we don’t listen to the survivors and victims. 

Additionally, a lot of girls grew up to be silenced and that they have no right to speak up and they should always behave as they’re told. A lot of girls grew up to believe that it must be their fault if they got assaulted, harassed or raped. 

There are so many wrong and mistaken ideas and mindsets that boys and girls are raised on that widens the gender gap and increases discrimination and inequality in our society. 

We should never stop speaking, discussing and raising awareness in schools, communities and households about such issues. We need to raise a generation that no longer has inherited wrong ideas and mindsets. 

Besides this, we need to always encourage the victims to take legal actions. Authorities and police need to spend more effort in the fight against such crimes and to truly achieve rule of law by eliminating any source of corruption, manipulation or lack of responsibility and accountability. 

Most importantly, we as a society always need to stand together to hold people accountable for their crimes and actions and never put the blame on the survivor or victim.