Domestic violence is a problem in most every country and culture in the world, disproportionately victimizing women. Some dimensions include:

• Sex trafficking, slavery
• Violence related to ‘honor‘ (killings, rape)
• Suicide (in areas where women suffer extremely low social status)
• Disfigurement (especially throwing acid on women’s faces)
• Female genital cutting
• Female infanticide
• Dowry deaths
• Rape as a means of ethnic ‘cleansing’
• War (women and children are disproportionately victims)

Pressures and causes

• Social and cultural
  • Honor killings. Areas where women are at highest risk include Afghanistan (especially under the Taliban), Northern Nigeria, Pakistan
  • Suicide–in areas where women’s status is very low, especially the poorest women or those of lower caste/social class
  • Disfigurement–one of the more egregious, growing in ‘popularity,’ women can be victimized for reasons that have little to do with culture, other than extreme patriarchal beliefs that even refusal to go on a date is cause for such violence.
  • FGC–we’ve discussed in class
  • Infanticide–related to culture, economy, political policy (e.g., in China with the ‘one-child’ policy). This can include death from malnutrition.
• Economic
  • dowry deaths are often a result of pressures to increase the dowry, and the dissatisfaction of the in-laws (remember Kandiyoti’s ‘patriarchal bargain‘ chapter and the isolation of women in their husbands’ households)
  • Sex slavery, trafficking
• Political
  • War–women are disproportionately killed and injured, as are children