How to Write an Attention Catcher? (Part 2)

III.                   Questions and Statistics – Gender-based Violence

Why is it important to empower women? Is it because they are physically weak or because they are mentally feeble? Or is it a question of giving half of the world population the right to self-assertion? Women are not as insignificant as they are often portrayed or as weak as they are presumed to be. Unfortunately, most of the women do not even understand that their rights are being usurped, be it on their bodies or in their inherited properties. Sadly, many a times a female fetus is not even given the right to life, the opportunity to born, as it becomes a victim of sex-selective abortion. It is a shame that in their lifetime, one in every three women is likely to experience physical and/or sexual violence. The situation grows worse in developing countries like Pakistan where more than two in every three women suffer from different forms of violence. Globally, every day, some 830 women die of preventable medical causes related to pregnancy and child-birth. The health and social workforce, across the world, comprises of 70 percent female health care workers, yet half of women’s contributions to global health is unpaid, some USD 3 trillion per year. Unfortunately, in countries with a conflict zone, women are supposed to suffer more as rape and other types of sexual violence are weapons of war. Their health suffers more in areas of displacement as the health care system gets disrupted.

Half of the world population, more than 3.5 billion women, suffers every day because it belongs to the inferior sex. A condition which is not only unjust but also inhuman. The condition of women cannot change unless the social tags of superiority and inferiority are removed from biological makeup of a human being. Social constructs and social roles are important in the effective running of a society, but they must not become determinants for a person. This essays explores the development of social constructs of gender; the transformation of matriarchal societies into patriarchal societies; the social, economic and political marginalization of women; the use of violence as a weapon to tame women; and the steps that can be taken to improve the status of women.