Violence Against Women as a Deterrent to Their Participation in Politics and Power Centers, PSG, ESIHA
Political Association of Women
+ Parliament’s Equality Committee + Educational Department of ESIEA
Conference
November 29, 2019, ESIEA, 20 Akadimias
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS A DETERRING FACTOR FOR THEIR PARTICIPATION
IN POLITICS & CENTERS OF POWER
Anna Karamanou
former MEP
Violence, in all its forms and shades, against women, along with hostility toward gender equality, is, I believe, the primary cause of the indirect or direct exclusion of women from centers of political and economic power. In our time, it constitutes an open war against women! The goal: to keep us in the roles historically imposed upon us by patriarchal regimes, in order not to endanger the archetypal hegemonic masculinity and its longstanding dominance. Therefore, warm congratulations to the PSG for highlighting this issue on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The statistics on the war against women are very revealing. The UN certifies that 137 women are murdered every day within their family or social circle. The UN itself refers to this as a global scourge. We have, in fact, reached the point of speaking about femicide, akin to “genocide”! Data from 2017 speak of 87,000 women who were murdered by their closest relatives, most of them by their partner.
According to the announcement of the Greek Feminist Network for March 8th, it is estimated that these statistics represent only a small part of the reality. These are not just hate crimes with sexist or racist motives, but crimes against humanity, and as such, we demand they be recognized. Of the total number of homicides worldwide, 8 out of 10 victims are women (UN data from government sources).
On October 1 st, 2018 alone, correspondents from the global BBC network reported the murder of 47 women in 21 different countries. How, then, can we not speak of a war against women?
Asia recorded the highest number of women murdered by their partner or a family member in 2017, with a total of 20,000 femicides. Africa follows with 19,000, North America, Central and South America (8,000), Europe (3,000), and Oceania (300). Of the 5,000 “honor crimes” that occur each year, about 1,000 concern India. Violence against women is as serious as cancer as a cause of death and disability among women of reproductive age, and far more prevalent than traffic accidents.
In conflict zones, the rape of women is considered a “weapon of war” that terrorizes the population and destroys the social fabric. In 2014, according to the United Nations, the Islamic State carried out a campaign with genocidal dimensions in northern Iraq against the Yazidis, capturing many women from this minority as sex slaves. More than 6,400 Yazidis were forced into slavery.
Around the world, nearly 750 million women and girls who are alive today were married before the age of 18, while 200 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation. 71% of all human trafficking victims worldwide are women and girls, and 3 out of 4 of these women and girls suffer sexual exploitation.
The MeToo movement, against sexual abuse of women, which marked its two-year anniversary this year, gained global dimensions and encouraged many women who have been victims of sexual abuse to speak out. It contributed to the liberation of speech, and the recorded incidents of sexual violence increased. On October 5th, 2017, the “New York Times” revealed a series of allegations of sexual harassment and violence that led to the “fall” of the former powerful Hollywood figure, Harvey Weinstein.
On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I read the following on the Protagon.gr website: At the San Carlo Hospital in Milan, under the initiative of 59-year-old surgeon Maria Grazia Vantadori, an exhibition is being held featuring X-rays of women who came to the hospital with severe injuries. The X-rays, the doctor tells the La Repubblica reporter, show the domestic violence that women suffer. “Here is the daily horror we see in emergency cases. Often, the injured women do not have the strength to say what has happened to them, but their bodies and their wounds speak for themselves.” The doctor describes the usual injuries: “Broken bones in the nose, hands, feet, knife wounds, burns, bruises, and other signs of strangulation.” But also the unusual: “One woman even came to us with a knife stuck in her back.”
And now another terrifying statistic: 50 women are murdered every week by a partner or ex-partner in the European Union. “It is truly frightening, considering that we have been working on this issue for many years. But the reality remains, the numbers continue to rise, and this is something we know, because many cases go unreported,” said the responsible Commissioner, Helena Dalli, who was the first Minister for Equality in her country, Malta, and is now the first Equality Commissioner in the European Commission. The Commissioner wants all EU member states to ratify the Istanbul Convention, the international commitment to addressing violence against women. There are still 6 countries that have not ratified it (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia).
In our country, after the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, there is a fairly significant institutional framework for combating violence. However, as is well known, laws are easily passed but difficult to implement. Let us remember the 20 women murdered in the last two years.
As announced by the General Secretariat for Gender Equality, there have been 18,583 cases received by the Counseling Centers of the General Secretariat for Family Policy and Gender Equality from April 2012 to November 21, 2019. Of these, 16,603 are cases of violence, while 1,980 involve cases of multiple discrimination.
With such terrifying statistics, how can women dare to claim their rightful place in the public sphere? Fear guards the lonely…
Just a few days ago, 37-year-old Chilean photojournalist Albertina Martínez Burgos was found brutally murdered in her apartment in Santiago. She had been covering the protests of Chileans against the Pinera regime. This is one of many murders of female journalists and politicians.
In October 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist who led the investigation into the Panama Papers corruption scandal, which also involved the wife of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, was found dead from a bomb placed under her car near her home in Malta. In a social media post, the journalist’s son wrote, among other things: “Sorry for being blunt, but this feels like war and you need to know. This was not a regular murder and it was not tragic. Tragic is when someone is killed by being run over by a bus. When there is blood and fire everywhere around you, this is war.” These days, a domino effect of political developments is unfolding in Malta, following mass protests against the government and the prime minister, calling for the clarification of the murder, two years later.
It is also worth pausing for a moment to remember a great politician, Anna Lindh, Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, one of the most prominent members of the Social Democratic Party, who was fatally stabbed by Mihail Mihailovic on September 10, 2003, in a store in Stockholm. At the time of the attack, she was actively involved in the campaign for Sweden’s entry into the eurozone, as well as in the struggles for women’s rights, the environment, and international peace. Anna Lindh was considered one of the leading candidates to succeed Göran Persson as the president of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. In this case, you might also mention that Olaf Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden, was assassinated in February 1986 while returning from the cinema with his wife. However, Anna’s murder also carries the additional element of misogyny and the prevention of a woman from taking a position of power. Because, as is well known, women are expected to submit to men, and “the wife must fear her husband,” as the scriptures still dictate.
This is exactly what patriarchy seeks. To make us afraid! To terrorize us! To control us through fear and violence. To prevent us from having an opinion! To make us subhuman. To stop us from questioning the established patriarchal order. In this, far-right parties excel. Remember Golden Dawn and the image of the tough, violent macho man they promoted. In Spain, the far-right VOX, which received 15% in the latest elections, claims that violence against women is a political invention.
I have personal experience of intimidation, attempts to scare me, and ultimately my political neutralization due to the open stance I took, as well as the resolutions of the European Parliament that I initiated, calling for the lifting of the ban on women’s access to Mount Athos. In the Athos Peninsula, access for women is legally prohibited under penalty of imprisonment. There, only men have rights.
What message does this exclusion send? What does it symbolize? Does it not amount to the terrorization of women and an attempt to quasi-affirm that women are creations of an inferior god and should be treated differently? We still wonder why we are the last country in the EU when it comes to gender equality rankings. We still question the causes of the incredible, visible or invisible, psychological and physical violence against women. Have we not yet understood that the cause and effect of gender-based violence is the unequal distribution of power—namely, the unequal distribution of political, economic, and ecclesiastical authority between men and women? Therefore, the most effective political prevention of violence is the achievement of true and substantive gender equality.
The historian Harari, in his book *21 Lessons for the 21st Century*,st historian Harari, in his book *21 Lessons for the 21st Century*, also speaks about the fear of men. He uses the 2015 movie *Ex Machina* as an example, where an AI specialist falls in love with a female robot, who then manipulates him. In reality, Harari says, “this is not a film about humans’ fear of intelligent robots, but about the fear of men.” the fear of men towards intelligent women and specifically the fear that women’s liberation might lead to female domination. So, whenever you see a movie where the AI is female and the scientist is male, it’s a movie about feminism, not about artificial intelligence. Because, really, where does an AI get a sexual or gender identity from?!
In the remarkable book by Olga Bakomaru, *Osei Parontes*, I read the interview with Lili Zografou, conducted in 1997, where at one point, she says it all: “The man, at all social levels, does not accept the differentiation of women, proof of which is that he kills. We see him killing the woman who leaves him, not in a fit of rage, which would be understandable, but two years later, setting up an ambush outside her door. He kills her even in front of their children, proof that he has no paternal feelings at all. He kills her cold-bloodedly for his own pride, which consumes him. Because he is the defeated one.”
In the same book, Melina Mercouri, in an interview from December 1981, shortly after becoming Minister of Culture, responds to criticisms and doubts about whether a star could fulfill ministerial duties: “Every time I started to do something, some people doubted that I would do it correctly.” They told me I wouldn’t make good theater. Well, I am a very good actress. When I made movies, they told me I wouldn’t make good films because I have a very big mouth. I made very good films. When I started resisting (against the junta), they said, “Who is this lady who wore black and pretends to be a resistor?” But I resisted. In my private life, they said I wouldn’t be able to maintain a relationship. Thank God, I have been with Julie for 25 years. Now that I became a minister, I think I will manage again. Let women, especially young ones, follow Melina’s example and fight against a system that is hostile to them and discourages them.
In Greece, the recognition of gender equality as a value per se faces significant challenges because the concept of individual rights continues to lag behind traditional family rights and values, which dominate in Balkan/Mediterranean/patriarchal cultures. The traditions of socially constructed masculinity and femininity, the segregation of genders, and the notion of femininity as a disadvantage, an excuse, or a justification for patriarchy, oppression, and violence against women present the strongest obstacles to promoting genuine gender equality and establishing a modern European rule of law. Thus, the perpetuation of outdated cultural elements hinders the modernization of our country and gender justice.
Against this injustice, unfortunately, no large-scale, unified feminist movement has emerged that could dismantle the traditional strongholds of patriarchy as represented by political parties, trade unions, local government, and the monolithic structure of the Greek Orthodox Church.
The Women’s Political Union is an excellent example of a pluralistic feminist organization that supports its action by building broader consensus, something that is not characteristic of our political system. It is necessary, with a focus on the present and the future, to promote an alternative model of political power, utilizing all human resources, with equality and meritocracy everywhere. Essentially, in light of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the 1821 revolution, we need to make a restart. I would say that, since as a country we did not participate in the European Enlightenment, we should begin a new Enlightenment, this time with women. Because the intellectuals of the 17th and 18th centuries had excluded women. The French Revolution understood liberty, equality, and fraternity only for men.
We need a fresh start for Greece, with women at the forefront! Above all, we must consider how, as a nation, we will address the greatest challenge humanity has faced—the merging of biotechnology with information technology. Especially for us women, it’s essential to think about how, in the age of big data and algorithms, we can work to close the gender data gap and also take decisive action to prevent global warming.
Finally, because the public debate about the election of the President of the Republic has heated up, it would be good for the message to be heard in this room today and sent out that there are many capable women who want and can take on this role. Personally, I would suggest experienced women politicians with European education, such as Marietta Giannakou and Anna Diamantopoulou. I believe that Greece owes it to women to reduce the gender gap. It owes it to them!!!
Άννα Καραμάνου, MSc, Ph.D
tel. 6944302328