Sexism/Gender Violence

Gender violence is the foundation of all types of interpersonal violence. Interpersonal violence includes: sexual harassment, dating abuse, sexual assault, heterosexism/homophobia, and sexism.

The majority of gender violence is directed by males against females. While males can be victims and females can be perpetrators, most often, females are the victims and males are the perpetrators or abusers. This does not mean that most males are perpetrators; most males are not rapists or abusers. In fact, most males do not agree with violence against women.

Definitions:

Gender Violence:
Any form of violence (verbal, physical, sexual, emotional) directed at someone because of their gender. Usually this is violence directed at girls or women.

Sexism:
Discrimination against a person because of their gender. Males have the societal power to discriminate against females.

Interpersonal Violence:
Interpersonal violence is a broad term which refers to any type of violence between individuals. It includes, but is not limited to such things as dating abuse, bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, sexual assault, domestic violence, street violence, gang violence, emotional violence, child abuse, elder abuse and sibling abuse.

Power and Control:
Common to and at the core of all acts of interpersonal violence are the abuse of power and control. The perpetrator uses acts of violence to gain some type of power and control over the victim. A partner who is determined to be the more dominant person in a relationship will use the different types of abuse (emotional, verbal, physical, sexual) in an attempt to make themselves feel more powerful.

Some sexism statistics:

• For every dollar that men earn, White women earn 59 cents, Asian women earn 67 cents, African American women, 57 cents, and Latina women 48 cents.
• Women do 70% of the world’s work; earn 10% of the world’s wages; own 1% of the world’s property; 2/3 of the minimum-wage earners are girls or women.
• Between 60% and 80% of girls report being sexually pressured, commented upon, or otherwise sexually harassed by boys by the end of 12th grade.
• Almost 95% or 2,141 of the top earning CEO’s are men compared to only 188 or 5.2% of women.