4.5.4 Domestic violence is a man's self-protection
Dira: A man does not use force in the home without any
reason. This is to protect oneself against family members. If you are very shy
they will consider you as a sheep. They have to know you never joke.
Fikiri: I may use coercive attitudes to give myself
security. They have to know that they should not climb on my back and pull my
beard; this is self armour anyway. They must know that at some point they will
pay back the mistake.
Joco: In case a man says I will be violent; it means he
has some good reasons. I think this is done to put a fence around myself. They
will know that I am not reachable anyhow and that I am the only person to
redress the family.
Dondo: Oh oh, but security is necessary for a man. In my
mind, I feel that what you call `violence in the home' is security for oneself
so that family members do not invade him anyhow.
Bitu: We men, we are like dogs as we pass here and there.
When I have found a lady to greet and ask her her name, the wife can become
nervous. To hinder her from any attack, she must be silenced. If man does not
do so, she will be an obstacle for him to go to the other woman who has loved
me.
Discussion
Joco, with the majority of the participants to both
discussions, supports the idea that men often use violence in the home because
they need self-protection. Their need for their own safeguarding makes them
create a fence of protection around themselves so that family members will not
approach them in any way. This is what Linda (2009) considers as men using
domestic violence to symbolize their self-protection in the home because family
members will submit to man and will not behave the way they like since they
know there are some limits. Joco is also convinced that a man erects an
impenetrable fence around himself so that family members can fear him.
But, in an in-depth discussion, Fikiri brings in a new
context of using violence. When a man has loved another woman and if he
suspects his wife of discovering it, the husband becomes violent. Such reaction
aims to silence the wife so that she may not stop the husband's new way of
behaving. But if it is the wife who loves another man, her husband will never
tolerate it. To this, Arias and Pape (1999:26) confirm that a man behaves
violently once he learns that his legal wife has discovered the other woman he
is befriending or if his wife has made new connections with other men outside
the home. In fact, this creates a dilemma that makes man terrorise his legal
wife so that she cannot have an eye on him in his outside love affairs. In
order to overcome this, some men leave their wives with a lot of liberty. By
becoming more independent, the wife will never have time to check on her
husband's conduct.
4.6 Conclusion
This chapter has analysed the data that the researcher
collected from the focus group and in-depth interviews he organised on the
field. The current research is about beliefs and attitudes towards male
domestic violence in South Kivu. In this chapter, the findings from both
discussions reveal that the key themes inter-relate to maintain destructive and
abusive attitudes of violence in homes.
The social context of South Kivu promotes and wide spreads
men's domestic violence. Society does not punish the abusers because it
considers such violence as not being a social threat but a home issue. It
accepts and tolerates it; thus, the victims must abide to it since it is a
culture. In this vein, men strengthen their masculinity (bwanaume). In case
man's masculinity is not accepted or thinks he is compromised and incomplete,
this endangers his personality. Therefore, he resorts to violence toward family
members, particularly the wife who is closer to him. This because he believes
violence is the symbol of male status. This belief shows that society gives
more power to men compared to women. This unfair distribution of power makes
men use hard power over women whose authority is weak. Accordingly, men are
socially excused if they are coercive toward women but the opposite is not
accepted. This makes women feel obliged to interiorise that violence is family
life itself, therefore unavoidable.
Society has conceived activities and functions based on
gender. Men have their activities and functions and women have theirs. The same
applies for some food that is specific to men and not to women. Infringing
these social prescriptions, the victims are accused of not respecting social
norms, which gives right to man to sanction them. Besides, because of gender
differences, girls do not have equal access to education as boys have. This
exists because the society is strongly patriarchal. Men are always favoured:
they are the only family managers; they are given supreme power and authority
in the family, the clan and the tribe.
Men acquire domestic violence beliefs and attitudes in
society, which means that domestic
violence is not natural behaviour. They
learn it from their friends and the people who are
around them. Abusers will
always impress their peers with explanations of their violent deeds
and attitudes in the home. In this way, the novice will learn
the different strategies and means to exercise violence over the wife. He does
so to please his friends, to avoid their mockeries and so he keeps integration
in the group. Thus, he will confirm his maleness once he is with his peers.
CHAPTER FIVE: GENERAL CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter recapitulates the research and provides some
practical recommendations to address domestic violence in homes. Useful
suggestions are a way of thwarting the escalation of the culture of domestic
abuse by promoting harmony.
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