Clear and Present Danger

I've written many posts on this subject but there's always something more to say.

This week, yet another family was in ruins after a man allegedly killed his estranged wife and their two children, and then drove 50 kilometers away to kill himself.  He had been charged with assaulting his wife in 2018 but was acquitted.  One of the conditions of his release, however, was that he sign a peace bond that included a clause to not contact his partner for a year.

It has been shown time and again that peace bonds, restraining orders, or any similar legal document, do not work in many cases.  Men who feel that their power and/or control is being threatened don't care about a piece of paper.  They will track down the person whom they believe is responsible for their perceived humiliation and take out their frustrations on them, often with fatal results.

What's worse is there are serial offenders who take every chance they get to act again, particularly after they've been released from prison on bail or on probation.  In India, where sexual crimes are rampant, a woman was burned to death after her alleged rapist was released from prison on bail and he got four of his buddies to help him.

It's frightening to me because I or friends of mine could've been statistics.  I've been a passenger in a vehicle where the driver threatened to crash the vehicle if he didn't get the last word in a disagreement.  I was stalked for months after leaving a toxic relationship.  I heard it said that if a jilted man saw his ex-partner with her new boyfriend in the street, he'd run them down with his car.

In this age of increasing divisiveness and hatred, women seem to be bearing the brunt of it.  Women in positions of power are not respected (or paid) as much as their male counterparts.  Some countries are clawing back women's rights and denying access to abortion and prenatal medical care.  In the state of Ohio, an anti-abortion bill proposes that doctors will be required to "re-implant" an ectopic pregnancy - a procedure that is medically impossible.

Women everywhere need to keep the pressure on, despite the risks.  Or else the patriarchal culture will continue unchanged while women are forced back into being little more than objects for men to have their way with.