Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/949290
maltatoday SUNDAY 4 MARCH 2018 Interview 15 'Femicide: the killing of a woman, because she is a woman'. Dr MARCELINE NAUDI, of the University of Malta's Gender Studies department, outlines the role of gender perceptions in violence targeting women arms in the house, for instance... in case of a shooting, naturally? Was the victim known to social services? In the UK, for example, they have 'domestic homicide reviews'. Every domestic violence fatality will be re- viewed: they will go through it, bit by bit: how did it happen, where did it come from, what was the history of the people involved... to learn. To be able to say: 'If we had intervened bet- ter at this (or that) point, could this have been avoided?' This is what we want to do. We want to prevent by looking into what went wrong. In the meantime there is a small paradox staring us in the face. We're talking about (let's face it) rather primitive cultural attitudes towards women, at a time when Malta is also trumpeting its huge advancements in gender equality and civil rights. So when it comes to domestic violence: could it simply be that we have we not progressed as much as we think we have? I can't say that there hasn't been great improvement, because there has. We still have the old services, some of which were very good. And we now have new services which have cropped up, sometimes to ca- ter for very specific, specialist needs. And yet, a piece of research I did in 2003/4, and a piece of research that was done in 2016, yielded the same results. In 2003/4, I was looking at the experiences of women who had experienced domestic violence. The 2013 report was by SOAR – a sur- vivor-led service, which means that the research was actually carried out by survivors of domestic violence. And what emerges is that the things women were saying in 2003/4, were still being said in 2016. For example: with the police, it's pot luck. If you're lucky, you will get someone who is sensitive, able to listen and who will acknowledge your needs. Often, however, you will not be lucky. 'Pot luck' is not good enough. I praise those who are good, but it's not enough to have to be lucky... Other institutions could be cited at this point. The judiciary, for instance. I know it's a generalisation, but I get the impression that judges and magistrates tend towards leniency when sentencing domestic violence cases. You often see reports of suspended sentences (sometimes for quite serious offences) and – to generalise even further – I have noticed this tendency coming from women magistrates as much as from men. Is this a concern? The judiciary is a concern. What you are implying without actually saying, is that: 'Hey, it's women, too, who discriminate against women in such cases'... Yes, to be frank that was the intended implication... ... and the reality is that women judges – just like all women – have 'absorbed it', too. One thing I tell my students is that, part of what I think is so important, is to make people stop and think. To make people not just replicate, and not just operate along the tracks they were set off onto... but to stop and think, and ask themselves: 'What am I doing here? Are these values I have absorbed valid for me today?' When I was a child, Baby Jesus used to give us pre- sents at Christmas. We didn't have Father Christmas: that's how old I am. We had Baby Jesus, who gave us presents at Christmas. We knew this to be true. We would write lit- tle notes to Baby Jesus, put into the manger in the crib... and they would disappear, because angels would come down from heaven and take our notes to Baby Jesus. Then he'd send the angels with our presents. We knew this was true. One year, we received a present that had 'Made in Sweden'stamped on it. We were a bit perplexed by this, because we thought our presents were made in Heaven, not Sweden. But we even- tually figured it out: what really happened was that Baby Jesus had sent his angels to Sweden to get the wood – because Sweden has trees – then they made the present with the wood from Sweden. OK? That was with the knowledge I had at the time. We made sense of it with what we had. Now, I'm older and I know that – obviously – my parents bought the presents. So with my broader under- standing, things which were once understood one way, are understood in another, completely different way. And many things that have a huge impact on our lives – like gender: gender has a huge impact on our lives... and it has such a huge impact because we never stop to try and un- derstand it. We just roll along with it. So we need to – each and every one of us, but especially those who wield influence – stop and think. To re-examine things that have al- ways taken for granted... not because we're mean, horrible nasty people... but because we've never stopped to think about it. and think PHOTO JAMES BIANCHI