SPEAK NOT SPANK

It is only in a classroom that we must raise hands for our comments to be admitted. . . There is an adage in my language that says “Tep! Tep! Ajogho abang” simply put (little drops of water make a mighty ocean). Things do not just reach a climax, they build up from a start and transcend to a point they hit the climax and we either stand at ovation to applaud or we are crushed under the weight of the consequence of our decisions…good or bad.

Whatever the conditions, I suppose that any right minded person should choose to find himself at the spotlight and not under the debris of issues. I am simply applying the analysis to a person that would choose to live with domestic violence rather than speak out and get help. Truth is, most of the people that tell you they do not know how it happened that they have finally turned to a punching bag and their homes a wrestle ring had actually started by doing comic presentations of child fights which turned into soap operas of complete bullying episodes where the more powerful took the glory. We make tours for party candidates, we have rallies for political conventions, we have fund raisers for education trust funds but we do not have people standing up against the violence that exists in our homes which is threatening our communities, the psyche of our youths, the upbringing of our kids and the environment we live in.


We hear our neighbours hit their wives, we watch our sons hit our daughters, we see our fathers beat our moms, and we notice how our mothers make life unbearable for our fathers. We see, we hear, we live with them, we condone it and it now has become a norm. We watch our society disintegrating before our very eyes. Domestic violence, including battering, happens in all socioeconomic levels, to urban or rural women, young or old, with child and childless, single, married, divorced – and within all religious, racial, ethnic groups, and geographic locations. It is important to note, that women initiate and carry out physical assaults on their partners as often as men do. When it comes to serious physical abuse, women are still overwhelmingly on the receiving end.

More women are wounded through home ferocity than by rape, assaults, and car accidents combined. Many expectant females have been and may be sufferers of domestic violence abuse. Enforced sex or nuptial rape is the leading type of sexual assault. Yet nuptial rape or forced sex maybe the most underreported and least lawfully penalized criminality of companion mishandling because many victims are hesitant to report and file charges against the abuser, for various reasons. Whenever it started, it is a lie that you have to live with it, another lie that “sensible ladies will never sink their marriage” no sensible man will raise his hand on a woman. He is too gentle to even raise his voice in an argument because he knows his power is not in the volume but in his reputation. He knows when to talk, what to say, and how to render his message in the right way. Only bullies, cowards and maniacs hit women, there is a psychological imbalance that makes a boy grow from being a bully to being a woman hitter is something between being raised in a dysfunctional home and being a dysfunctional adult.

They make excuses that it is as a result of their unemployment, poverty, poor education and lack of proper upbringing . . . they are simply who they have chosen to be not what the world has made them, at a certain stage of a person’s life you can choose to be conformed to what you have grown to relate with or be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Some of the men that abuse their spouse’s do sometimes cause; they discover the lady is a lower income earner, psychologically dependent, has low self and they use these as reasons to frustrate her person. My advice, every single woman should have a positive way of contributing to her relationship not just emotionally but intellectually, financially, and in any other way she could possibly do to make her respected, loved and accepted. Some African women have been raised to be dependent; you need to teach yourself to be strong and to hold on.

Marriage is not everything, it is something. You should get married but you should be glad you did. Truth is, a man that hits you “by mistake” will hit you intentionally and what you tolerate, you have accepted, the things you accept, you cohabit with. This finally defines not just who you are but who you become and then the children you will later raise. Finally, it is not just the women that are domestically violated, the men are too. Either way, we can speak without spanking,

Can we say NO to domestic violence????