A NATIONAL survey conducted by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre found that three in five women believe that a ‘good wife’ should obey her husband, as obedience was a key feature in gender relations.
The 2013 report titled Somebody’s Life Everybody’s Business stated that disobedience was seen by one in four women as a good reason for a man to hit his wife/partner.
“The notion that one adult should be obedient to another in an intimate relationship is demeaning and disempowering, and demonstrates the low status of women in Fiji. Overall, the responses to questions on sexual relations indicate that many women have a strong sense of sexual autonomy,” the report stated.
The report said more than half the women who responded to the survey agreed it was important for a man to show his partner/wife that he was the boss.
“This attitude legitimises men’s violence and controlling behaviours as a way of maintaining their higher status and is reflected in many common sayings that condition girls and women to believe that violence is an expression of love.
“For example, violence may be accompanied by assertions that it is only to teach her, or that it is for her own good. If a woman has lost her teeth due to repeated physical assaults, people may comment that her husband ‘loves her too much’.”
The report added the fact that more than three in five women still believe that a man had good reason to hit his wife in any circumstances showed that a tolerance for men’s violence against women and unequal gender power relations were entrenched in some women’s belief systems.
