够了就是够了！ | Enough!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=2u0o8khoQHI   

文：Winnie Byanyima

【摘译】

她们说：「受够了！」

我妈妈是一名社区领袖，她在我们的村里庄带领一个妇女小组，团结了村内的妇女，为自身及其女儿争取权益，令我留下深刻印象。这些妇女大部分出身贫穷，她们在妇女小组中，了解到习以为常的「社会规范」如何剥削她们应有的权益，或遭暴力对待。

一些刻骨铭深的记忆仍萦绕不散：我的朋友和表姐妹因被迫嫁给陌生男人而哭得死去活来，她们有些甚至要嫁给年纪较大的男人。我亲眼目睹妈妈开放家中收容一些年轻女孩，以逃离早婚的安排。但那些女孩只是少数幸运儿。

这已是很多年前的事，但同样的悲剧从未间断。时至今日，针对女性的暴力事件依然严重。全球每三名妇女中就有一名曾遭受到家暴、性侵犯，或其他形式的暴力对待。暴力令妇女和女童持续处于贫困，而贫困的妇女和女童更加容易受到暴力对待。

这些基于性别的暴力成因是多重的，但归根究底，根源是性别不平等的制度和不公平的社会规范。

当社会认为男性无论在家庭上或是社会地位上都比女性优越，针对女性的暴力事件就会增加。这些观念让男性相信，他们有权以武力管束并纠正女性的「不正确行为」，而在婚姻中男性有权要求女性满足他们的性欲。这些观念形成一种具有性别偏见和不公平的潜规则，逐渐构成社会规范，是性别暴力现象的根本原因。

据印度、秘鲁、巴西的研究显示，若个人或社会接受及容忍丈夫有权打妻子，这些社会发生其他暴力行为的机率亦较高。联合国一项调查指出，有性别偏见的男性虐妻的比率较一般男性高42%。

从童婚到女性割礼再到谋杀，针对妇女和女童的暴力植根于世界每个角落。这是一个恶性循环，但是并非不能打破。习以为常的社会规范，是可以改变的。够了就是够了！

因此，乐施会在今天启动消除针对妇女和女童暴力的倡议行动，在全球多国与不同机构和持分者合作，呼吁公众挑战具有性别偏见和不公平的社会规范和潜规则，并齐心合力改变默许和助长性别暴力的社会规范，建立性别平等的社会制度和文化。

原文：

‘Enough’, they said.

I recall how my mother, a community leader, started and led women’s clubs in my village. Women in my village organised and stood together for their rights and those of their daughters. Their lesson has stayed with me. Through their clubs, women – most of them poor – educated themselves and learnt to distinguish rights from the ‘social norms’ that culture and tradition had forced upon them.

What ignited me most about their work was the power it gave to assert their rights, and the rights of their girls, be it to education or to inherit property.

And the power to say ‘enough’ in the face of patriarchy and violence.

Some of my most painful memories are of my friends and cousins crying as they were taken away to be married to men they didn’t know, often much older. I grew up seeing young girls sheltered by my mother in our house from being forced into early marriage. Those were the fortunate few.

That was many years ago and yet the same struggles endure. A half-century on, the global crisis of violence against women and girls is endemic. Around the world, one in three women will experience domestic abuse, sexual violence or some other form of violence in her lifetime.

Violence happens everywhere, across social groups and classes. Women and girls in poverty suffer most. From sexual harassment to child marriage or so-called honor killing, violence devastates the lives of millions of women and girls around the world and fractures communities. It is both a cause and a consequence of women’s poverty.

There are many complex causes driving this violence against women and girls. But it is ultimately rooted in the reality that women and men are not treated equally.

When communities share expectations that men have the right to assert power over women and are considered socially superior, violence against women and girls increases. It creates a reality whereby men can physically discipline women for ‘incorrect’ behavior, one where sex is men’s right in marriage.

These are examples of ‘social norms’, the unwritten rules which dictate how we behave. They are fundamental in allowing violence against women to flourish.

Let me explain. Most people, most of the time, conform to social norms. We continuously absorb subtle messages about what is and isn’t appropriate to do, say, and think from our family, our friends, our colleagues, from education, culture, the media, religion, and law. These sources are not neutral. They are informed by long histories of inequalities and prejudice, and by economic and political forces.

Our world is one in which social norms grant men authority over women’s behavior. They encourage men’s sense of entitlement to women’s bodies, spread harmful notions of masculinity, and enforce rigid gender roles.

These norms are insidious and powerful, often transmitted through throwaway comments or casual actions: telling a woman who was raped that ‘she was out late at night, drunk or travelling alone and was therefore responsible for the violence’ – or brushing off harmful misogyny as ‘locker room banter’.

Formal laws may not reign here. Attitudes like these create an environment in which violence against women and girls is widely seen as acceptable, even where laws call them illegal. Studies from India, Peru, and Brazil have linked the acceptance and approval of wife beating from individuals and communities with rates of actual violence. One UN study found that, on average, men with gender discriminatory attitudes were 42% more likely to abuse their partners.

The same study examined men’s reported motivation for rape. In most countries, 70–80% of men who had ever forced a woman or girl to have sex said they had done so because they felt entitled to have sex, regardless of consent.

We must be aware of how social norms operate before can we change how we respond. Violence against women and girls is sustained by a net of harmful attitudes, assumptions and stereotypes. It’s a net which so many are caught in: not always felt, but as strong as steel.

We can break free. We can change the harmful beliefs at the core of this problem. What was learned can be unlearned.

Oxfam is launching today a global campaign, firing up our long-standing work to End Violence Against Women and Girls.

‘Enough’ is the rallying cry of our campaign. I am reminded of the lessons I learnt from my mother.

Our campaign will see us stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the efforts of women and men around the world already engaged in this struggle. We will support women’s rights organisations especially in the South which are already challenging harmful social norms. We will organise.

All of us can play our part. It starts with challenging and changing our own behaviour and then engaging our our families, friends, neighbors and colleagues about unequal power between men and women. Governments and public institutions – and the private sector too – must ensure their policies tackle, not accentuate, harmful social norms.

The violence that women and girls face is not inevitable. Nor will it naturally disappear. We must act! Not another girl or woman should have to suffer. This must be an urgent imperative for all of us.

Please watch and share our campaign video and join the conversation on social media using #SayEnough.

Winnie Byanyima is Executive Director of Oxfam International. She is a leader on women’s rights, democratic governance and peace building.