Heather Little-White, Ph.D., ContributorAS IS customary, March 8 this year highlights efforts to eliminate violence against women. Women, considered the fairer sex, are victims of violence murder, gun crimes, rape, incest, battery and relationship abuses.
"It's hard for me as a man to fully understand how horrible rape is for women. I can sympathise, but the violation is incomprehensible. I have come to realise that rape is another creature inflicting his will on someone without her permission. It is just more than the act of sex."
These are comments of tele-evangelist, Bishop T. D. Jakes, writing in Woman. Thou Art Loosed.
Jakes further posits that there are three types of rape: emotional, physical and spiritual. Any form of abuse is abnormal. Abuse causes women to feel guilty about violent acts over which they have no control.
Several women end up hurt because of the notion of 'being in love' with partners who were only acting out of lust, a selfish compulsion based on immediate sexual fulfillment. Lust causes many persons to deviate from the values of respect for self and for others. In acts of sexual abuse, the intensity of passion becomes distorted to animalistic proportions.
NURTURING WOMEN
Women are nurturers and easily provide nurture and care for helpless men who may come into their lives. However, soon enough, these healthy desires are taken advantage of by those who need to fulfill their own lusts. Jakes advises that while there are many wonderful men out there, women ought to be careful and discerning in their choices. When a man uses a woman for sex by misleading her, he is just as guilty of rape as a rapist.
The effects of physical abuse are easy to see but it is not the same with emotional abuse where women suffer low self-esteem. It has much to do with deception. Jakes views deception as emotional rape where the man in lust uses a woman who is looking for love.
Jakes cites the example of a deceiver who may continually promise to leave his wife for his lover. The hopeful lover is constantly used and abused yet faithfully believes in her partner to the extent that she becomes trapped in a dead-end relationship for years.
EMOTIONAL ABUSE
In relationships of all types, power dominates in emotional abuse and the abusers will hurl direct attacks at their target using comparisons of ethnicity, race, class, academic performance and physical appearance. If the person targeted is not mentally strong and influenced by enough nurturing as a girl, it is easy to feel victimised with a lowly sense of self and feelings of self-blame.
However, Jakes warns that not all men are enemies. The fact that society places a woman's worth on her sex appeal and suggests that all men want is sex is further from the truth. There is a place in the heart of most women for an intimate relationship. Even with a past history of victimisation, women can be helped to have fulfilling relationships. With an understanding and caring partner, the victimised woman can love and feel self-worthy.
TRANSFORMATION
The secret of a woman being transformed from a vulnerable victim to a victorious, loving person is found in the ability to open the past to a man responsible enough to share her weaknesses and pains.
Marianne Williamson, writing in Illuminata: A Return to Prayer pens a beautiful prayer for the victims of violence:
Dear God,
I have been wounded in body and soul.
My memories, my thoughts, dear Lord,
Are full of horror,
And I am powerless to heal them.
The hatred I feel,
The pain I feel,
Is beyond my ability to deal with.
Please, dear God,
Come into my mind.
Help me forgive,
For it is beyond my power to do so myself.
Release the one who did this
And release, dear God, my heart.
