Introduction

In 2020 people are still turning a blind eye to one of the most urgent problems in our society – domestic violence. Domestic violence is an act of mental, physical, verbal, religious abuse from intimate partner towards victim. Relationships in such couples are based on imbalance of control and with time it can get ever worse. In the following year, round one third of women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner; and 18% have experienced such violence in the past 12 months (The World’s Women 2020: Trends and Statistics, 2020). Even though, there was so much work that aimed eliminating all forms of violence towards women, still this issue was not solved yet.

At first sight domestic violence, compared to the other issues like global warming, poverty, usually is not considered as a global issue, however, abuse towards women violates seven sustainability goals covered by United Nations, especially fifth goal – Gender equality. In most cases, the main victims of this procedure are women. They are much more likely to be abused by partners than men. Moreover, in some countries domestic violence can be used legally as a form of educational measures and 153 countries still do not have any laws to prevent them. Under constant pressure and coercion from an abuser, women are forced to live in that way, which will be most convenient to maintain power and control over a victim. Using psychological abuse, batterer takes control over emotions of the victim, making them always blame themselves for their actions.  “He grabbed me by the hood of my sweatshirt, threw me out my door and got on top of me and started choking me. He shot me and said 'look what you made me do” – tells her story Angela, survivor of domestic violence (These women survived domestic violence. Now they're taking a stand to help others, 2019).  In these cases, rapist violates the human rights of the victim.

This issue might be investigated from different perspectives. From socio-economic point of view, violence can lead to detrimental effect on the community. From local perspective if issue will not be solved: isolation practices will rise in frequency, weak institutional policies will still exist, and unemployment rate will increase subsequently. By and large victims cannot afford themselves a career or quality education because abusers prefer to impose rigorous control over them by keeping them at home, which violates the sustainability goals of “quality education” and “peace and justice” (SDG 4; SDG 16). From other perspectives, abuse might lead to fatal outcomes in health. (SDG №3). The reason why we should give this consider this problem as an imperial priority is that it these harmful practices are resulting in rise of the suicides, mental disorders, and alcoholism in the country. Globally, if abuse will continue there will be cultural norms that support violence. To prevent these negative outcomes, everyone should contribute to solve this issue forever in the global community.

Main body

It is widely assumed that the issue of domestic violence affects only women or intimate partners of the batterers, however this issue concerns both genders and furthermore even kids. As it is known domestic abuse might include verbal abuse and humiliations, jealous acts, and possessive behavior.  While, with regards to women, the abuser commits violence to take out anger or dominate a weak person, violence over men can be regarded to toxic masculinity problem.  This term has many different meanings and many individuals do not admit the existence of this problem. According to Taneasha

Toxic masculinity teaches men and masculine folks that certain qualities are designated for men and others are for women, resulting in a right and wrong way to be a male or masculine. Examples include expectations around strength, sexual power, and the idea of logic being a choice over emotion. (p. 7)

Men are expected to suppress their emotion, which can cause a detrimental effect in mental health. Men are more likely than women to underutilize mental health services, and they are more reluctant to seek help, especially when it comes to mental health (Ogrodniczuk, 2016,). That is the reason why toxic masculinity should be also considered as an issue of abuse or Domestic violence, because its results effect local community equally. The consequences of male domestic violence can be as detrimental as domestic violence towards women.

One of the most deleterious results of this abuse may be following new act of violence. People often say: “violence breeds violence”. It should be noted that victim of toxic masculinity might become a rapist in the future (Thurrott, 2019). This statement was proved in multicultural investigation, which added that patriarchal society requires men to take a role of aggressor (Levant et al., 2003). From a perspective of a man who was forced to grow in traditional masculine society, it is assumed that men have rights to be aggressive or dominate over other people. Thereby, the cycle of violence is being formed in those type of families. Understanding the mindset of rapist is essential in understanding the whole situation of domestic violence.

We should have “zero-tolerance” policy regarding the issue of toxic masculinity. An ambitious and long-term strategy to combat toxic masculinity is to abandon "masculinity" and "femininity", as well as from the binary gender system in principle. The rejection of these concepts and the agitation of this free movement will significantly affect the relationship of society to traditional masculinity. Although the implementation of measures, such as courses on healthy parenting that help to tackle with this issue will take time, it can be considered as one of the efficient strategies in a long term. Thus, there is a chance to reduce the appearance of aggressive inclinations from youth.

Despite these measures do contribute on dealing with this problem, currently it has been reported the rate of the domestic violence increased a lot. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2020) implies that:

They are deeply troubled by reports from many countries, including Belgium, France, Ireland, the Russian Federation, Spain, the United Kingdom, and others of increases in interpersonal violence — including violence against women and men, by an intimate partner, and against children.

This global problem has already affected many countries. For instance, there was a 10.2% increase in domestic violence calls in the United States in 2020 (Lesli & Wilson, 2020). What caused this upsurge? The answer is evident – Covid-19.

During coronavirus, that started in the beginning of new decade governments from all over the world decided to impose quarantine restrictions to keep virus from spreading. This solution technically was sufficient to secure citizens from flourishing illness. However, quarantine has a demerit. The possibility of women or children experiencing abuse in their families increased dramatically, due to the fact, that in isolation abuser and victim must spend more time together. It also should be noted that due to variety of factors, such as being fired from a previous job, “family members” experience a lot of stress and a surge of aggression, which can lead to acts of domestic violence. From an ethical point of view, these acts of abuse are unacceptable as they violate human rights. The family should never be assaulted or any other type of abuse. Usually, this kind of situation is prevalent on holidays, however pandemic led to deterioration of this cases. On the United Nations General Assembly (2020) Dubravka Šimonović, the rapporteur of Violence against women, said: “Lockdown measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic have mostly been gender- blind and have increased the risk of domestic violence for women and children who are confined at home for long periods of time with their abusers”.

While Covid-19 the economic state of each country witnessed some difficulties. Small businesses, production and export was forced to stop working (depends on a country) to cease the high levels of pandemic. In conclusion, this virus exacerbated financial issues in families by causing increased job loss and unemployment, especially among women. In this situation women were cut off from any support and could not leave their abusive partners due to financial entanglements since in this case it is much easier to survive during the financial crisis with somebody.

Another point in this situation is that Covid-19 influenced on women life a lot more than men. Having worked and maintained the carrier life, with the pandemic people had to switch to online job. This case effected people in different areas, for example – feminism movement.  This adaptation brought new kind of reality in our lives. Despite responsibilities at the job, women also were considered being responsible of households, which includes cooking, cleaning, teaching kids, babysitting. Currently both of this work is assumed to be their prior responsibility, however feminism movement that was agitated until 2020 objects it. Feminism required equality of both genders and integration, but this goal could not be implemented in this kind of situation. From local perspective, women still suffer from a lot of stress, being not able to unwind their stress. Long-term problems prevented many people from continuing their work, leading to massive layoffs. Many areas have lost their specialists, for example, the scientific field.

Conclusion

The problem of domestic violence still remains open in the 21st century. We are in a time when it is very common to abuse family members and partners. It has been proven that domestic violence begins with the influence of a patriarchal society. In the world we live today, the same society promotes toxic masculinity, which in the future will negatively affects mindset of the people. This social construct is leading to increasing level of rapists. Problem caused within society cannot be ignored.

Thus, domestic violence appears, but today we can see a significant increase, that is higher ever than before. The main reason for this became covid-19 pandemic in 2020. This case is closely connected to variety of factors, such as isolation with rapists, rise in stress level, unemployment and so on. Under the influence of these factors, the aggressor causes more harm to his partner. Also, it is worth mentioning, that the feminist movement has become much harder to campaign in the face of the coronavirus. Women need to maintain their careers, to take care of children and order in the house. This condition has become a great test for women. Covid-19 brought a lot of stress and decreased quality of life.

In order to solve this problem, a large number of measures can be taken. From a local point of view, it is necessary to promote the healthy parenting mentioned earlier. Creating special courses is one of the first priorities. Education without toxic functions, will cease the increase of rapists. Again, for this measure more time is required, however it will have a beneficial effect on future generation.  From the national point of view, there is a big need of creation of emergency lines and health care facilities. Also, it is relevant to mention that we need to strengthen the law of domestic violence.  A lot of people suffer because of the small participation of legislation in solving this problem. Victims should receive compensation and support for future recovery. More globally, we must increase the strength and impact of campaigns for victims of domestic violence.

Using these methods, there is a high probability in the future we will be able to reduce the flooding level of victims and improve the quality of life of every person.

References

Butchart A., (n.d.) Dept. of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability [Poster presentations], World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. Retrieved from who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/7th_milestones_meeting/Butchart_SDGs_and_violence_prevention.pdf?ua=1

COVID-19 and its economic toll on women: The story behind the numbers ( 2020, September 16) UNwomen. unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/9/feature-covid-19-economic-impacts-on-women

Leslie E, Wilson R. Sheltering in place and domestic violence: Evidence from calls for service during COVID-19. J Public Econ 2020 Sep;189:104241 europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC7377795&blobtype=pdf 

Levant, R., Richmond, K., Majors, R., Inclan, J., Rossello, J., et al. (2003). A multicultural investigation of masculinity ideology and alexithymia. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 4, 91-99. doi:dx.doi.org.ezproxy.rit.edu/10.1037/1524-9220.4.2.91.

Lewis H,(2020, March 19). The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism. The Atlantic. theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/feminism-womens-rights-coronavirus-covid19/608302/ 

Ogrodniczuk J, Oliffe J, Kuhl D, Gross PA. Men's mental health: Spaces and places that work for men. Can Fam Physician. 2016;62(6):463-464. cfp.ca/content/62/6/463.long 

Petrova K, (2019, December 11). Токсичная маскулинность: Почему все о ней говорят. Wonder wonderzine.com/wonderzine/life/life-opinion/247605-toxic-disgusting-men 

Sheppard S, (2020, November 12). The Dangerous Effects of Toxic Masculinity.  Verywellmind verywellmind.com/the-dangerous-mental-health-effects-of-toxic-masculinity-5073957#mental-health-concerns 

These women survived domestic violence. Now they're taking a stand to help others. (2019, October 24). Amnesty International. Retrieved from amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/10/gun-violence-report/

Thurott S, (2019, September 4). When Masculinity Is Toxic. Domesticshelters.org domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/when-masculinity-is-toxic 

United Nations (2020). COVID-19 Measures Are ‘gender-blind’, Increase Risk Of Violence Against Women, Says UN expert. Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26369

United Nations (2020, October 20) The World's Women 2020: Trends and Statistics portal. Retrieved from worlds-women-2020-data-undesa.hub.arcgis.com/

United Nations (2020, October 9). WHO Warns Of Surge Of Domestic Violence As COVID-19 Cases Decrease In Europe unric.org/en/who-warns-of-surge-of-domestic-violence-as-covid-19-cases-decrease-in-europe/ 

Violence against women (2017, November 29). World Health Organization (WHO). Retrieved from who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women

White T, (2020, October 16). Harmful Masculinity Norms Can Lead to Violence and Depression, Research Finds. Verywellmind verywellmind.com/harmful-masculinity-causes-violence-depression-5078571