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Global Violence Against Women
Globally violence against women is a critical issue. In recent times violence against women have taken many forms such as rape, wife beating, female infanticide, and bride burning etc. There is also forced prostitution and female trafficking prevalent in some parts of the world. Another notorious example is female circumcision that is still practiced in some parts of the world.
"Honor killings" are a form of violence against women prevalent in some communities in India when a woman who is thought to have brought disgrace on her family is killed by a male relative usually a brother or her husband, but sometimes her father or uncles. Killing the girl or woman removes the "stain" she has brought to the family and restores its honor in the community.
Sexual harassment is another form of violence against women that is an unwelcome sexual attention at work or at school, affecting a person's job or school performance or creates a hostile environment. Women began to perceive unwanted sexual advances at work and school as part of a structural problem. They began to realize that the men were using their positions of authority to pressure women to have sex.
Feminist sociologists have been able to bring incidences of violence against women to the public's attention. The symbolic interactionists, point out that to associate strength and virility with violence as is done in many cultures is to promote violence. Conflict theorists argue that men are losing power, and they turn violently against women as a way to reassert their declining power and status
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