1993

I just came across a very alarming fact, that I would have never of guessed. It was not until 1993 that martial rape became illegal, nineteen NINETY THREE! That just blows my mind, when I was born it was still legalized. It is amazing that women obtained the right to vote before it was illegal for men to show violence towards their wife. It also blows my mind that still to this day in 33 states there are still exemptions given to husbands from rape prosecutions. This probably discourages women from even pressing charges against their husbands, I know that if I was being abused by my husband, or in that case it would be my ex-husband, I would not even go through the troubles of fighting for justice because I know that they could easily get themselves out of the situation.  Not only has it taken a while for our society to enforce a law making violence in relationships illegal but the issue with gender violence has yet to be stopped. 

Gendered violence overall is an issue that is ongoing. While many people think that violence towards women has decreased the fact of the matter is it continues to increase. Ten to fourteen percent of married women have been raped by their spouses. Rape, really, it is hard to believe that women are staying in relationships with men who treat them like objects. It breaks my heart too to think that there are many women out there that are staying in abusive relationships because of fear. The whole issue of abusive men and submissive women is something that is socially constructed. It is sad but violence towards women by men is a power issue and must be seen as a result of men dominance. Gendered violence, just like many other issues involving gender traces back to the way that male and female are socialized into behaving.