One broad consensus that most human societies have reached since the advent of the 21st century is perhaps that violence of any form is bad and should therefore be generally reduced, and if possible eradicated. 

In his non-fiction best-seller, the Better Angels of Our Nature (2011), Steven Pinker made a strong case for what he saw as the major historical decline of violence, and attributed this progressive decrease to macro social/cultural/economic changes that have unfolded over multiple scales of time around the globe. The reduction of systemic violence against women, according to his complex configuration of the process, belongs to the category that can be explained by the consecutive waves of rights revolutions, wherein marginalized groups challenge social biases and assert their basic rights.

Without question, as all rights revolutions entail, the most essential measure to protect a group from being harmed by violence is to write their rights into legal codes. Law and institutional regulation, after all, are by far the most sweeping and effective means of shielding vulnerable populations, including women, from wanton acts of abuse. 

This is why ever since the beginning of the 1990s, the world community has witnessed continuous collective endeavors that set in motion legislative and institutional moves towards the eventual elimination of violence against women (VAW). The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993), the series of resolutions passed by the European Union aiming specifically at combating VAW during the last three decades, the Violence Against Women Act approved by the Congress of the United States in 1994 and the formulation of the later Anti-domestic Violence Law of the People’s Republic of China (2015) are just some representative cases of such remarkable global efforts.

The tremendous progress made in legal and institutional fields, however, would appear rather lackluster when cast against the dismal backdrop of a real world where various forms of VAW still pervade and persist. Indeed, it is still too early to anticipate with optimism a human future that is free from such abominable ills.

One reason lies in that current institutional and legal measures are far from being comprehensive and violence disguised in subtler shapes, such as stalking, reproductive coercion, more covert forms of sexual harassment, verbal abuses, etc. are yet to be criminalized in many parts of the world. 

Another significant element is how effectively existing laws can be implemented in practice. This, in turn, is related to several aspects: contradictions that exist in different regulations and laws may detract from the ultimate total effects in the protection of women; agencies of law enforcement may be susceptible to systemic biases against or even abuses of women and thereby serve to aggravate instead of alleviating the problem; and the general public, including the victimized groups themselves, are not fully aware of the existence of legal instruments that they can apply and deploy to defend women against violence. This last factor seems inevitably a lead to the more generic dimension of a broader system of cultural codes that prescribes and constrains people’s perception of and behavior towards women.  

Obviously, all these flaws must be addressed if a better world for women, or for that matter for men as well, is to come into being. 

For instance, new bills should be drafted and passed at every level of the local, regional and national community so that no form of VAW shall be overlooked or exempted; members of the law enforcement must be trained professionally so that in dealing with cases of VAW, their attitudes and performance will not be tainted by gender bias or stereotypes; awareness-raising campaigns must be carried out on a large scale over a prolonged period of time so that the majority of the citizens know what constitutes an act of violence against women and what they can do or whom they can turn to when such an act is perpetrated or witnessed. 

What is more important above all, though, is to initiate and promote an enduring enlightenment project that is underpinned by the humanistic belief of gender equality, and the firm denunciation of all deeply-ingrained prejudices and biases against women. This will be a long revolution, for the vicious and malign ideas that take the shape of misogyny has been with us for centuries, and we must not only dare to but also strain to learn to repudiate and discard these obstinate patriarchal genes from our culture with most adamant determination. 

One thing is for sure: that VAW will stay here for a long long time and as long as it exists, we must always keep alert and never stop fighting.        

(Gao Rui is an assistant professor at the School of English and International Studies of Beijing Foreign Studies University. The article reflects the author’s opinion, not necessarily the views of CGTN.)