What can mothers do to bring up better men and women?

We have been reading a lot about rapes and domestic violence in the international news spectrum. Before, woman used to fight for personal injustices against them, but now we are in much need to speak out about a most important threat to society, which is violence against women.

Throughout history we read of punishments, hanging, beheadings and killing by stoning women for supposedly being unfaithful to their husbands, whereas we have rarely heard in the past of punishments or killing of men for being unfaithful to their wives.

So we need to ask ourselves: what is the root of violence against women? Does it start inside our homes or out there in the social environment where the child grows up? May be we should study and analyze how we bring up our boys and girls in this world and see if there are any ways to prevent the development of violent behavior against women and mankind in general.

Is equality among husband and wife a reality at home? If we look really close inside our homes we usually find that women still have the larger responsibility of bringing up their children more than men do. Women are often expected to do more than men and are criticized if they don’t. Does these expectations give in some societies the right for men to abuse verbally or physically their wives?

The high number of woman murdered by husbands and boyfriends even in western countries makes us wonder what are we doing wrong, why we are failing and not able to correct this trend. Western countries have been fighting for many years to give women their full equal rights and protection.  It is quite disturbing to know that with all past and current women movements in different countries we are still where we are today. What is that special education  that mothers-to-be would need to receive in order to successfully promote equality between men and women and raise children with a clear attitude for rejecting violence.

In Spain there was an article written by a man who stated that society should be careful not to protect women’s right by decreasing the rights given to men. Is that a serious concern or the perception of some men that feel that their comfort zone is coming under threat? To be more realistic, what society saw as the norm in the past has now been considered inequality in today’s society and the change may appear threatening to some.

Let us stop being scared of what our culture and history have in the past dictated to us and let us do what we know is best for the future: To teach boys and girls that they have the same equal rights, not to expect nor accept any type of abuse. And by doing so we should not fear of breaking our family or cultural values, it is just an evolution that is taking humanity to a better and more stable future.