The Film Blog: Turn on the news, you’re likely to catch another episode of domestic violence

It is high time Africans began to have conversations about violence and women’s rights until the messaging starts to sink into our DNA. And it is a simple one really. Women are not property, women should be treated better, women should not be hit for any reason.

Sometimes whenever people give excuses for domestic violence, it is easy to tell there is a fundamental problem. B-list actress, Monalisa Chinda became the ultimate airhead when she came out again to blame women for domestic violence in their marriages. While I was unable to confirm that her previous marriage ended on account of domestic violence, her statement was a pretty dense one. Putting the blame on a woman who has a partner with equal rights for the wrongdoings of her partner in the name of ‘respect’ is plain stupid.

Watch her distasteful explanation for why domestic violence happens.

 

On the 31st of August 2017, the Lagos State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA); Dr. Lola Akande made some statements blaming women for the domestic violence that is meted out to them. This was, in fact, a very distasteful and callous statement as it takes back all the progress that has been done by women advocacy groups and non-profits looking to end domestic and sexual violence. Her place of authority makes her statements come off as highly irresponsible.

But the problem is mostly with the men in the relationships.

People beat people up because they are terrible people. People cheat because they want to cheat. In 2015, Nigerian director Agboola Gureje made his directorial debut with a movie titled Gloves of Passion. The eight-minute long film was intended to show how basic domestic violence could be. While doing this really well, it also told a deeper story; that “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”.

In a piece of brilliantly written art and an almost brilliant interpretation of the story, Gloves of Passion follows a woman in a relationship that moves from love to hatred while almost immediately skipping out on indifference.

“I used quotes to talk about my cultural, religious and western opinion on domestic violence,” Gureje said about his short film project.

The honesty of the story is a proper depiction of the state of love and marriages in the world today. Nobody truly knows a person until they are in a place where they are most vulnerable. This story also opens up a lot of other questions – important questions on the safety of our women as they are often times the more vulnerable people in relationships.

Gloves of Passion is a short film that needs to be seen. It’s an intensely interesting project that lets us look inside ourselves on how we can and need to become better people.

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