Women shouldn’t have to face threat of violence for trying to get a divorce

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/07/2015 (3747 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As Maria Mitousis was opening her mail at work last Friday — such a banal, everyday task — it probably didn’t occur to her that someone could try to harm her.

It’s an unthinkable, horrific idea, that a woman could be violently attacked for simply doing her job. And yet, it’s looks as though that’s exactly what happened.

Mitousis, a 38-year-old family law lawyer, was seriously injured by a bomb mailed to her via Canada Post. There are reports she lost a hand in the attack.

Guido Amsel, 49, has been arrested and charged with attempted murder. Two other bombs — allegedly intended for Amsel’s ex-wife and his former lawyer — were detonated by police over the weekend. According to a neighbour, a bomb went off on Amsel’s ex-wife’s front steps in 2013.

Court records show Amsel and his ex were going through an ugly divorce that spanned over a decade. Police allege the letter-bombs were specifically targeted to the three women in an act of revenge.

The alleged threat against the ex-wife speaks to a larger societal issue. Divorce can be deadly for women. We live in a world in which women are killed for even filing for divorce. A cursory Google search reveals chilling headlines from all over the globe. “Man crashed car to kill wife after hearing she wanted a divorce, court told.” “Man convicted of killing wife on day she filed for divorce.” “Mumbai: Wife asked for divorce, so I killed her in anger, says Andheri man.” “Las Vegas man convicted of killing wife who wanted divorce.”

A 2013 Juristat article prepared by Statistics Canada found “the prevalence of spousal homicide was highest after marital separation, though only for women.” It also found that a woman’s risk of being killed by a legally separated spouse was nearly six times higher than their risk from a legally married spouse.

Divorce is rarely tidy. It’s a mentally, emotionally and financially taxing process. Several studies have shown that men are more likely than women to consider and complete suicide after a divorce or separation — but the reasons for that very often have more to do with toxic, deeply ingrained cultural ideas about masculinity — such as that “real” men are stoic, and therefore don’t get the support they need — than they do with “women taking men for all they’re worth.” Everyone has something to lose in a divorce. But divorce shouldn’t cost women their lives.

Still, the lengths some people will go to in order to justify violence against women is astonishing. Mitousis didn’t deserve what happened to her. No one deserves that.