Domestic Abuse
Taken from 'Chats with Nicky and Sila Lee'
Joined by Michele Hawthorne and Natalie Collins
Retired police superintendent, John Sutherland in his book Crossing the Line said, ‘Domestic violence is terrorism on an epic scale, a disease of pandemic proportions, and the single greatest cause of harm in society.’ He also goes on to say, ‘domestic violence is no respecter of gender, class, sexuality, or geography. However, the fact remains that the majority of victims and survivors are women and the perpetrators are men.’
Michele Hawthorne, founder of Press Red, and Natalie Collins, gender justice specialist, joined Nicky and Sila for a discussion on domestic abuse and the wider issues of abuse and violence against women. One in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her lifetime.
The rate of abuse is alarming, and so what do we do? How do we educate society about these issues to make these issues known and change the trajectory of abuse in our society. To start, we need to go back to the beginning. We need to go into schools and talk about it. Churches need training in how to handle it, recognise signs and know where they can point people who need advice or support.
However, we have to make sure that we understand what the problem is in order to educate people. “I think a lot of the time when we are looking at issues of abuse, there's lots and lots of myths and misconceptions about abuse that are out there… The reason why someone's abusive is because of the beliefs they hold. And the reason, the beliefs they hold are essentially if you strip it right back, is that they believe they own their partner and they're entitled to do what they want to their partner. And that's why they desire to control their partner because they want to maintain this belief that they can do what they want.
And then they have the right to do what they want. And so if we're going to talk about what we need to do to educate people, we need to start by asking that question. Why is somebody being abusive? They're being abusive because they want to be and because they can.”
So how do we address this? “From when children are very small, we need to be challenging ideas of ownership and entitlement. We need to be challenging ideas that you can behave horribly to somebody and get away with it. We also need to challenge gendered expectations on boys and girls. The reason why the majority of abusers are a male is not because men are worse than women, but because we live in a society which enculturates man into views of entitlement and ownership of women across all sorts of spheres of society. Look at the me too movement, look at the forms of violence we see and things like pornography. And so there's all these messages that men and women are receiving about what is normal or acceptable in relationships and in behaviors. And so all of what we need to be doing is de-normalizing male ownership over women. And we need to normalize that women should be empowered to own themselves and to feel they have rights within their relationships too. So it's from very young all the way up to very old and both inside and outside the church.”
But what can about the scale of the problem now? The police in the UK receive a domestic violence related call every 30 seconds, and even then we know that only a small number of those experiencing abuse, make a call or reach out for help. So why is this?
“The primary reason is because the abuser stops her. But also because she doesn't know she's being abused… [One] of the big challenges around abuse is most people who are being abused, wouldn't identify themselves as somebody who's being abused… And at the point that they do their, partner's not going to let them call the police is not going to encourage them to do that. So I think there's lots and lots of barriers to accessing help. And a lot of that's about not even recognizing that somebody is being abused.
I think also one of the reasons is that we always blame ourselves. So partly that's because the abuser tells us it's our fault... But partly the reason why we blame ourselves is because if it's my fault, then I can fix it. And if it's my fault, then I'm not powerless. And powerlessness and feeling out of control is so, so dangerous for the human psyche that we'd rather blame ourselves. And so we blame ourselves and think, well, I need to fix things. I need to make things better because the reality of living in a world where I can't fix it and make it better is terrifying. And so there's definitely a lot of stuff around shame and self-blame and understanding that is really important.”
So what about those of us who may be suspecting that somebody is in that situation?
“I think it's multifaceted. I think one of the things is there has to be a commitment to unconditional support. So a lot of the time it can be very frustrating supporting somebody who's being abused because they don't do what we want them to. And often what happens is we just replicate the abuser's behaviour. By the abuser saying, ‘You have to stay.’ And we say, ‘You have to leave.’ Well we're both telling her what to do. So our job is to do the opposite of the abuser and not just say the opposite of the abuser. So, if he's trying to limit her choices, we need to increase her choices. If he's telling her she's stupid and useless, we need to tell her how brilliant she is. And if he's telling her she's a terrible mother, we need to say, ‘You're such a good mom.’ So some of it is just about helping them to realize those choices that the world isn't as small as he's making it.”
But further to that, we need to be learning and educating ourselves, reading books and websites. Natalie has written a book that is aimed at helping people who may be in these situations and simply knowing more information is going to help. And we need to trust our instincts. Even if we know a partner and don’t think he could possibly be abusive, if we think there’s a concern we should follow up. “[W]e have to be willing to accept that somebody we like, someone we care about might actually be abusive. And that's a really hard place to get to because if I can assess who's safe and who's not, then how can I keep my family safe? How can I keep the people I care about safe? And so I think that acknowledgement that people that we like might be dangerous or hurtful to their partners or children is something we're going to have to face.”
Abuse is not always physical, it takes many other psychological and emotional forms. Physical abuse often comes when the other things stop working to get them what they want. “We've got to recognize that somebody is benefiting from this behavior. And often the physical violence emerges when they're not able to get what they want through emotional or financial control. I think we always have to be acknowledging sexual abuse as well within this.”
So what do we do with all this? Press Red is doing a number of amazing things, from providing training to leaders and church, cultivating on online directory to provide free resources and advice, running courses and conferences and publishing material. Get informed, learn, ask questions and encourage our families and friends to do the same.
For us, a great place to start is with Natalie’s book, Out of Control: Couples, Conflict and the Capacity for Change. The book is about “equipping the helpers, the friends and the family professionals and the church leaders to be able to, if they, if they come across somebody and they're concerned about that person, they know how to support them.”
You can watch the full interview below.
Additional Resources
Book: Out of Control: Couples, Conflict and the Capacity for Change by Natalie Collins
All quotes taken from 'Chats with Nicky and Sila Lee, Joined by Michele Hawthorne and Natalie Collins’
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