Interesting questions. Especially when there's a new (I think) ad campaign raising awareness of domestic violence around London; it seems to be specifically encouraging people outside the relationship who know about the violence to take action.
Firstly, I think the featured website really enjoys pissing people off, so it doesn't need to be well argued, which is good, because it's appallingly written.
For example, the narrator uses her life story as an example of how any woman can leave an abusive relationship. In the account she gives there is absolutely no practical detail about how she left her abusive husband, how she found somewhere else to live, what income or family support she had, what she would have done if he'd known where she was and tried to continue the abuse. She concludes:
The moral of the story is: Any woman can easily leave an undesirable relationship if she has the want and self respect.
Being able to extrapolate that moral from the fact that she poured chilli sauce on her partner's cock is ridiculous.
But the point is definitely worth considering more than the person (who I really hope maintains a Trappist silence whilst volunteering at the Battered Women's Shelter, because who needs that shit?).
I think the practical reasons listed by Women's Aid are very much worth restating in such instances. If you're defending your need for state aid, particularly, then the relative lack of financial control and the practical fear of discovery by battered partners are excellent reasons.
Outside the case for state intervention, I'm interested in the less practical reasons why someone doesn't leave a violent relationship; the kind of mental manouvering that accompanies being subjected to violence. I feel there are a lot of patterns of logic which people begin in order to survive violence and try to understand it, and which then keep people with abusive partners (even when they seem to have practical opportunities to leave). Just from anecdotal sources: People deny to themselves and others that the violence is serious or continuous. They construct time-based excuses (this is a period of stress, my partner will be better when it's less stressful). They don't sincerely believe in the possibility of a relationship without violence (or don't believe they deserve one). They overvalue loyalty, and think leaving makes them a worthless person who "bailed" on their partner when they needed them. They feel that the violence is a shared problem which they have to work through together, and to which they contribute by provoking their partners.
Overall, I feel that there is a great desire for relationships to succeed, coming from our cultural obsession with life-long coupledom. Even when terrible things have happened in a relationship, you hope that something will be able to redeem it. The worse it gets, and the longer it goes on for, the more you need it to improve and the more you will lose if you leave - because by leaving you admit that the time and pain were for nothing.
And friends and relatives are often perfectly happy to participate in this downplaying and manouvering, which means that your distorted perspective becomes more easily maintained.
Anyway, this is all drawn from the experience of friends and acquaintances rather than more authoritative sources. I'd be really interested to see any decent research on this topic.
So - yes, I think that for the purposes of big, simple, awareness raising the issues of finance and fear need to be emphasised. More anecdotage - I know that at least one domestic violence charity finds it very hard to get major corporate charitable sponsorship because it's perceived as "breaking up homes". So, awareness certainly needs to be bloody raised.
But I'm equally interested in not oversimplifying the reasons why someone doesn't leave an abusive relationship, because then you risk saying "She's financially secure, why doesn't she just pour chilli sauce on him and leave?". |
