One in every four women will fall victim to domestic violence in her lifetime, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV). To help give you some perspective, that means if you have four sisters or daughters, one of them is likely going to be a victim of DV; girls, if you have three girl friends, one of you is likely going to be a victim of DV; anyone, if you look around the room, 25 percent of the females are likely to be a victim of DV. Eighty-five percent of DV victims are women, and almost one third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by a spouse, according to the NCADV. The saddest and scariest statistic of all, is that the NCADV claims most cases of intimate partner abuse are never reported to the police.
It is truly disheartening that for the topic of domestic violence to get the attention it deserves, another celebrity or professional athlete needs to be found abusing a partner or family member as Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson recently have. However, as scarring an incident I’m sure it is for the victim to undergo, the media coverage of the situation is crucial when it is a high profile individual at the center of it if there is any hope of decreasing its prevalence in society.
Tragic situations like this should be talked about on news sources and every social-networking site, any outlet that has people paying attention because that is where awareness will be spread and change will be made. We must leave no question in the minds of potential and current perpetrators that DV is never ok to partake in, show victims that it’s not typical in a healthy relationship, and that they deserve better.
Situations like this only have one silver lining: to let victims know that they are not alone. Hopefully the outcome of the recent Ray Rice incident will be different; this could be the time where we make sure every individual knows this is not right, it will not be tolerated, and no one is too famous for consequences. However, the key to doing so is in spreading awareness, and the usual mediocre coverage of these incidents is not going to cut it. Beverly Gooden, a DV survivor, unintentionally started the #WhyIStayed movement on Twitter, and it may be the key to educating people on the dimensions of spousal abuse that aren’t apparent from the surface.
Moved by the recent whirlwind of response to the video of Ray Rice’s atrocious act of domestic violence, Gooden initiated the #WhyIStayed movement on Twitter to spread awareness on the difficulties of leaving a violent relationship, according to The Washington Post. Gooden, a human resource manager in Charlotte, NC, is a survivor of a violent relationship, and probably one of the few people in the country that haven’t seen the video. “The overwhelming tone was, ‘Why did she stay?’” she told The Washington Post. “I felt that people just don’t realize, asking ‘Why doesn’t she leave?’ is such a simple question for a very complex issue,” Gooden said.
Gooden took to Twitter and began to list off reasons that she stayed in her abusive relationship for as long as she did, giving an insider’s perspective on an issue that is necessary to consider before asking the seemingly obvious question: “Why didn’t she just leave?” She wanted people to understand that it’s never that simple, tweeting details like “I tried to leave the house once after an abusive episode, and he blocked me. He slept in front of the door that entire night. #WhyIStayed,” according to The Washington Post, and tweets that followed read things like “he said he would change”; “I thought love would conquer all”; “my pastor told me that God hates divorce.”
The hashtag soon caught on like wildfire, and not long after women were adding #WhyILeft as well. The tweets only got more heartbreaking after that. The Washington Post showed a tweet by Natalia Oh! that reads “#WhyIStayed not wanting fatherless sons. #WhyILeft not wanting motherless sons.” Another reads “#whyistayed I thought he would kill me #whyileft I saw his eyes the moment he decided to kill me and I wanted to die free,” by lucida_console. Gooden didn’t realize the downfall of responses that her tweets would cause, but as Twitter user Connie Shults said, it put “Hope in a Hashtag.”
Our access to social networking sites and the truly amazing number of users that a message can reach is a tool that was, and is, being well-utilized to spread awareness on an important topic– DV awareness that will hopefully cause change from this day forward. Gooden “wasn’t trying to justify remaining in an abusive relationship but to illuminate why it is so difficult for women to leave,” according to The Washington Post.
I am fortunate to never have been a victim of domestic violence by someone I love, and my inexperience to the subject permits me to think I would have the power to leave if I ever was. If I take away anything from this situation, it is that it’s never that simple, and these brave women sharing their experiences have given me a glimpse into what I may face if I ever was. Do you think these women fell in love with their partners after they’d already been abused? Chances are, the answer is absolutely not. They were already deeply in love when the first incident of abuse occurred. At that point they have to question everything they thought they knew about their partner; how can they leave and give up on the one they love? Do they try to help them? How do they know it will happen again? What will happen to the children? Will they win a custody battle? If they are religious, what if their God will hate them for divorcing? If they don’t have their own insurance, but need it because of a health issue, how will they survive without his?
These are only a small sample of the many questions a victim of DV can be forced to ask themselves if they were ever abused– questions no one should have to ask themselves, in a situation that no one should have to be in. Intimate partner violence is preventable with the right information being spread, no more perpetrators partaking in the violence, and setting a better example for the next generation. Stop the cycle.
If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic violence, please call The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE(7233) or visit their website www.thehotline.org.