C. Imani Williams

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Throughout the month we’ll examine the myths around DV, and what survivors need to know including boundary setting, red flags, safety plans, self-care, and moving forward. 

Domestic violence is a health concern for Black women, families, and communities. Domestic violence which can include emotional, physical, and verbal abuse are equally community and public health issues. The Centers for Disease and Control, (CDC), states intimate partner violence has reached crisis levels. Racism, sexism, and homophobia can also play roles in who seeks and receives help which affects health equity for even more.

The hardest step towards getting help is taking the first one. Do it anyway.

Domestic Violence is a Pandemic
Social media and news headlines leave no doubt that we must continue the discussion, demand legislation that protects victims a hell of a lot better, and equips women with coping skills for dealing with and moving beyond the trauma of intimate partner violence. We have to get information to girls early and reinforce it with women who haven’t yet gotten it. Schools, community centers, and yes religious institutions all bear responsibility in this societal pandemic. Understanding the cycle of abuse, how we get caught up, and being aware of the signs are all ways to combat the growing epidemic that ends lives and destroys families.  

Black Women At Highest Risk of Homicide from Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence happens in relationships across all demographics. Perpetrators and victims can be straight, gay, teens, elders, rich or poor, and from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. 
Unfortunately, there is always a need for conversations around the topic of domestic violence. For Black women partner abuse is the number one cause of homicides in the U.S. Additionally, more than 10 million women and men are affected by physical intimate partner violence annually. 

More People Experience Domestic Violence Than We Think

Think it can’t happen to you? Numbers don’t lie and they show that  4 of every 12 women does, in fact, experience domestic violence on some level. Domestic violence often starts out with verbal and emotional abuse and often escalates to physical abuse. Statistics come from real reports and incidents. Not everyone reports abuse so it is safe to assume that factual numbers are much higher. 

In fact, we have all heard of someone caught in a bad situation who says they simply didn’t see it coming. Sometimes we can see the bad news on the wall, but ignore the signs in exchange for what might result in a happy union.  Listen, if it walks, quacks, and acts like a duck, chances are it’s a duck. 

Top Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships

• Negative Self Image

• Ignoring Red Flags

• Shunning Counseling

• No Boundaries

• Financial Security

• Trusting too early

• Becoming intimate too soon

Negative Self Image
Low self-esteem can make us feel unworthy of deserving love, or that we deserve poor treatment. Flag on the play! Start there. We have to love ourselves before we can love anyone else. Energy is important and when we feel low and bad about ourselves we emit energy that says “Do me any way you want.” We know folks who put that type of energy out and don’t blink twice at being approached with shady inappropriateness. That’s a hard truth. In doing so, we can invite all kinds of toxicity right to our front door. Take time to fall in love with yourself first. 

Ignoring Red Flags

Red Flags can keep us from bad situations. If we know what to look for.  A bad experience is less likely to be repeated if we are paying attention. Trusting our gut is intuitive. Sometimes, we listen and other times we choose to ignore it. Below are things we should pay attention to. 

Red Flag List In No Particular Order  

• Possessiveness

• Buying gifts soon after meeting

• Calling or texting incessantly

• Asking for money

• Staking claims over you

• Jealousy

• Trying to move into your spot, or inviting you to live with them soon after meeting 

Author Note:
“I was told many years ago when going through my first experience with intimate partner violence that if physical violence happens once and you stay, it is very likely to happen again. True facts. It did. The first time though took me by surprise and I was literally was stunned, hurt, in disbelief and wanted to hide. I wanted to believe the apologies, his tears, his promise to never do it again. So I stayed in the situation only for the same thing to happen again. It may have been a month or two in between, but trust me it went down. It seemed too early in the game for couples counseling. In my heart, I knew that it wouldn’t help. I needed counseling to figure out what the hell happened. I needed to know not just what, but the why and the how of it. I didn’t go to counseling. With the second incident that included a slap in a club parking lot and continued with date rape once we arrived home (my house), I ended the relationships after calling the police. Because I didn’t seek counseling I didn’t learn the answers. It would take another relationship that started the same way, without boundaries for me to move my ass and seek professional help.Keep in mind that someone is likely going to jail if peace officers are called in. Generally, it’s the person without fresh marks or scars.”

Boundaries Matter
   
Looking inside and being secure with self instead of focusing on material things. Our most precious gifts are our hearts and if we’re being real, our time. It may look like everyone is in love and living a good life. In our want of the same, we can jump the gun. It is paramount that we sit with self and determine a) if we want a relationship, b) decide what a relationship looks like for us. Without boundaries, we literally roll with the flow and whatever goes. There’s a 50/50 chance that things work will work out, but if it doesn’t it can be emotionally/financially/spiritually costly and quickly problematic. 
  
In addition to having relationship goals we pre-fix with a hashtag, we should focus on getting ourselves together before trying to get booed up and judging other’s relationships from the outside. 

Getting ourselves together means that we are able, capable, and committed to protecting our space, checking people out before inviting them in, and paying attention when it feels wrong,  and then backing up. That’s a boundary-setting in a nutshell. Without boundaries, it’s easy to get caught up while trying to glow-up with “in a relationship” social media status updates.

Without taking the time to analyze, investigate, and let things happen after said assessment has been completed, we set ourselves up for failure. While not everyone has bad intentions, opening the door without a ticked checklist, simply invites trouble. If you aren’t together it will come out through your own brand of insecurity and immaturity. What could have been won’t happen, because if the other person has themselves together emotionally, they don’t need to engage you or me on a romantic tip, if we haven’t done self-work.  

Financial Security

Facts. There are people who offer genuine support during hard times. There are also those who prey on people that are struggling. Again, demographics don’t matter. The victim may be teen who identifies as gay, recently displaced from home by homophobia, or the teen or young adult pregnant with nowhere to sleep at night. Other times people are operating on the sheer emotion of sex and what can feel like love and affection. 

If someone is on the prowl and the description fits for someone in need, help may be offered. It may come at an extremely high price. That of safety. 

We live in a culture obsessed with material things and the costlier the better. Abusers with credit or cash flow know this. The jewelry, foot game, and cash gifts given with strings that are in place securely, but that we often refuse to see, can come back to haunt. 

There are even slum lords waiting to prey on young, working, single mothers trying to be superwoman because it’s required if we choose to strike out on our own, or we’re forced by life circumstances to do it. Some dishonest folk rent out half fixed units to mother with questionable credit but in need of safe shelter for her and her babies. She gets a not so good deal, on an apartment badly in need of repair sans credit check. In exchange for a little something else. It’s another form of trafficking that women, poor women have to think about when doing the best they can. 

There is no shaming for a mother doing everything she can as the sole provider, which is why more safety nets have to be in place to catch women and families when intimate partner violence hits. 

Becoming Intimate Too Soon

The reasons women stay in bad situations aren’t listed in any particular order. They can also include making ourselves too accessible from the gate and not getting to know a partner before becoming intimate. If the latter is the case please don’t let the shame of giving it up too early be a reason for staying when you aren’t being treated properly. 

We can be really hard on ourselves if we put ourselves out there and things turn bad. Instead of slut-shaming ourselves we can choose to learn from the experience, by taking time to examine what happened, and putting in some self-work and intentionally setting the boundary to skip relationships, flirting with relationships and the like, until we do said work.  At that point, it’s more than cool to continue on our independent sexually liberated path with both confidence and boundaries. 

Walk away with this, don’t trade your self-worth for a Lil’ bit of attention. It’s a disservice to self. It doesn’t uplift “beyond the orgasm” and we’re left looking at our reflection in the mirror working to play-off hurt feelings. 

The Privilege of Abusers

Domestic violence is a caustic mix of patriarchy and privilege designed to destroy spirits. It has to be eradicated. The stories of survivors can serve as tools of resistance in working to raise awareness. Marginalized and disenfranchised communities have to have viable and accessible resources. Funds for well managed safe spaces for victims have to be made available to those in need. Executive Directors must be culturally and racially competent as they set the culture, making shelters safe or not so safe, safe spaces for LGBTQ clients.

Teaching Our Sons and Daughters 
 
Our sons have to be taught as toddlers and adolescents that it is not okay to hit or bully girls.  Positive reinforcement and role models are found in men who treat women with respect. Our daughters have to understand the importance of speaking up and saying “no.” All children should have autonomy over their bodies and not be forced to kiss or accept hugs from adults who make them feel uncomfortable.

Getting Help
If you are involved in intimate partner violence there is help available. Making the call will allow for safe space to get your head together through individual or group counseling. That’s where coping skills are learned and awareness is raised, starting the journey to recovery. The time to end intimate partner violence is long overdue. 

“How Communication Factors In” by the Director

 I remember the first time I read the report, “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls Childhood, by Jamilia Blake, Rebecca Epstein, and Thalia Gonzalez. I reread this report from time and time, regardless of the work I am engaged in at the time. After being in various work environments, the experiences that I’ve found most fulfilling have been the ones in which I was working with teens. 

The blog above keys into one specific detail in particular; that Black and Latina girls and women are more likely than White women or girls to be abused or in violent domestic relationships. Does our society accept and report on this fact? Absolutely not. 

A recent article from NBC News discusses how Black and Latina girls are more likely to be exposed to “reproductive coercion.” For those unaware, this is “a form of relationship abuse that increases the risk for unintended pregnancy and can include contraception sabotage, condom manipulation and pressure for the partner to become pregnant when they don’t want to be, according to a recent study, published in the journal “Obstetrics & Gynecology.”

I chose this article because of the “communication” and “terminology” it uses to identify the girls in the article. Unlike most mainstream media, the authors did not use terms such as “they were asking for it,” “more mature,” “more womanly,”, or “fast.” These terms are too often used when describing and over-policing the behaviors and actions of Black and Latina girls. Rather, the article focuses on the real fact that these girls are more likely to experience coercion from boys and men, and not vice versa. 

“The research also suggested that Latina and black adolescent girls may be more vulnerable to reproductive coercion and sexual violence. Nearly 15 percent of Latina adolescents and 15 percent of black adolescents reported sexual coercion in the previous three months, compared to about four percent of white adolescents.”

The lack of attention to the high prevalences of domestic violence rates for Black and Latina women and girls might revolve around the fact that these groups are sexualized from a very early age. Thus, our society deems these groups as “perpetuators” of sexual activities, rather than “victims,” as White women and girls are seen as. It continues a vicious cycle of underreporting among these communities (as we also are very protective of our men), and exacerbates the issue further. 

But help is available. 
National Domestic Violence 24-hour Hotline, 1-800-799-7233.