Home Sweet Home – Domestic Violence
The effects of domestic violence
Over the past decade, many definitions of domestic violence have been adopted by agencies and organizations working in this field. To enable a base to be established for data collection and information sharing, the government has agreed a common, core definition for use across all departments which can also be adopted by local domestic violence partnerships. This states that domestic violence is:
Any incident of threatening behavior, violence, or abuse (psychological, physical, sexual, financial, or emotional) between adults who are or have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender or sexuality.
The majority of partnerships move to develop fuller definitions, which maintain compatibility with the core definition, while reflecting the realities of their own situations, their remit and their aims and objectives.
But what does this definition mean in reality?
This is by no means an inclusive or definitive list, but is intended to show some of the many different ways in which abuse can take place and has been compiled from research carried out over the past ten years. Physical or sexual violence is not usually confined to a single episode – repeated incidents, which increase in frequency and intensity over time, are the most common pattern. Once the first physical or sexual incident, however minor, has taken place, there will inevitably be the anticipation and fear of further violence, resulting in growing feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. Other forms of abuse – constant criticism and belittling, possessive and controlling behavior, isolation, access to money and other resources – may be combined with physical or sexual abuse, or be used alone, but equally create feelings of anticipatory fear and anxiety. Women explained that they were constantly wondering and worrying as to what their partner’s mood was going to be.
Would it be a quiet, peaceful day with just a few plates thrown, or would it start badly and get much, much worse?
The unpredictable nature and timing of the abuse removed from them any sense of physical or mental safety. As a result they were unable ever to be at ease, or to trust what was going on around them. Acts of physical and sexual violence had often severely injured them and some women had suffered permanent damage to their physical health. Yet they were emphatic that it had been the mental consequences of these acts and of the other emotional abuse that they had suffered – the ‘mind games’, manipulation and control which their abusers attempted to exercise over every aspect of their lives and thoughts – that had been the hardest to bear.
It was in some ways, they told me, worse than the physical abuse, since they were unable to show evidence of the damage that had been caused to their emotional well-being and mental health and from which they felt they might never recover. ‘He just messed with my head so much’ was a frequent comment. This stress on the psychological impact of abuse has been noted by other researchers in this field.
Women talked about the way their world had ‘closed in’ as they became isolated by their abuser from communication with family and friends, either through direct prohibition, or by making it extremely difficult to maintain contact. For example, the amount of money available for transport might be restricted, or aggressive and insulting behavior might drive away those who came to visit. Some women, perhaps with elderly or infirm relatives, did not want to expose them to the risk of abuse. There were also feelings of shame and guilt around what was happening, which could make them reluctant to make contact.
Their connections with the wider community were also subject to control and scrutiny. Shopping trips were timed and closely monitored, with lengthy interrogations as to whom they had met and talked to and any activities outside the home were implicitly or explicitly discouraged. (In one case, this included regular hospital check-ups to monitor medication levels.)
This isolation was made worse in rural areas by lack of adequate public transport and accessible community facilities. Some women had been forbidden to use the telephone, or it had been ripped out. Jobs had also been given up or lost because of the level of control exercised over outside contacts, taking away access to independent financial resources, as well as social contact with workmates. The same had been true of further education, or other study.
With the diminution of potentially supportive networks, communication with the only permitted source of conversation, the abuser, became more significant, influencing women’s views on life in general and in particular, their view of themselves. Inevitably, this had a negative effect, with women talking of the effect that constant criticism of their appearance, intelligence and ability had had on them. ‘The emotional abuse is terrible. To be told, for nearly eight years, that I was stupid and I was thick and…you know, you believe it.’ Perhaps the saddest, yet most tenuous aspect of this emotional abuse was the way in which it appeared to have destroyed women’s own aspirations and ideals.
This was most poignantly expressed in two lines of a poem that Amalie had written while in the refuge:
He took my hopes and my dreams
And my reach for the stars.
Isolation and constant denigration resulted in a gradual and terrifying erosion of their personal integrity – of being a person in their own right, with ideas and ideals worthy of recognition and respect. They lost confidence in themselves and their abilities, their self-respect and self-esteem, feeling, as they had been told so often, that they were ‘worthless’ and ‘a waste of space’.
No one aspect of abuse can be seen as standing alone – they feed on each other. Physical and emotional abuses both create an atmosphere of fear, shame, uncertainty, and lack of trust that places a barrier between women and those around them, isolating them from potential sources of support. Possessive and controlling behavior results in economic and social deprivation by limiting access to clothes and other material goods, transport, education and social activities, further increasing feelings of isolation and reinforcing the dominance and importance of the abuser.
Without outside support to check the reality of her perceptions, isolation turns thoughts inward to review what is happening, resulting in an inversion of reality, whereby the woman believes that she is the one to blame. Her sense of guilt and shame works to increase her isolation and ability to trust herself or those around her. A. described how this happened to her:
Because you are isolated, you’re going through it, you are isolated, because you are blaming yourself all the time. You see the man as the good one. Yeah, he’s right. In the end, you’ve got no…you know, you seem so down you think, well, it is my entire fault. So, in the end, you’re scared to talk to anyone. And I found myself thinking, they all know. They all know that… They all think that it’s my fault.
Consequently, women are held in an abusive relationship by what has aptly been termed a ‘web’ of interrelated behaviors and social and economic difficulties; by both fear and the reality which reinforces it. It takes courage and determination just to keep going in these circumstances, let alone take the decision to leave. It was clear, however, that women did take positive action to protect themselves and their children and to maintain some kind of contact with other people.
They made efforts to defuse tension in potentially dangerous situations, trying to please and satisfy the abuser, monitoring their own behavior to avoid confrontation and looking for ways out of their situation, including leaving temporarily to give themselves respite and time to think. They had utilized help lines, either by using mobile phones or, where they were allowed unchecked access, by landlines.
They used drop-in centers, did their best to keep the home together, and took whatever opportunities offered to be in contact with others. Those who had jobs tried hard to keep them, and if they lost them looked for other paid or voluntary positions. These strategies contrast strongly with the idea of ‘learned helplessness’, a concept which argues that women who experience repeated abuse become helpless, passive and submissive, feeling powerless to control their lives and unable to leave the relationship.
In her later work, Walker has modified this concept to accept that the overall position is more complex. Women are not totally helpless or passive within an individual incident or continuing situation. Nevertheless, ‘learned helplessness’ has been widely adopted by social workers, the medical profession, and other agencies and can result in the woman being seen as ‘the problem’ rather than the abuser.
Examples of domestic violence
Mental abuse
Threats
Fear
Threat to harm children
Isolation from family and friends
Loss of social contact
Persistent criticism
Denial of privacy
Verbal abuse
Deprived of sleep, money, clothes, going out, use of telephone
Terror and intimidation
Physical Violence
Throwing things
Kicking, slapping, hitting
Pushing, shoving, grabbing
Choking, strangling, suffocating
Using a weapon
Bruising, broken bones, cuts, scratches
Bitten, burnt, scalded
Knocking unconscious
Miscarriage due to violence
Chemical in face
Death
Sexual violence
Rape
Sexual assault
Degrading and humiliating sexual acts
Other forms of abuse
Damage to personal property
Theft of property
Threats and violence to pets, animals
Denied access to work
