Recently, the topic of domestic abuse has been all over social media, with #WhyIStayed trending on Twitter when NFL player Ray Rice’s wife chose to “go back” to him after he was charged with physically assaulting her. The general public could not understand why anyone would make that choice.
The perpetrators of domestic violence are not evil beings that pass through a membrane from another dimension – they are people that are raised and live among us – some of them we’ll know, most of them we will never knowingly meet. Ray Rice was not the first, and nor will he be the last, celebrity to have been charged with using his partner as a punch-bag. Other well-known people to have been arrested and charged with domestic assault include Mel Gibson, Chris Brown, Vanilla Ice, Christian Slater and James Brown (and yet we’re still happy to sing along to “Ice Ice, Baby”, “Run It” and “I Feel Good”).
But Ray Rice’s status as a NFL player meant that some disregarded him as not being guilty enough to pay the price – and unfortunately this trivialised attitude towards domestic violence doesn’t just apply to celebrities. We have a huge issue with domestic abuse across the globe, and a big problem remains our inability to conceptualise exactly which choices the victim/survivor actually has in the situation, which is why the #WhyIStayed subject began trending so quickly.
Here are some global statistics that help us to put domestic violence into some perspective – according to the World Health Organisation:
– Recent global prevalence figures indicate that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime;
– Around 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner;
– Worldwide, almost one third (30%) of all women who have been in a relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner, in some regions this is much higher;
– Risk factors for becoming a perpetrator include low education, exposure to child maltreatment or witnessing violence in the family, harmful use of alcohol, attitudes accepting of violence and gender inequality.
For many sufferers of domestic abuse, “walking out” is never that easy. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, within emotional, sexual and physically abusive relationships, an abused woman is 75 percent more likely to be murdered when she runs away (or tries to) than when she doesn’t.
According to the author of a Vice article – who is also a survivor of domestic abuse – we must also take into account “the fact that victims are often trapped in financial and social binds that mean their money and friends and pretty much everything they have is tied up with their partner.”
But as for individual reasons, survivors tweeted their #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft reasons in the millions. Particularly touching tweets included the following samples:
I was told marriage is forever. I didn’t want to be a failure #whyistayed
— Jessica Merrell (@jmillermerrell) September 9, 2014
because i thought if i loved him enough he would stop being abusive #whyistayed. because i knew he would kill me eventually #whyileft
— Allison O’Connor (@yurhuckleberry) September 9, 2014
It is therefore clear that while many people obviously consider leaving their horrific situations, it’s often the case that socio-economic factors prohibit them from taking that step. But as the tweets are in the past tense, these survivors evidently did eventually take that step.
#whyileft I left when I realised I was living in constant fear of someone who “loved” me. Someone who treated me like a piece of trash.
— Luna (@lunaluvbad) September 9, 2014
Because I wanted my son to never see me brought that low or think it was okay. #whyileft
— Tanya Wilson (@tanyaw01) September 9, 2014
While some critics accuse #WhyIStayed of being empty activism solely based on Twitter and done purely for personal gratification (I like to call it Twattivism), I don’t think #WhyIStayed falls under this category. However, some people have made some good arguments against the campaign and against other social media-based actions that have consequently derived from it.
Ruth Glenn, the director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, has generally noticed the recent increase in the number of victims/survivors talking about their experiences on social media. She argued that “On one hand, for centuries violence has been perpetrated against women, and it hasn’t been necessarily visible to the general public… the public is getting an opportunity now to see what does happen behind closed doors…On the other hand, I do believe it desensitizes us after awhile. And I would hope that anyone who is experiencing violence would be careful because it does expose them to anything from victim-blaming to escalation of violence from their perpetrator.” The ‘Health is Social’ blog also argued that social media exposure could also lead to dangerous backlash from abusers, and that “violence isn’t just a physical act: its a violation, one which ranges from subtle manipulation to implicit threatening and emotional terrorizing to murder”, and that it is entirely possible that abusers use spyware and/or cameras to bug the victim’s actions, ensuring that they don’t “tell”.
The act of “speaking up” on social media, then, is potentially much safer and more effective for people who have already left their abuser and come out at the other side, providing support for the readers at home who may still be suffering, and raising awareness for everyone who hasn’t experienced domestic violence.
Other people have accused #WhyIStayed of falling into the trap of “victim-blaming”, because it places emphasis on the question, “why did YOU choose to stay with a violent partner?” But there is arguably a large hole in this accusation, in that this particular social media campaign has allowed survivors of domestic abuse to speak up about their experiences and explain – not because they have to justify themselves to anybody, but in order to raise awareness – the reality of many abusive situations and the difficulties with leaving. “Victim-blaming” is the act of placing responsibility on the victim or survivor, rather than placing emphasis on their experience as non-passive entities.
What #WhyIStayed has done, as most campaigns set out to do, is raise awareness. While statistics and socio-economic analyses can provide us with some reasons as to why domestic abusers do what they do (it usually comes down to imitating behaviour they’ve seen as a child, alcohol or drug problems, an unequal perception of the genders, and consequently a need to feel physically and mentally superior), there was huge public misconception around the reasoning of domestic abuse survivors. Hopefully we can now begin to understand the issue of domestic abuse and violence to a greater extent, and work together to prevent domestic abuse and provide support for those who haven’t left yet.
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