On Women and Violence

I have been married to a man for ten years who has never - not one time - so much as raised his voice to me in anger. We have had our disagreements, of course. We have gone at it about money, household chores, parenting, all the average points of contention of committed relationships. But we have done so respectfully, careful to never name-call or demean or cut down. We love and respect each other too much to be cruel.

Before I began my relationship with my husband, my landscape was very different. I'll never forget showing up to work (where my current spouse was my then-boss) with a black eye. Now-husband asked how I got it. I spun some tale of falling, being a clumsy idiot. His response: "Oh. Well... if it was a guy who did that to you, he should be in jail." I didn't cop to it at the time, but it was indeed a guy who gave me that shiner. I had been dating a man for awhile (we'll call him "Joe"), and though I didn't love him and couldn't see any future with him, I stuck around. He was familiar. Joe could be very sweet. He would surprise me with flowers. He would share romantic songs that reminded him of me. He also drank an awful lot. One night he showed up with a tiny gold ring, and proposed. I was 19. I was a mess. I had no desire to marry Joe or anyone else, and I told him as much. He left my apartment, and I assumed that was the end of our relationship. Around 3 am that morning he was back at my apartment, drunk as a skunk, and awfully angry. He insisted I marry him. I refused. He punched me square in the face.

A few years prior to that incident, a boy I had known, loved, and treasured since kindergarten asked me to be his girlfriend. "I can't! It would be weird," I explained. "You're like my brother." He pulled out a knife, held it over me, and sexually assaulted me repeatedly for two hours. That was one of those pivotal, life-altering moments. That single event permanently changed my entire trajectory.

I like to consider myself a very progressive woman. I am teaching my daughter (and my sons) that women don't NEED men. Women can take care of themselves, can fulfill their own dreams, can succeed and achieve at the same level as men, and that's just how it should be. My views are based on personal experience, but not in the conventional sense. I want for women - my little girl among them - to have more than I had. I am tremendously blessed with a good, honest, kind man now, but he came along after a succession of violent abusers. I aspire for a world in which those abusers no longer have a place.

Unless you live in some kind of hobbit hole, you have likely heard about the Ray Rice controversy. Mr. Rice is a very talented football player who was caught on video beating his then-fiancée. The NFL's first response was to suspend Mr. Rice for two games. Two games for knocking out a woman and dragging her out of an elevator by the hair. The enormous public outcry eventually prompted the NFL to revise its stance on domestic violence offenses, and later (much too late) to suspend Mr. Rice indefinitely. In the aftermath, I have heard comments from "reputable" television personalities including, "She cost him his football career," "Why didn't she just leave?" and, "She should've taken the stairs."

I'd like to address this issue, not from the perspective of a football fan (which I am) or a "good ol' boy" (which I am most assuredly not), but as a woman who has been raped and beaten by men, and also treated respectfully and lovingly by a man. I've walked both paths. I know what love can be, and I know what love never, ever is.

In spite of all the gains we women have made in the past several decades - we can vote, we can have careers, we can control our own finances, we can control our reproduction, we can determine our own goals - we still find ourselves in the one-down position. We too often find ourselves at the mercy of the men in our lives. For whatever reason, we find ourselves with less power. Sometimes, no power at all. This affects our psychology. A repeated pattern of victimization by men, often beginning in childhood, leads to a core belief that we are simply not as important, as valuable, as our men. I certainly believed this for a long time. Several years ago, when I sought trauma therapy, I walked into my counselor's office and said, "I know God put me on this earth for the pleasure of men. I need you to help me figure out how to deal with that." Thank goodness (no, thank God) she was a good therapist, and she helped me realize I was the victim of circumstance, not a bad person deserving of abuse. Many, many women never have access to the help that I received. Many, many women never have the opportunity to recognize their own value, their own power. Many, many women will continue to go back to the men who hurt them, because these women believe that they are blessed to have someone to love them. The bruises and fractures and concussions are just confirmation that they don't deserve that love.

Victim blaming needs to stop. Victim blaming only serves to further oppress the people who have already been stomped down. Victim blaming absolves the perpetrators - the people who committed acts of violence against other people unable to defend themselves - from the guilt which is entirely theirs. I am pleased that the NFL ultimately revised its policy on domestic violence, but I am dismayed that it took so long to get there. I am pleased that violence against women is in the spotlight, but I am dismayed that it continues to be so prevalent and pervasive. I am pleased (incredibly grateful, overwhelmingly blessed, hugely fortunate) to be married to a genuinely good man, but I am dismayed at the pain and suffering I endured before I realized I deserved that good man.

The best we can do - and if it's the only thing I do with my time on this planet, I will be thrilled - is to teach our own children how to treat others, and how to be treated themselves. We need to teach our sons and daughters that violence is never, ever acceptable. We need to teach our sons and daughters to respect their bodies, their minds, and their spirits. We need to teach our sons and daughters to demand that same respect from others. We must - we MUST - raise up this new generation to care for one another. And we must lead by example by diligently caring for each other and ourselves.