The Language of Avoidance: Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (A Series of Quotes)

*TW: This discussion considers domestic violence and domestic abuse.

“Because even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth the word turns ugly and absolute. It swallows up everything” (Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa)

Last spring, Sarah Everard’s murder sent shockwaves around London, the UK, and the western world at large. While this brutal attack was not the first of its kind, and (unfortunately) will not be the last. Violence against women occurs around the world, every day. However, this attack felt alarmingly close. As a woman living in London, this horrifying attack was a painful reminder of female vulnerability and how women are perceived by both men and society.

After Everard’s attack, social media channels flooded with visual culture commenting on the ways in which women must alter their behaviour to remain safe. Women are always required to alter their behaviour to avoid the threat of male violence (both real and potential harm). In domestic abuse situations, women are encouraged to leave their relationship. More generally, women are encouraged to walk in pairs while out at night. Women are encouraged (by other women) to make known when they’ve arrived at their destination, and to avoid public transit, parks, or other public spaces where she might find herself alone at night. However, this language that we use to protect women is—ironically—fundamentally harmful and degrading.

The crux of this narrative is that women are responsible for protecting themselves. Women are victims of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse by men and yet women are responsible for avoiding situations where these occurrences are likely to arise. In this narrative, women are both the victims and the sources that onset male violence.

The reality is that violence against women is not a new phenomenon, sadly. In our society—and arguably around the world—we give women the tools to expect this maltreatment from men. It is estimated that one in three women will experience domestic abuse within their lifetime—though this statistic is estimated to be higher. One in three. This statistic is shocking though hardly unbelievable. Imagine, one in two women? One in one—every single woman. It's not inconceivable.

From a young age, women and girls are taught to be vigilant; we teach women and girls to dress, behave and speak in ways that attract minimal masculine attention. And yet, we fail to educate boys and men to keep their hands to themselves. We enable boys and men to sexualise, fetishise, and control women while simultaneously teaching girls and women to accept this reality or alter themselves to fit within this harmful environment created by the very perpetrators of its harm: boys and men. This is a deeply problematic underpinning of our patriarchal society.

Gender-based violence begins early. Consider sexual education, for example. While sexual education is not inherently violent, the implicant biases imposed upon boys and girls cultivates a culture of violence against women. Consider this: boys and girls are taught in school that heterosexual sexual activity begins and ends with men. Heterosexual intercourse begins when the male partner is erect and concludes upon male ejaculation. What message does this send? Our education system teaches boys that their sexuality takes precedent in sexual activity between men and women—this is the message that women receive from such education. And while boys are not explicitly told that their superiority extends beyond the bedroom, girls and women quickly learn otherwise. Girls from a young age are taught that their bodies are inferior to that of men. As a result, it is not surprising that this message prevails outside of the bedroom and proliferates throughout society.

Recently, I’ve been thinking deeply about gender-based violence and domestic abuse, and how this impacts women collectively. While I have (thankfully) never experienced physical domestic violence, I have surely experienced verbal and emotional abuse, and have been subject to battery in the public sphere. Like most women, before these experiences, I thought I was the exception. "But that would never happen to me," I thought to myself. We know where this is going, don't we? I was young and vulnerable to harmful words. I was naïve. I normalised these experiences of emotional abuse and accordingly found truth within the harmful words. The consistent criticism and angry outbursts scared me into a state of paralysis; I became smaller, and smaller, and smaller. It is only years later that I understand this experience to be evidence of domestic, emotional abuse.

As Kate Elizabeth Russell writes, in her book My Dark Vanessa: “Because even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth the word turns ugly and absolute. It swallows up everything." While this book was disturbing in more ways than one, I found this quotation incredibly illuminating of the ways in which women avoid the term 'abuse'. Perhaps we choose to avoid this term because it intensifies our experiences. Perhaps this term solidifies our experiences as real rather than irrational fiction hidden within the mind. So, what do women do? We repress ourselves and our feelings to avoid confronting the pain and truth behind our experiences. Indeed, one might repress her experiences in order to avoid harmful responses from others—the discharging and disempowering language that requires women to prove their experiences. As a result, women may only speak out about their abusive experiences when they have physical, bodily evidence to validate their claims as emotional and psychological trauma is difficult to prove when the body remains (visibly) unscathed. This problematically leaves women with few options.

Whether or not most women choose to accept this reality, this label, and this corresponding stigma, I am confident that nearly all women have experienced situations that would fall under the domestic abuse category. The issue, I’ve realised, is that women often discredit their experiences to avoid the resulting victimisation.

I get it. You might be thinking: “not all men.” Well, you’re right. It is not all men who engage in gender-based violence, but it is all women who are victim to such inhumane and degrading treatment by men. And while I recognise that not all men participate in violence against women, I would argue that such statements do little to help women who have and will experience male violence. “Not all men” turns the tables on women, shifting the victimhood from women and onto men. “Not all men” enables all men to avoid the responsibilities of their gender and to wash their hands clean from the fact that until we hold all men responsible for gender-based violence, these statistics will not decrease. All women will not be safe until men make efforts to make societies safer for women. The solution begins with all men.

*For more resources on domestic violence and domestic abuse, please contact local organisations in your area.