Monday 4 March 2013

It Matters Monday - Domestic Violence

Happy Monday everyone :) 

The new week brings a new laptop. My beloved Mac died a painful death at the weekend, taking all my files and photos with it to its grave. As a mark of respect, I went out and bought a very nice new one. I'm everso excited about it! My last one was sweet, in a falling-apart kind of a way, but this one feels very fancy and special!

I'd like to share a video with you today; it's another TED talk that I found inspiring. In the video below, Leslie Morgan Steiner talks about her experiences as a domestic abuse victim, before explaining why victims don't always leave an abusive relationship. This is such an important topic. Domestic violence is sadly extremely common and I often hear people question the victims' decision to stay. Such a common occurrence in today's society shouldn't be so poorly understood. We all know what the abuser is doing, but we never fully realise the mentality of the victim, often wondering if the victim might be partly to blame for not leaving. Steiner, however, explains the precise reasons why this happens, why the victim stays in such a relationship and why it's problematic to ask these sorts of questions. 

Please note that the content of the video is rather upsetting - Steiner describes the abuse she once suffered at the hands of her former husband so please be cautious when watching.


What are your thoughts on this issue? I wholeheartedly agree with Steiner when she says that we need to talk about this. As she says, abuse thrives only in silence. We need to break that silence.

A final note - Steiner mentions that abuse victims can of course also be men. I think she generalises a little in the video despite this. In my opinion, abuse towards men needs to be brought into just as much focus as that of women. For society to be equal, we need to acknowledge each others problems regardless of gender and take these issues just as seriously no matter whether they are affecting a man or a woman.

the little nordic cabin
x

4 comments:

  1. Working in family law for so long I dealt w/ a lot of DV issues. In fact recently my fiance' and I had to rescue his daughter at 1:30 a.m. after her boyfriend hit her. Unfortunately we found out that she hit him first....it's a very sad state of affairs. I am lucky that no one has ever hit me before. I have told every guy I ever dated that if they ever raised a hand to me, I was gone.

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  2. Ditto ! Jo Jo !
    My father told us that as soon as any one raises his/her hands on us the relationship should be off. Consequences? He told us that my parent's house would always be open and also he educated us all so we could support ourselves.

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  3. Agree with Jojo and Munir - such relationship will be doomed so better leave.
    You know, there was a topic of DV in India in the show called Satyaamev Jayaante. There were women who suffered being beaten by their husband, their in-laws. So DV is in each and every country, but not everyone raises this problem, unfortunately.

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  4. Thank you for these amazing comments. I'm lucky too and have never been hit. I've been threatened before, but got straight out of the relationship before it could get any worse. I think that one benefit of talking about this and normalising it (normalising talking about it, sadly the situation is already all too normal) is that we get wiser. We will learn the warning signs and know when to get out of a relationship that's starting to turn dangerous. We will learn to recognise the patterns and avoid getting pulled in.

    I agree with you when you say it's in all countries. It's everywhere, in both genders, across all age groups. It needs to be spoken about more openly so that we can put an end to it.

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