It is, once again, October. The touch of the autumn air is
chilly and damp, a relief after this summer’s heat. Leaves turn brilliant reds, yellows and orange, drift to earth, and decay into moist browns. Halloween, just one evening of ghosts and ghouls, spirits and specters, will be here in the wink of an eye.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Unlike the Halloween season, domestic violence is not limited to October, nor should we be aware only these 31 days. Domestic violence (also called intimate partner violence) is a wraith that stalks its prey all year long. Abuse victims are often haunted even after the relationship ends: they are more likely to suffer depression and anxiety than are others, have more difficulty forming long-term loving relationships, and more likely to engage in harmful, high-risk behaviors, according to the DHHS Office of Women’s Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the 1970s the phrase “the personal is political” gained traction among feminists as women recognized that individual incidents and abuses were commonplace, even routine. And because they were socially OK there was little recourse, which made them systemic. Many women put up with them for various reasons. We heard that’s just the way it was, or that’s just life as a woman in modern America so deal with it. Or “boys will be
boys.” Or there would be consequences, such as sexual assault, physical battery, or even murder (currently half of female homicide victims in America are killed by a current or former intimate partner). Those possibilities would hang in the air, unseen and unnamed, an apparition always making its presence felt even if invisible.
Fifty years later, while there’s been progress and a decline in rates of IPV, it’s still alive and kicking. The rate of decline has been much slower than the decline in the overall rate of violence. And there’s some evidence that, for women, the rate of homicide due to IPV is slowly creeping up again. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , there are also significant financial costs of intimate partner violence. They estimate the lifetime costs for female IPV survivors can top $100,000 (the estimated lifetime costs for male IPV survivors is $23,000).
If you know a someone in an abusive relationship, please download this flyer and send it to them. If you are into planning and lists, take a look at this inventory for safety planning. Send it to their friends also — they probably feel like they’re watching a bad horror movie, powerless to intervene. In fact, send it to anyone you know. It may save them from this nightmare later. Do your part to exorcise this demon now, for the whole
year.
Sincerely, Joanne
