Day 5 - Domestic Violence
I could have written an essay laying out all the facts and figures of domestic violence, but I'm sure you've heard them a hundred times or more. We all know them, and the fact that you're participating in this little community means that you are passionate about changing things. You know all of that already. (And if you don't, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence has some excellent fact sheets for national and state specific statistics, with footnotes!)
Thinking about domestic violence (or family violence) made me think about relationships, which made me think about all the different relationship changes my friends have gone through this past year. People have gotten married, engaged, bought a house, divorced, moved to a new state, found love and lost it again, or embarked on new relationships in configurations that some in society wouldn't call normal. In short, my friends have a lot of stories to tell.
Being a writer, and not just an activist, I spend a lot of time thinking about stories, and what I, as a reader, like about stories. A lot of the best stories, the most loved stories, and the stories that are most successful are about, at the heart of things, relationships. And I realized, and perhaps I should have realized this sooner, that we as writers and consumers of stories have a big responsibility to tell all kinds of different stories, and to - not tell the “right” kind of stories - but be conscious of the impact our stories can have on different people, and be conscious about what readers will take away from our stories. Stories, in some ways, shape our worldview; they help us make sense of the world around us, and they help us relate to other people, either by creating common ground or by exposing us to new perspectives.
This is a big, daunting responsibility, when you start thinking about it. Of course there are stories that are just pure fun, that exist purely for entertainment value, and that's fine. But the stories that we remember, that really grab us and affect us, run a little deeper than that.
Each woman I talked to, during the course of my work at two different crisis organizations, had a story. And as she told her story, she would find other women who could say yes, that happened to me too, or yes, I feel that way too, or this is what I did in a similar situation. Having a safe, non-judgmental space to tell her story was instrumental in giving her the tools and the strength to make positive changes in her life.
Of course each woman has her own process, and so sometimes she would go back to her relationship, or get into a new one, the violence would continue, and it would seem like nothing had changed. There are statistics about that too, I'm sure you're well aware. However, what did change was her knowledge - that there were people out there who were experiencing the same thing, that there were people out there who could help her, and that there was a safe place for her to go, if she decided that's what she wanted to do.
This, I feel, is one of the most important things in giving her story a happy ending.
That's why the organizations I chose to link to this year all provide that safe, healing space for a woman to tell her story. They aren't shelters, though of course shelters are intrinsic to the anti-domestic violence movement. Sometimes, all it takes to change someone's life is finding someone to listen to her story.
National DV Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
Hotline advocates are available for victims and anyone calling on their behalf to provide crisis intervention, safety planning, information and referrals to agencies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Assistance is available in English and Spanish with access to more than 170 languages through interpreter services.
WOMAN, Inc.: 1-877-384-3578
Women Organized to Make Abuse Nonexistent, Inc. (WOMAN, Inc.) has operated since 1978 as a community-based, multi-service agency, serving survivors of domestic violence in San Francisco and the larger Bay Area.
California Partnership to End Domestic Violence: 1-800-524-4765
The California Partnership to End Domestic Violence promotes the collective voice of a diverse coalition of organizations and individuals, working to eliminate all forms of domestic violence.
As an advocate for social change, we advance our mission by shaping public policy, increasing community awareness, and strengthening our members’ capacity to work toward our common goal of advancing the safety and healing of victims, survivors and their families.