domestic violence

MJ

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I am an American and Italian dual citizen and have lived my adult life as a “trailing spouse” – a wife who has supported my husband’s career internationally while not being awarded work or study visas of my own. Typically, I’ve held “spouse” or “visitor” visas. This situation has made me financially and legally (immigration wise, at risk of deportation upon separation or divorce) dependent. We have three children. He is abusive in every sense of the word – emotionally, sexually, financially (I have no idea what earnings or savings he holds), and physically, culminating in an incident in 2021 in which he drank 3/4 a bottle of whiskey and woke me from a dead sleep choking me to the point of a whiplash and vertebrae injury. I saw a doctor two days later and carefully reported the incident but could not file a police report, as then his employment, our family of five’s only source of income whilst I lacked work permissions, was at risk. Even in explaining the precariousness of my situation, I was asked to return two hours later for “exam and x-ray results”… wherein I was ambushed by the police. I was then referred to a social service agent who asked, first question “What is your plan to for financial independence or to return to your home country?” Despite holding a US Bachelors and years of unpaid NPO experience, I was told in the absence of local language fluency no one could assist me with employment. And I had no one to return “home” to and three children I’d be leaving behind, due to the Hague Convention (I would require my abuser’s permission to have them leave their country of domicile). I couldn’t stay, I couldn’t go. And to add insult to injury… again and again… I was phoned by KESB and informed that should the children witness further abuse, I would lose custody as at this juncture I was complicit as I did not leave the relationship. I am still in this position to this day. I have been married 23 years and am in a foreign country with three children. I’ve made contact with countless attorneys, women’s aid groups, embassies, and advocates, literally all of them are optics and all of them unable to assist. And the remote work option that seemed so promising during the pandemic has all but disappeared. I’m here, financially dependent, abused, and in a system that does not recognise unpaid caregivers. We are simply prisoners.

Elizabeth

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I left my abuser. Or so I thought. He knew that he could say and do whatever he wanted to me because, well, he had money. He had been in the Military. He was God fearing and most importantly he was a man and what was I? Just an unemployed woman who did his dishes and had his children. When my 7 year old son refused to move to another state with him and wanted to be with me, I tried to fight. I called Legal Aid, told of his abuse, and they said “sorry, we can’t help you because he didn’t hit you”. As if abuse doesn’t run deeper than that. I was afraid with Noone to advocate for me. The day he tried to leave, he called the police on me, telling them I was crazy and “was on drugs”. A man’s lie trumps a woman’s reality, I guess, because the cop, also a woman, believed him immediately and verbally berated me until I was so broken down that he was able to take my two boys (my 3 year old was too young to understand what was happening) In spite of a court order granting visitation, he wouldn’t let the kids see or talk to me. When I finally was able to scrape together enough money for an attorney it had been 7 years. My boys and I are still being terrorized by him even though I finally regained custody of 1 and am working on saving my younger boy. He has had zero consequences so far…

For real

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I’ve heard so much about physical abuse but luckily I only ever experienced it to the extent that’s humiliating, but not actually physically painful. Yesterday, I randomly came across a video on my facebook feed, where an adult man was asssaulting a little boy, about 8 or 9 years old, and a woman was trying but failing to protect him. It was all in a language I don’t understand but it was pretty clear what was happening šŸ™ first he hit hit with his hands then with an iron rod, no I’m not making it up. He kicked the little boy in the face. He found another hard object and jammed it in his face as hard as he could. At one point the boy vomited. The grown man doing the assault (probably a brother, about 18-20 years old), was frighteningly calm the whole time, pausing before the different attacks to gather his strategies like in a boxing match. I know, what has this got to do with sexism? Obviously, toxic masculinity, cycles of abuse, women like the woman in this video not being able to interfere and protect the young victim because then they would be assaulted too and possibly killed. This sort of violence is a result of toxic masculinity. The reason I’m sharing this is because seeing it actually happen is totally different from just hearing about it. Of course it must be a whole other story for those who had to grow up in such a household. I can’t imagine what it might be like. Just seeing such brutal violence made me sick to my stomach. It frightens me that some people are so deeply intrenched in the belief that they are above the other person and can treat them any way they want that they would go this far or even further. It makes me question where the hope is that they can change their behavior and their attitudes.

Ian

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Hi and amny thanks for campaigning against sexism. My story relates to th break up of my marriage and domestic violence. I was beaten about the head with my guitar whlst sat at my computer by my wife until it broke. Whenever I tell this story to men or women it gets a very different reaction to if it had been a woman beaten by a man. I’ve had many people laugh at me for it. I tried something the other day and decided to tell the story differently – that I hit her about the head – and the difference in reaction was incredible. Many thanks for your work towards sexual equality.

XTina

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Coercive control is not a law in the USA. It only became one in the UK in 2015. In this Amber Heard vs Johnny Depp story, the ‘fans’ of him require her to have bruises… or there then is no ‘abuse,’ but from my experiences, colleges, police, and any ‘authority’ tends to believe the men over the women. Abuse doesn’t require bruises. It can be social, emotional, economic, etc. I’ve blocked probably 40 people on twitter arguing for her defense. I believe in self-defense, and was taught lessons in Arizona in elementary school. Not every culture believes in self-defense. I had 0 training in that in Northeast California… I think those are the ones attacking women on twitter about Heard’s case. I am happy that Heard is supporting women and other victims. Her personality of defiance and feistiness makes people question her because she isn’t meek. But as we see on everyday sexism, meekness and not doing anything does nothing too. But why must we attack the brave who speak out? It’s disgusting. People can hit both ways, but Depp is in the power position, and is the larger player. In these sexist people’s views, there can only be hitting in one direction. I’m glad 3 male friends agree that Heard is believable, but I have to look at the past of toxic relatives (mainly 1) who were narcissistic and did coercive control. They walk free with their victims the losers. Especially the male does. People want to think that people will be reasonable and fair, but that’s not true. Having police, schools, and authority not believe is common. To keep talking to the media and at pro-women’s groups is believable. I’ll always be against domestic abuse, but the way society is, it makes us helpless to change it.

Reader

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“Parents dead in murder-suicide at Sugar Land home as 16-year-old daughter slept inside” Instead of: Domestically violent husband kills wife, then himself in Sugar Land They make this appear as if you do not know who the perpetrator is, then the police tell the friends to not talk about a likely disturbing email the morning before the killing. Of course, they wouldn’t report domestic violence.

grace (19, melbourne au)

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this happened last year I was sitting in the living room when my brother finally came out to clean the dishes of the meal i’d cooked for him. I heard him starting to unload the dishwasher, which i knew to be dirty, and told him to stop. He kept unloading, saying some of them looked fine, to which I walked over and said just because they were rinsed didn’t mean they were fine (some could’ve had contact with raw chicken etc). I also knew that he was just being lazy, wanting to make room so he could put the new dishes in, to which they wouldn’t clean properly (becasue they never do, especially when they’ve dried out for hours), so then I can get the pleasure of properly washing them the next time I cook. ‘What on earth has this got to with sexism’ you might be wondering. This can’t be a big deal, just another, ‘men don’t do chores’ whoop de doo. “Sit down or I’ll kill you.” He pointed his finger at me, his teeth were gritted and his eyes wide. They were wide with the same anger in which we argued every other time. Except this time he threatened to kill me. Except this time, I knew him to be capable of thinking it every time he looked at me that way and-in a moment of sheer horror, to do it. My dad, who’d be in the room, told him ‘he’d gone too far’. He said it seriously, not angrily. My brother started screaming about how I was patronizing him before he went to his room, slamming the door. I stood there shocked. Then something even worse happened. “You shouldn’t have nagged at him. Your mother always nagged.” My dad just placed the blame on me for my brother threatening to kill me. He then left. I stood there still. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to think that these men- which was all they were to me in that moment, not family, had the power and right to be angry, to cause devastation and for me to fall victim to it. I didn’t want them to have power over me. But I cried nonetheless. And I kept crying, struggling for breath. I physically walked outside of that room, but everything in my mind was a struggle. The cold air hit me, it was raining, but nothing could be felt bodily, not even if my brother in that moment had barged out from his room and stabbed me. My sister ‘Laura’ was with our older sister ‘Jane’. I couldn’t reach out to her for comfort and solidarity. I felt so alone, with the words ‘you shouldn’t have’ ringing in my head as much as ‘i’ll kill you’. I ended up calling my mum, even though i knew she would be at work. I felt guilty for causing her such panic, but once I finished talking with her I assured her I would call my oldest sibling, ‘James’ who always knew how to make me laugh even when i was detemined to be upset. And he did make me laugh, I began to calm down as my Dad came out to talk to me. I didn’t want to talk to my dad though, i felt he had no right. No right to explain the situation to me, to tell me what i did, or what he did, as he so very much likes to do before apologising. He just had no right to do that after what he said. Mum called him. She justly told him how wrong he was to say what he did. To slander my mother in the process of slandering me, meanwhile all my brother got was ‘you’ve gone too far’ in an unemotive statement. He was more emotional about the woman he’d been separated for five years now, and my acting like her than my BROTHER THREATENING TO KILL ME. And you know what? A week later, my brother- not the nice one who made me laugh even when I was in the middle of a breakdown, the one who threatened to kill me poked his head into my room and with a grimacing smile, said ‘sorry about what happened.’ I just stared at him. He deserved nothing. He might as well have just texted me ‘btw sorry about threatening to kill you, no biggie right?’ And I’m still supposed to be okay with it today when I see him. As if I can’t think of him saying it. Of all the times he’s gotten angry, when’s he’s broken something, yelled, shoved me back in a rage. How am I not supposed to think of the women I see on TV, who were murdered by someone they knew, they trusted and loved. How am I not supposed to think about him threatening to kill me over fucking dishes, and fear that the next time he gets the slightest bit mad, not only may i be threatened, but I could be killed. And that I don’t just imagine it, i consider it a real possibility that my own brother might kill me in a rage.

Domestic Violence

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Talking about Domestic Violence at Uni yesterday, I was the only man in the class and found myself having to voice the fact that 40% of domestic violence has a male victim and trying to get the conversation away from a perception that only woman are victims and all men are perpetrators. The other students found this funny and one even said that ā€œthe men probably deserved itā€ another said that ā€œitā€™s not the same, they are men and can defend themselvesā€. I was shocked and tried to explain that male victims canā€™t defend themselves otherwise they would be the ones arrested for domestic violence. I was shouted down, then when the tutor intervened instead of defending what I was saying she moved the conversation back to a gender biased approach where only woman are victims. I was disgusted, along with writing this on here I am also writing a letter to the Dean ā€“ a letter which I know will probably just be ignored. When 1 in 4 men suffer domestic violence and 1 in 3 woman – why do people only care about the woman?

Dilaouen

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I am still grappling with the abuse that my parents gave me (both of them), which is inherently sexist — they had fixed ideas of what girls could and couldn’t do, and what boys could and couldn’t do. But they seemed to be a bit more open for boys. My male cousin hated football and loved caring for animals, and he came under fire by his parents for it, but my parents were like, ‘cut him some slack, dude, he loves animals for fucks sake’. But in my case? “Oh, girls can’t play drums.” “Girls can’t ride bikes.” “Girls can’t get into the music industry without being made to sleep with someone.” Girls can’t this. Girls can’t that. Everytime I wanted to tell them I could, or even prove to them I could, I would be beaten up very badly. (This is just the tip of the iceberg, because the abuse runs far deeper than that, but I thought of sharing the sexist element here.)

Joanne

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After two years living with a violent abusive housemate I decided to voice my concerns to the landlord. His response? “If the atmosphere is so threatening, why haven’t you just moved out?” I just sat in my bedroom and cried. Basically either calling me a hysterical woman, or a liar or both. It just mirrors the situation of domestic violence victims where people ask “why didn’t she just leave?” instead of condemning the abuser. More to the point I shouldn’t have to leave my home because a man is threatening and intimidating me, it’s my home too. Anyway, fast forward six months to an incident after being woken up again at 4am by our housemate and two male strangers returning home drunk to our house, my female housemate gets up to find vomit all over her towels. She’s understandably angry and confronts him over this. She’s angry with him but not threatening. He leaves and doesn’t return for two days (on a day which he knows I always stay over at my partner’s so the house will be empty apart from him and my female housemate) and he runs into the kitchen launching a sustained verbal and very nearly physical attack on her. She repeatedly tries to speak to him in a logical reasoned manner but he simply screams at her “I do not want to listen to you, I just want to yell at you”. It was so bad that she handed in her notice to the landlord the next day and reported him to the police. The landlords response? “Well there are no witnesses, the police can’t prove anything and you are moving out anyway”. Now I work in criminal prosecution and I know that there was more than enough evidence for her to press charges if she had wanted to, however she was too frightened of repercussions to do so. Both the landlord and my housemate clearly have problems with women. They treat us like liars or hysterical fantasists when all we were was scared of being in the house with somebody who was clearly violent and clearly had a problem with women. He had a problem with me because we worked in the sector however I was more qualified than him (I’m a trainee Solicitor, he is a paralegal but tells everybody he’s a lawyer). The saddest thing about this is that we informed the landlord of our concerns six months previously and he did nothing. I have saved all of this correspondence to show the police should I ever need to. This man is dangerous and I have no doubt in my mind he is a future domestic violence perpetrator but nobody will listen to us.