Gender Violence and Violence Against Women 101
When we speak of Gender Violence, we are not negating the existence of abuse towards men and children. These are reprehensible physical and emotional attacks, punishable by law (in many cases insufficiently). However, not every instance of violence is considered gender violence. Gender violence means systemic violence performed by men inside of the social framework of the Patriarchy, which allows men to feel legitimately justified to use it against women.
According to the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women of the UN:
For the purposes of this Declaration, the term "violence against women" means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.
Violence against women shall be understood to encompass, but not be limited to, the following:
Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation;
Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced prostitution;
Physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs.
Violence against women is not just one more aspect of general violence, but instead itās a tool wielded by one gender to ensure its dominance over others. To preserve the existing inequality within our society, at a macro level and in personal relationships. To defend a model who gives power and privileges to men.
We could represent gender violence as a pyramid. At the top, we would place violent behaviors. However said top is not able to sustain itself, it relies on the existence of a very particular foundation composed of a cultural model (sexism) and a social structure (androcentrism).
Ā It resembles an iceberg more than a pyramid, where one only sees a top made of violent behavior but the support system that enables this behavior remains hidden out of view; making it very difficult to address the underlying cause.
Intimate partner violence is āĀ physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse,ā according to the CDC.
It requires the existence of an emotional link between the members of the couple, which is from where this type of abuse draws its power. Ā Along with child abuse and elder abuse, it falls under what we call Domestic Violence: Patterns of behavior that involve physical or emotional abuse in a domestic context.
Intimate violence is incredibly damaging because it poisons the emotional perception of the victim, subjecting her well-being to the approval of the aggressor. This affects the victim in several ways:
It is intimate: It concerns the very core of the person involved.
Itās continuous: It exists in the past, the present and the future.
It feels inevitable and unescapable: The victim feels unable to evade the punishments in the short term and end the relationship in the long term.
It perverts every interaction between the victim and the aggressor: Fear permeates every action the victim takes, because any choice and/or omission might have undesirable consequences.
There are two fundamental processes to understand intimate partner violence, specially the way that they relate:
The Cycle of the Violence
The term cycle of violence refers to repeated and dangerous acts of violence as a cyclical pattern, associated with intense emotions and doctrines of retribution or revenge. The pattern, or cycle, repeats and can happen many times during a relationship. Each phase may last a different length of time and over time the level of violence may increase. It can be divided in three big sections that branch in different steps:
Tension accumulation: The tension is the result of an increase in conflicts in the couple. The aggressor is hostile, though he still does not demonstrate it with physical violence. The victim tries to calm the situation down and avoids to do things that might set off the abuser, thinking that she can avoid the future aggression. This phase can expand for several years.
Within it we can find a set-up phase were the abuser begins setting the victim up and puts his plan in motion, creating a situation where he can justify the abuse.
Explosion: It is the result of the tension accumulated in phase one. Step by step the fights and problems increase in number and intensity, they becoming harder to avoid, the tension increases until itās so unbearable that the violent episode happens. The aggressor exercises the violence in its wider sense: through verbal, psychological, physical and/or sexual aggressions. It is in this phase when the victims present charges or requests help. There are a couple of steps that will happen in this phase:
Fantasy and planning: The abuser begins to fantasize about abusing the victim again. He spends a lot of time thinking about what she has done wrong and how he'll make her pay. Then he makes a plan for turning the fantasy of abuse into reality.
Abuse: The abuser lashes out with aggressive, belittling, or violent behavior. The abuse is a power play designed to show "who is the boss."
Honeymoon: During this stage the tension and the violence disappear and the abuser claims to feel bad about what he has done, fulfilling the victim of promises of change. Often the victim grants another opportunity to the aggressor, believing firmly that things are going to change. This phase makes it harder for victims to end the relationship since even though they are aware that the aggressions can happen again, at this moment she sees the best face of her aggressor, which feeds her hopes that she can change him.
This stage of the cycle of the violence is what supports both members of the couple in the relationship, waiting for new āhoneymoonsā. The cycle will repeat itself several times and the honeymoon will become shorter and shorter, with the aggressions becoming increasingly violent. The honeymoon provides "proofā that change is possible and it can manage to sustain 10/15 years of opportunities for the relationship.
In this phase we find the final steps of the cycle:
Guilt: After the abuse, the partner feels guilt, but not over what he's done. Heās more worried about the possibility of being caught and facing consequences for his abusive behavior.
Excuses: The abuser rationalizes what he or she has done. The person may come up with a string of excuses or blame the victim for the abusive behavior anything to avoid taking responsibility.
"Normal" behavior: The abuser does everything he can to regain control and keep the victim in the relationship. He may act as if nothing has happened, or he may turn on the charm. This peaceful honeymoon phase may give the victim hope that the abuser has really changed this time, and the suffering is over.
We all have heard someone say āIf my partner ever even tried to threaten me, I would just leave". You might have even said it yourself. And it is true, if a partner threatened us with physical violence, we all would take the decision to quickly leave the relationship. What most people overlook is the fact that physical violence is not the first step: it comes after many other abusive behaviors that shape the independent and healthy woman that enters the relationship into a victim. In fact, physical violence is not even necessary. If the emotional abuse is effective enough, it might never reach the point of physical aggression.
It starts small: Jane meets John and after some time getting to know each other, they begin dating. John, who has behaved like a normal guy until now, turns out to be an abuser. He is not aware of it, he is just a normal fellow who cares about his girl. Yes, he is a bit jealous, but thatās because he cares. A bit of jealousy is healthy!
Isolation: He doesnāt really get on well with Janeās family, he doesnāt like her friends. Jane is aware of the tense and difficult situations that arise every time she is there with John and doesnāt understand why they donāt approve of her relationship with John. She ends up deciding that if they donāt support her choice itās because they donāt care about her and stops talking to everyone who disapproves of her relationship.
What Jane is not aware of is that the tension has not appeared out of nowhere, it is the result of those who cared about her when faced with the behavior of John, who thought that all that people around her where taking time away from their relationship. She doesnāt need friends anyway, he has his own and he trusts them.
Also, itās not like Jane had a lot of time to hang out with her friends or coworkers, she spends most of her free time with John and her friends just donāt understand. Her coworkers have decided to stop inviting her over, because she never shows up. But for Jane, John is more than enough.
Control and Prohibitions: So Jane doesnāt hang out with her friends or family, they barely talk, in fact. She no longer has healthy relationships in her live to compare to her romantic relationship, the sense of if this or that behavior is normal or not is completely lost. In addition, John is her only friend and companion, so when he says that the skirt she was going to wear to a party makes her legs look fat she chooses to change into something else. John is just trying to be helpful and he didnāt mean for her to feel bad. Such a small thing is not worth getting into a fight. John has discovered that the mere chance of a fight is enough for Jane to change her decisions so John just needs to express his disapproval for his word to become law.
Humiliation: It is starting to bother Jane that John criticizes what she is going to wear or do so much she starts confronting him about that when he complains. One day John comments on the skirt she was wearing and it escalated into a fight. Ever since, the ugly comments, the backhanded compliments and straight up insults have been constant. Jane does not have the positive reinforcement of her family and friends helping to pick her up after the fights. So when John screams in the middle of lunch that she is just a dumb, fat wh*re like her mother, Janeās fear of losing him (her only friend and only support system), the pain of a damaged relationship with her mother and the self-esteem issues that have been plaguing her since that first fight push her into compliance.
Shouts and Insults/Scorn and humiliations/Accusations and recriminations/Threats and intimidation/Inductions to fear/Environmental mistreatment/Emotional Abuse/Sexual Abuse/Etc.: The fights with John are a constant threat now. They happen more often, they are more unexpected and they get increasingly more violent. The moments of peace and quiet are scarce but Jane clings to them with everything she has. The fear has become chronic, she canāt even sleep anymore because John storms in to wake her up and scream and insult her, just the possibility of that happening keeps Jane wide open through the nights. The screams, insults and humiliations have become part of their daily life and everything that Jane does turns into a weapon against her. Even her family photos that were hidden on a box under the bed, ripped by John one angry afternoon.
Jane has tried to speak with her parents and her friends and they drove her to the police station at 3:00 in the morning after a fight, they helped her quickly fill a trash bag with her things so she could leave while John was out working,⦠but they grew tired of having to come back for Jane, of trying to explain why his promises werenāt real. They grew tired of the pain of seeing a loved one so trapped in a destructive live.
Jane already is not the person who entered the relationship, now she is a victim.
The psychological violence continues with humiliations, the constant fear of doing something that could trigger conflict. In few occasions that Jane tries to get out or fight back, the consequences are worse, and he hasnāt even touched her yet.
Would Jane have stayed in the relationship if John had slapped her in the beginning? Obviously not, but has time passes, a slap or a beating are the result of Janeās resistance against the abuse. She is punished because she still fights back.
Abuse has serious consequences:
It critically damages all the areas in the life of the victim: social, behavioral, affective, physical, mental, sexual and intellectual health.
Nullification of the personality: It renders what was once a person with thoughts and opinions into someone who merely exists.
Strong emotional dependence (Bosai effect/Paradoxical affection)
Domestic violence needs the victim to be isolated, regardless of whether said isolation is being caused directly by the abuser or circumstances beyond his control (a woman who has moved to a different place where she is far from family and friends, for example). This lack of external, positive social contact traps the victim into a kind of Stockholm syndrome or bonsai effect: The same person who is making my life a living hell is the person who provides the love and affection I cling to in order to stay sane. The effects of this can appear as soon as in 5 hours.
Imagine how difficult it is for Jane to actually leave when, over a coffee, a friend tells her she must.
Next month, we will follow up with a guide on how to help Jane to get out of her relationship from the outside.