Breaking the Silence, Changing Culture

Last month, the Harvard Lampoon presented their Wheelwright Award to the famous rhythm-and-blues singer James Brown for his “outstanding contributions to human life.” It seems the revered publication has sunk to a new low, by lauding, however facetiously, the so-called “contributions” of a man who faced and pleaded no contest to criminal charges of domestic violence just this past January.If Brown had assaulted a random woman on the street, society would brand him a dangerous man. Even the Lampoon would not honor someone seen as a threat to its female peers. But when the woman is his own wife, the one person whom society expects him to treat with the greatest respect, we instead write off the assault as trivial—as something that “just happens.”

October may be Domestic Violence Awareness Month, but this award only shows how a national tragedy is tolerated by our culture on a daily basis. Given the magnitude of the domestic violence problem in the United States, one would expect us to take it more seriously. A Commonwealth Fund survey found that almost one in three American women has been physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend. In another survey one in five female high school students reported having experienced violence in a relationship. In fact, most violence against women is committed by the men closest to them. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), of all women who report physical or sexual abuse after the age of 18, 76 percent were assaulted by a current or former husband or significant other.

What’s worse, a woman’s risk of being abused—and even killed—increases when she becomes pregnant. The leading cause of death among pregnant women is homicide, and as with domestic violence in general, the killer is most often her husband or partner. Current events bear out this awful truth. The public has heard a great deal about the recent murders of Laci Peterson, Lori Hacking, and their unborn children; Scott Peterson is currently being tried on two counts of murder, and Mark Hacking has already confessed to killing his wife.

Although DOJ statistics indicate that 92 percent of incidents of abuse in relationships occur against women by men, women in heterosexual relationships are not the only people hurt by domestic violence. It affects people in all kinds of relationships. One-quarter of gay men and lesbians have reported that they have been abused by a partner, roughly at the same rate as heterosexual women.

The cultural symptoms of the domestic violence epidemic and the levity with which we treat them go beyond hinting at the profundity of the disease: they feed it and perpetuate it. A culture that treats domestic violence as an undesirable but inevitable part of life keeps it inevitable. Abusers find validation of their behavior, and if the abuse is seen as acceptable their partners receive no encouragement to speak up about or escape from their suffering. This destructive cycle explains the prevalence of domestic violence. It is a cycle we must break.

Last September saw the tenth anniversary of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, which authorized nearly $5 billion towards survivor support services, prevention efforts, training for legal and medical personnel and other important programs. Renewing the act before it expires next year will provide more vital resources, but to make truly significant progress, we all need to take steps to change our culture and take domestic violence more seriously.

We can change the culture by personally refusing to tolerate violence, whether that means not buying a CD by an artist whose lyrics glorify violence against women or objecting to a friend’s use of sexist language. We can act against violence in our communities by volunteering at a shelter or participating in vigils and rallies, such as the Break the Silence Rally at Cambridge City Hall on October 23 or during Take Back The Night week, held every April at Harvard and many other colleges.

By recognizing when someone is in an abusive relationship and encouraging him or her to seek help, you can make a difference in someone’s life. If your roommate only goes out with her friends when her boyfriend allows her to, if your friend’s partner is always putting him down in front of other people or if you suspect that someone you know is being abused, speak up. Offer your support and listen to him or her.

It’s important to understand how difficult it is to leave an abusive relationship. Your friend may feel responsible for the partner’s behavior or think that it will change. Leaving can be truly frightening: some abusers become more violent when they feel they are losing control. If your friend wants counseling or assistance, know where he or she can find it. The National Domestic Violence Hotline (800-799-SAFE) and Harvard’s Office for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (617-495-9100) are staffed 24 hours a day, as are the Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project (800-832-1901) and The Network/La Red (617-423-SAFE) for lesbians, bisexual women and transgender survivors.

Recognizing that our culture tolerates and accommodates domestic violence is an important first step towards eradicating it. From this point, we can—and must—act to move relationship abuse out of jokes, out of Eminem rap lyrics and out of the lives of millions of women and men in this country. That would certainly be an “outstanding contribution to human life.”

Laura E. Openshaw ’05 is a linguistics concentrator in Lowell House. She is on the board of the Coalition Against Sexual Violence.