Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Did Somebody Hit You?
By Kit-Bacon Gressitt
She sent me a link to the pictures, blithely posted on Facebook. Her closed eye was engorged to the size and tone of a plum, a large, ripe plum big enough to stifle — oh, I don’t know, Rush Limbaugh, perhaps. Surely big enough to indicate serious damage and pain. Indeed, big enough to pucker my motherly derriere up to my earlobes and launch me from Fallbrook to the University of California Santa Cruz, where my precious, bloodied child needed me.
And then she stood before me, teary-eyed, swollen and bruised, waiting for me to fix it.
But what could I do?
Well, try not to cry, for starters. Pull her to the comfort of my maternal bosom. Hold her and tell her it’ll be okay.
“But, when?” she implored. “And what if my eyebrow doesn’t grow back? I hate my life.”
So much for my comforting bosom.
At least we could both take comfort that it was not an abusive fist that battered my kid, but an unkempt road, a road harboring over-sized, bicycle wheel-grabbing gaps between old train tracks and lumpy asphalt.
It’s a road that deserves a good jackhammering, but it’s too low on the Santa Cruz totem pole compared to the need to invest in social awareness campaigns; for instance, the Domestic Violence Awareness Month banners I noticed driving into town. Those puppies were well hoisted, while the dastardly train tracks dumped a near-death experience on my baby.
Well, okay, I exaggerate. And, truth be told, I like the banners. In fact, I love the banners. I pointed them out to my daughter on the way to pick up copious amounts of feel-good food. I asked her if anyone had tried to rescue her from an abusive partner, a black eye being such a common red flag for domestic violence — you know, the old “I walked into the closet door” alert.
But nope. In this enlightened town of progressive academics, gracefully aging hippies, medical marijuana peddlers, tree-loving hemp wearers, locally roasted and cold-brewed coffee vendors, devoted political activists and banana slugs,* no one checked to make sure she wasn’t a victim of abuse. Not a professor, not one feminist studies student, not a single concerned and domestic violence-aware person.
So much for the banners.
Oh, she did get plenty of stares — from students, from kids in the grocery store checkout line, from the equally battered and downtrodden homeless on Pacific Avenue — and her adorable Latin professor kindly asked if she were okay.
But no one uttered the most important words, the most hopeful words, the words that can mean the difference between life and death for a battered woman: Did somebody hit you? Because if somebody hit you, it’s not okay. You don’t deserve it. It’s not your fault. It’s a crime. If somebody hit you, let me help you.
These are the words of someone who is truly aware of domestic violence. They were spoken to me one hot summer’s night in a hospital emergency room. They saved my life — and allowed me to eventually have my daughter.
I like these words. In fact, I love these words. I suppose they’d make a lousy patch for the crummy road, but I wonder if maybe they’d make a good banner.
For more information:
If you want to help, use those words whenever you find yourself wondering, and visit your local domestic violence prevention agency or the Family Violence Prevention Fund.
If you are a victim of violence, leave your abuser, go to your local shelter, visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline website or call 800-799-SAFE (7233). Save yourself, Sweetie.
Love,
K-B 760-522-1064 — call me, because being hit once is indeed domestic violence
*The banana slug is the UCSC mascot. No kidding.
©2009 Kit-Bacon Gressitt
Note: This piece is cross-posted at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
(Photo from the Santa Cruz City Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women.)
I am not a parent but I understand your concern. I would not necessarily look for someone to blame in this situation. Most people expect people that are old enough to be in college to take responsibility for their personal relationships. Thankfully it was a road and not a fist. And take solace in the fact that your daughter has been raised well enough not to put herself in the abusive situation. I guess its the nature of moms to never stop worrying. And maybe she didn’t give off any “vibes” that would raise concern amongst all those liberal arts types.
R
No, blame doesn’t help, but improving the message might. It’s time to shift from “tolerance,” “awareness,” “understanding,” etc. to action — on so many social issues.
Love,
K-B
Dear Robert,
I don’t understand.
“Most people expect people that are old enough to be in college to take responsibility for their personal relationships.”
Being “old” enough to take responsiblity, and being strong enought to fight off someone twice your size and out of control with rage, are different issues.
“And take solace in the fact that your daughter has been raised well enough not to put herself in the abusive situation.”
To assume that women “raised well” and educated cannot fall prey to some deceptive, evil and manipulative mother fucker, is to be blind to the art of seduction as well as the basic human desire to believe and trust another human to be who (whom?) they present themselves to be. Being educated may give you what it takes to get yourself out of a bad situation, but won’t nessessarily keep you from entering into one. There are some brilliant and twisted sickos out there hiding behind soft spoken, gentle and charming facades. We can only pray they don’t cross our daughters’ paths.
Thanks for the reminder.
We’ve forwarded your article to a few of our friends. We hesitate only because it is horrific in nature. However, the problem seems to be much larger. Our knowledge of abuses include physical and mental abuses of women, some men. I think as ‘advanced’ as we are the more ‘uncivilized’ we’ve become.
We once kidded about the ‘me generation’ of the 1960s…. It seems our generation has fed an increased self-centeredness to the point of a virtual universal brutality and has infected all facets of life. In discussions with others of women’s rights it seems that fulfilling roles is negated or contradicted by our dear Supreme Court years ago… Women’s roles are equal, unless embraced under First Amendment Rights. In that condition women continue their second, no, much lower class standing and are to be universally and forever remain as toy things.
To think the Marine Corps, some 15-20 years ago, attempted to no longer carry ‘girlie magazines’ in its Seven-Day Stores because it violates the Corps values of honor and integrity, and commitments made in marriage. Boy did we, as a Service, ever get slammed over that “moralistic standing!” My regret is I didn’t keep the articles.
The wars of Viet Nam, et al, can’t carry a light over the wars in the streets of the entire fragmented global culture. Without some moral compass under which we can unite, something that all groups can agree, I am very concerned for our nation and the global community. This current year is manifesting all we have argued over for decades.
Did you know verbal abuse is not a crime because there are no visible scars. How do I help my daughter who is being verbally abused? I have no answers, and I know no solution.
Give me a buzz: 760-522-1064.
Love,
K-B
There is no excuse for abuse period. -I come from a well educated family. I have been in 2 abusive marriages. I have heard many ignorant comments such as, “Well, she must like getting beat, she’s right back with him. She should just throw him out.” Like it’s that easy. Why don’t women report abuse? Well because many times police arrive and the charming family man convinces them that she’s crazy and then she gets accused of being the perpetrator. Worse yet, the victim gets thrown in jail.
REAL LIFE REASON #2 You cannot just throw someone out of the house. You have to get a kick out order or in most cases a full eviction. It takes 6 months at least. If you are defending yourself and the man has a scratch on him- they will take both of them. Why is the punishment for a man who hits another man twice as harsh than if a man hits his wife or girlfriend. Mixed up huh? Most of the time if the abuser gets arrested he is released 2-6 hours without needing to post bail.
Abuse happens. There will always be abusive people at all levels of society, the school yard bully, the bully in high school and/or college, the bully at work, the spouse who is a bully behind the closed doors of home. Any abuse is not to be tolerated, not verbal, not emotional, not physical, not sexual. There is never an excuse for abuse of any kind. The victims wear the scars forever. Maybe you can’t see them, but the scars are there. And they hurt, some of the scars ache forever.