We cannot let abusers thrive in all this anxiety
IT DIDN’T take long before fears about a potential rise in domestic violence were raised due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Sexual and domestic violence charities want the public to know that helplines are still in operation during this crisis, when the strain on individuals is unprecedented and even the most easy-going homes can become pressure cookers of pent-up aggression and sorrow.
Women’s Aid says that reports from China and Italy show an increase in domestic abuse incidents during the crisis, as self-isolation and working from home mean that people are more at risk than ever from their abusive partner and exposed to their volatile and controlling behaviour.
At this nerve-wracking time, we all need a sanctuary, but for some people there is no such thing as a peaceful home. The numbers of children and adults who are cowering in fear today is a concern, especially as society gradually closes down, cutting off the escape routes and usual options of respite with family and friends.
The only silver lining is that domestic abuse is not swept under the carpet, as would have been the case 20 years ago if families were forced to turn in on themselves and their own resources.
Women’s groups, activists and female politicians can take credit for bringing it into the open and combating antediluvian attitudes about wives being legitimate punch bags for their aggressive husbands.
It’s not that long ago that marital rape was not considered a crime and legally women were secondclass citizens. Indeed, that may underpin our reaction to cases of domestic abuse that don’t neatly fit the female as victim, male as perpetrator paradigm.
CAROLINE FLACK’S suicide, while she was facing charges of violent assault on her boyfriend Lewis Burton, is a case in point. After Flack’s tragic death, questions were raised about why the authorities pursued a prosecution against the diminutive Love Island presenter when her boyfriend had asked that the case be dropped.
But if the couple’s genders were reversed, it’s doubtful there would be any problem about an alleged abuser being pursued through the courts. There would have been no need for lawyers to remind us that legal cases cannot be dropped just because the allegedly abused partner desires it, as that would only reward every domineering partner who coerced their victims to drop their complaints.
When it comes to domestic violence, it often seems that men are less deserving of the protection of the law than women, just because they form the vast minority of victims. The saga of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s violent marriage is another example of how our fear of diminishing the suffering of female domestic violence victims censors us.
Depp’s libel case against the Sun newspaper was due to begin in London tomorrow but has been adjourned due to the global coronavirus crisis. The actor alleges that his depiction as a ‘wife beater’ cost him lucrative roles.
Depp is also taking on the Washington Post for publishing an article by Heard where, without naming her assailant, she alleges domestic violence.
For his libel case against the Sun, Depp claims that Heard was the abuser in their short-lived marriage, that she punched him in the face, slammed a door on him and hurled pots and pans in his direction. Heard claims she acted in self defence, to avoid an assault at Depp’s hands.
THEIR ugly he-says-she-says feud has emboldened Depp’s superfans to viciously try to destroy Heard’s reputation, while her supporters allege that Depp is a drink and drug-sodden wreck who tore up hotel rooms in the past and is adopting the cliché of the male abuser presenting themselves as the ‘victim’.
But the recordings the couple made discussing their toxic relationship, as a form of DIY marriage guidance, show that they are as far removed from the stereotypes of domestic abuse as the crazed and vengeful couple in The War Of The Roses film.
The tapes paint a picture of a thoroughly dysfunctional couple who taunted and goaded one another. That their pathetic union lasted only a couple of years is its only saving grace. That it is still framed in terms of ordinary domestic abuse, rather than a dance of mutually assured destruction between two vain and troubled souls is a sign of how we still tiptoe around cases of domestic violence that don’t fit the normal pattern.
But it is also an insult to the women, and indeed children, who will tremble in fear in the weeks ahead with no safety net against a tyrant, apart from the Helpline to Women’s Aid.