Not all abused women look like victims
It’s easy and utterly useless to tell someone to ‘just leave’ their abuser
Why do abused women stay? If their husband is bullying and coercing them, their partner gaslighting or hitting them, just why do victims of violence not leave?
It’s a simple question, an obvious question, and one I have asked myself. But it is the wrong question, because if you have ever encountered someone for whom a key in the front door makes their stomach churn, you will know that “victim” is a meaningless catch-all; these are mothers, lawyers, teachers, wives, film stars, academics.
They do not identify as victims. That’s why on average victims experience 50 incidents of abuse before getting effective help.
When the Duchess of Cornwall this week spoke out so powerfully on the shameful subject of violent and coercive control, she lifted the lid on one immutable truth: “No one knows what goes on behind any front door.”
And the secrets behind the Farrow & Ball front doors of the rich and the privileged are no less horrifying than what goes on behind net curtains on council estates; abuse is no respecter of class or status.
Camilla was hosting an event in Clarence House to mark the 15th anniversary of the domestic abuse charity Safelives and admitted that the harrowing stories she had previously been told by survivors had reduced her to tears – but also helped her support a friend experiencing a similar trauma.
“With each story that is told, the taboo around domestic abuse weakens and the silence that surrounds it is broken, so other sufferers can know that there is hope for them and they are not alone.”
Two or more women are killed each week in the UK by their current or former partner. More than two million report domestic abuse each year – around 85 per cent of those affected are women – but according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales data for the year ending March 2018, only 18 per cent of women who had experienced partner abuse in the last 12 months reported it to the police. Their fear is real. Leaving an abuser can be incredibly dangerous and there’s a huge spike in the likelihood they will be harmed after separation. According to the 2018 Femicide Census, 55 per cent of women killed by their exes in 2017 were within the first month of separation and 87 per cent were within the first year. Nightmarish accounts of beatings and stabbings and shootings are legion in the media. Yet between the flurry of headlines there’s a terrible apathy – even though domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women, more than car accidents, muggings and rapes combined. Stranger danger is far less of a threat than the enemy within.
Some years ago the charity Women’s Aid published a photograph taken by a police officer on a domestic call-out. It was a chilling reminder why some women don’t leave; inside the hallway big, sharp knives were deliberately stuck on either side of every step. There appeared to be a bullet on the floor. The message was unmistakable.
Money is a cushion, but not one that can protect you from angry blows meted out by the person who pledged to honour and respect you, or the way in which your husband discourages – then prevents – you from seeing your friends and family until your world has shrunk away to nothing.
Women survive physical and emotional abuse behind the scenes every day. These women can be outwardly fabulous and funny, like my friend whose golden-hour Instagram pictures of romantic bliss mask a home life blighted by her partner’s filthy temper and irrational jealousy.
He’s never hit her, but his fist has come perilously close. He’s charm itself when you meet him, but I’ve watched her literally panic to get their children into bed and settled before he gets back in the evening because he demands her undivided attention. And he has to get what he wants.
“At first I was flattered,” she told me a long time ago. “Now I feel suffocated. But when he’s on good form and hasn’t been drinking and isn’t under too much pressure at work, he’s the most wonderful dad and loving man.
“If he gave me a black eye it would be straightforward and I would pack my bags, but the situation is far more nuanced than that.”
She’s not the first woman I know who has felt genuine fear in her own tastefully furnished home, yet can’t equate her situation with that of what was once called a “battered wife”.
We all have a visual image of a domestic violence “victim”, straight from central casting. Such women are generally signposted with lank hair, grey pallor and averted gaze. They are downtrodden, anxious and fearful. They’re not wearing LK Bennett suits, giving orders, socialising and attending their children’s violin recitals. Except in real life, that’s exactly what they are doing.
“It’s easy and utterly useless to keep telling someone ‘just leave’ over and over,” another friend, who did eventually split up from her coercive boyfriend, told me.
“When you share a flat and a life with a man you love and you don’t understand what’s happening and why he’s bullying you, what you really need is someone to listen to you without prejudice, not spout ill-informed opinions.”
Figures from Safelives show that 85 per cent of victims seek help from professionals on average five times in the year before they get effective assistance to stop the abuse. Branding them victims is to stigmatise them and undermine the real strength it takes to walk away from someone who has deliberately set out to terrify them. Domestic abuse is an invisible jail. It’s only by opening up a national conversation and, as the Duchess of Cornwall has said, removing the taboo, that we can create a society in which women are no longer too afraid to pick up the key and walk through the door, leaving their abuser behind.