CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: SPEAK OUT AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

I am posting this request for submissions from a Smith College student (hurray Seven Sisters/Five College System!).  Do help out if you can. 

Disclaimer: If submitting your story will in any way put you in danger, please do not attempt to do so until you can ensure your own safety.

I, a student at Smith College, am in the process of creating a compilation blog to illustrate the various intersections of identity and societal influences that play a role in the differing experiences of domestic violence (including physical, sexual, emotional, or similar kinds of abuse).  Instead of the largely white, heterosexual, middle-class stories
of domestic violence that dominates the sphere of knowledge, this blog project will include a truly diverse array of experiences.  Domestic violence is not limited to white/heterosexual/middle-class populations, and neither is this project. Of course, any experiences of DV within the white/middle-class/heterosexual populations are welcome as well.


I am therefore sending out a call for submissions.  If you have been a victim of domestic violence (as defined, for the purposes of this project, above), or have been directly involved in another person's experience of DV, and wish to speak out about your experiences, please email your submission to: speakup.speakout@yahoo.com   

There are no style or length limitations.  The one request I have is this: in order to aid in the reader's (and my) understanding of your experience of DV, I would appreciate if you included your location in the world - e.g. a general geographic region, gender identity, sexual orientation, cultural background, etc.  Feel free to include as few or as
many locators as you wish.

The deadline for submissions is: Monday, May 1, 2006.

More detailed information about the project is available at the blog, Speaking Up, Speaking Out Against Domestic Violence. If you have further questions,
feel free to email me at the address listed above.

Comments

[Antigone]

So, if your experience with Domestic violence was white and middle class, does that mean s/he doesn't want the submissions?

[The Happy Feminist]

Not sure. I just emailed the person doing the study to find out.

[The Happy Feminist]

I have just added the following clarification above:

Of course, any experiences of DV within the white/middle-class/heterosexual populations are welcome as well.

Also, apologies for my poor formatting of this post. I can't seem to fix it.

[L.]

I told a few people about this, and they said they might submit.

I`m wondering -- isn`t the public perception that domestic violence is more of a low-class, minority problem? And when it does touch the white middle class, one usually hears surprised mutterings along the lines of, "Who would have ever thought.....?"

(Go, Smith! -- `87 alum)

[The Happy Feminist]

You know, that's kind of what I thought L. I think I've mentioned this on other threads, but the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly did an excellent cover story several years ago about alumnae who had suffered domestic violence. It was really, I thought, sort of a ground breaking story because these were all well-educated, relatively affluent women. If I recall correctly a lot of them didn't report the abuse for a long time because they each felt like an anomaly. There is a feeling of shame that a woman with degrees and accomplishments shouldn't have allowed herself to get into the situation. If the abuser is also accomplished and well-respected then there is also a worry that reports of abuse won't be believed.

[Jen]

L. :

There is that public perception, yes, but lately (as in, the past 10 years or so), a lot of the public awareness campaigns have centered around white middle class families. People tend to assume that DV occurs in minority homes, and in lower-class families, but the picture of DV victims that's put forth (mostly by anti-DV organizations) is that of the white, middle-class, female heterosexual. Look at Lifetime movies about DV, for example.

As for minority communities...a lot of times, it is these minority communities themselves that silence (or try to silence) victims/survivors of DV in order to combat exactly this stereotype. For example, Middle Eastern Muslim families. The US perception of Middle Eastern/Muslim culture as so anti-woman makes us assume that the women in these relationships are of course oppressed (which is obviously not a blanket truth). The Middle Eastern Muslim community, then, is going to silence any instances of DV in their community because they don't want to perpetuate this stereotype that harms them as a whole. So, the silence that they're breaking isn't the overall silence of the larger culture (although that's there to a degree as well), but more the immediate culturally imposed silence from their own communities.

--Jen (the Smithie doing the project)

[The Happy Feminist]

Ooh-- that's interesting. So victims from a culture that is already perceived in a pejorative fashion as being anti-woman are going to be in a real bind -- because if they come forward, it is almost as though they are selling out their own culture.

[L.]

In Japan, where I lived most of my adult life, one didn`t even read about domestic violence in the media until the late `90`s. In 1999, the Japanese Counsel in Vancouver, Canada, hit his wife, and when he was arrested for it, he said, "Since olden times in Japan, it has not mattered if a husband hit his wife. This is a cultural difference."
But the high-profile case in Canada raised awareness of domestic violence bach home, and Japan enacted its "Domestic Violence Prevention Law" in April 2001.

Better late than never!

[Patriarch Verlch]

Per capita there is more lesbian on lesbian violence, than man on female. With women inititing the conflict 50% of the time. Nobody is recording the data agianst violent women, who know their husbands cannot defend themselves. A minor push, a little slap on the face, that man is in serious trouble.

Its a shame aswell, because only lawyers win, with the worst of all families losing the most.

verlch.blogspot.com

[The Happy Feminist]

My understanding is that the author of this study will consider submissions regarding male victims of domestic violence as well as woman-on-woman domestic violence. You may, however, email her directly to confirm same.