– U.S. researcher urges
PEOPLE in society must reach out and give sympathy to women trying to leave abusive partners and not ridicule them for seemingly going through the process over and over, United States researcher and attorney-at-law Beth Feder has urged.
In a lecture at Hotel Tower, Georgetown Friday evening, she said physical abuse involves a calculated decision by the abuser. “Choosing to hit is voluntary…I am not here to say that men and women should separate, but to look at ways of [dealing with this],” she said. “[Domestic violence] is not a women’s issue, it is a societal one,” she declared.
Feder said that domestic violence is a pattern of behaviour that usually starts with verbal abuse. She said too that cases of emotional abuse are usually the most difficult to prove.
“We need to [tell] men, women, boys and girls: stop the violence!”
Her lecture, sponsored by the U.S. embassy here, was entitled ‘Perspectives from the United States: Focus on Intimate Partner Violence’.
She has met members of the Guyana Police Force, the media fraternity and Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Ms. Priya Manickchand, speaking about domestic violence and sharing her experiences.
Among the instances she pointed to in her lecture are men who, while not physically harming the woman, commit violent acts against pets that belong to the women.
She said another way that the man can be abusive without actually physically harming the woman is to penetrate her social networking web pages and post abusive texts to her friends and family.
“Harassment… harassing you at work, calling you at work, calling your boss, calling your friends. Going on Facebook and posting things about you, posting things on your friends’ sites about you, emailing your friends, texting, sexting…how is she going to get her work done if she has to be answering 15 texts in a row?” she said.
Feder said isolation is another face of abuse that needs attention.
“Keeping her at home, not letting her go out with her friends; [telling her that] her family and friends are all wrong” are also forms of abuse, she said.
Feder added abusers tend to exhibit jealousy, controlling behaviour, cruelty to animals and children and blame others for their actions, saying that the woman “pushed my buttons.”
There must be a programme to address how men react to certain situations in which they might be prone to violent behaviour, she advocated.
Feder also pointed to economic abuse, noting that this is a reason most given for women staying in abusive relationships.
She said although the psychological abuse is obvious to the person feeling it, to people on the outside it may not be so obvious.
“Forcing her to go to work…maybe she’s sick, maybe she doesn’t want to work… making her work and bring in the money, and guess where it is going? In his pocket”, she said.
Feder said abuse cuts across every race, religion and social stratum.
She gave an example of a couple in an expensive neighbourhood of White Plains, New York in which the man checked the odometer of the car to make sure that his wife was driving to the supermarket and nowhere else and while she worked he had the access to her money.
She said also that police were able to trace a man’s online abusive activities through his computer’s IP address.
Feder implored men to ensure that these or any forms of abuse do not happen to their mothers, sisters or daughters.
The researcher also said that domestic abuse also includes sexual abuse and forms of sexual control. She said that in some cases it may be difficult to prove consent, adding that according to her research in the U.S. one of every three women is abused.
She said too that 33 percent of all women murdered were killed by a spousal partner.
Feder noted that one of the most vulnerable periods for an abused woman is during pregnancy, since she has to fend for herself and the child she carries at a time when the abuser will want all the attention for himself.
She said a victim of abuse is the best predictor of what an abuser will do.