Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (also known as Domestic Violence) is intrinsically connected to the societal oppression of women and other marginalized groups. At it’s core it is about not just violence, but violence used systematically and repeatedly in the service of having power and control over another.

Intimate partner violence is everywhere, in every segment of the population. The media doesn’t always cover it as such. Stories are often framed in ways that describe it as an assault in general or even worse, hold the victim of violence accountable. Assault, mutual fighting, these can be terms used that serve to help keep intimate partner violence invisible.

Having been a journalist for most of my mid-20s and throughout my 30s, I’ve seen the usual mixed and disappointing coverage of the issue, the victim blaming, the minimizing. Youth, who are especially attuned to media messages, are also exposed to dating/intimate partner violence at an alarming rate: 1 in 4 adolescents reports verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse from a dating partner each year. So is it any surprise that youth continue to buy into victim blaming messages?

In no way do I see violence as the solution to violence. As Ghandi said: "... an eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind." I am keenly aware that prior exposure to violence, either as a victim or witness, is often in the history of those who become perpetrators of violence as adults.