Thoughts on Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Written by: Becca Williams, SBT Copywriter

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM), a month intended for “communities and advocacy organizations across the country [to] connect with one another in a true sense of unity to end domestic violence for good.”  As the above-linked site claims, “Only through collaboration will it be possible to end domestic violence.”  Originating in 1981, DVAM began in October as a Day of Unity to connect people impacted by domestic violence, and those working in the anti-violence field.  It soon expanded to a week devoted to this work at a local, state, and national level before becoming Domestic Violence Awareness Month in 1987. 

A few months back, I wrote about the roots of the anti-violence movement, and the ways in which white feminists have usurped this spotlight.  I have worked with hundreds of domestic violence survivors in my time as an advocate, and the more I engaged with the movement as I knew it, the more critical of it I became.  Similarly to Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April), much of the credit for DVAM is attributed to second wave white feminists in the 1970s who spoke openly about the abuse suffered within their relationships.  This living timeline does an excellent job adhering to that narrative, depicting the “women’s liberation movement” as setting the stage for the anti-domestic violence movement that began in the 1970s.  We know that this isn’t the case – that BIPOC communities have been at the helm of this movement for centuries, since this land was first colonized by white European settlers.  Framing it as emerging from the white women’s liberation movement is not only inaccurate, but presents a threat to the actual work being done.  This framing also impacts the ways in which these stories are and aren’t told, which serves as a way for us to reflect on who and what we think is important.

The idea that domestic violence will end once everyone nicely collaborates to make it so is rooted in complacency and a misunderstood concept of liberation.  This is what whiteness has done to the movement – made it so that the more we get along, the better the chance we have of eradicating violence, which should be everyone’s goal.  I heard this a lot in my time in this field, “Ideally I’d love to not have to do this work anymore.”  Meaning, ideally I’d love to contribute to the anti-violence work being done in a way that completely abolishes violence and puts me out of work.  There are a few things wrong with this phrase, which is something I myself have said many times.  Firstly, there is the lack of acknowledgement of the inverse of that statement, that most advocates and folx working in the field of domestic violence make their living off the suffering of others – and most often the suffering of Black and brown folx who are disproportionately impacted by domestic violence.  Secondly, to actually eliminate domestic violence means that what we’ve been doing so far hasn’t worked. The mostly well-intentioned white women who join this field have to do some serious interrogation about where and how they have gone astray, what it means to address the existence of the White Supremacy they embody, and the realities of the BIPOC survivors they have harmed along the way.  Collaboration, regardless of the intention behind it, is surface level when faced with the truth that those calling for a unified approach are often the same groups of people fracturing it. 

(DVAM's 2022 theme.)

For 2020, 2021, and 2022, the DVAM theme has been “No Survivor Justice without Racial Justice”, which is unsurprising given the recent awakening white women have had to racial violence in the last few years.  I don’t think this theme in and of itself is a bad thing.  I do think that a lot more than collaboration and awareness need to occur in order for there to be racial justice within the survivor justice umbrella.  A lot of that work involves centering BIPOC leadership, and there needs to be some room for the white feminists to understand their own role in why that leadership hasn’t been centered in the first place.  Further, ending domestic violence isn’t merely about ending domestic violence.  It has to do with structural racism, inequitable housing and employment opportunities, immigration laws, our welfare system, ableism, funding for programs for survivors and for perpetrators, our over-reliance on police mechanisms, and the ways in which violence, white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy are baked into our daily lives.  Whiteness benefits from keeping these inequities in place, and it’s a rather large task to undertake to dismantle all of these oppressions in order to end them – and it’s exactly where we need to be for us to live in a world free from violence, a world that honors collective liberation.  It takes more than a few programs and events happening in October, and more than a few years of a catchy phrase to keep our attention.

The role of whiteness in the recent ascent of the domestic violence movement has led to a push for more federal protections, while also taking a neoliberal approach that allows for the issue to be seen primarily as a problem within individual relationships.  This, coupled with the professionalization of domestic violence advocates and shelters has led to an approach that makes it difficult to reduce violence by moving the movement away from the grassroots, community-based structures that can provide a more nuanced approach, including efforts to provide transformative justice models that recognize and address the community harm caused. 

This is a tough concept to grasp, as many people who believe in reducing police budgets also believe that law enforcement is good to have around in instances of domestic violence.  I used to agree, and spent much of my career working with law enforcement on these cases:  Responding with police to homes where an incident has occurred and supporting survivors as they go through reporting processes.  My support of these systems changed when I started listening to survivors and paying attention to their experiences.  Often, survivors wanted the perpetrator to be held accountable to the harm caused, and to receive the help and support they needed to address the violence.  The systems we have in place instead prioritize punishing perpetrators and ensuring that they don’t own up to what has happened.  These systems also conveniently don’t recognize that we are all steeped in violence and arrests, prison time, and court processes don’t inherently mean less violence will occur – they actually inflict more violence.  

More than 40% of Black women have experienced domestic violence, and more than half of Black female homicides are related to domestic violence.  It goes deeper than just stating that Black women face violence at higher rates, however: “By intentionally denying Black people access to economic opportunities, the ability to build intergenerational wealth, healthcare, education, and a sense of safety from government systems, racist policies increase the prevalence of risk factors for domestic violence.”  Additionally, Black women survivors of domestic violence are often believed less and receive less media attention (or more degrading media attention) than their white counterparts.   We can see this in the recent media frenzy around the case of Gabby Petito, a white woman who went missing and was murdered by her partner.  Our collective fascination around missing and murdered white women has been coined “Missing White Women Syndrome”  (think about Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, Natalee Holloway, etc.).  Media representation can be critical in terms of locating missing persons and bringing awareness to issues around domestic violence, and the lack of representation or acknowledgement around missing Black and Indigenous women has long been documented. 

(Megan Thee Stallion's performance on Saturday Night Live, October 2020.)

This isn’t to say that all missing women are victimized by their intimate partners, but it does bring to light the serious juxtaposition around which stories we cling to, and how women who have been impacted by violence are portrayed in the media.  Very obvious examples of this include how the media told the stories of Rihanna after she was abused by then-boyfriend Chris Brown,  and the current media coverage of the shooting involving rapper Megan Thee Stallion.  While these cases are very different from one another, there are some similarities – both women were seen as somehow provoking or deserving of these attacks, with the media focusing on them and their actions as opposed to taking a deeper look into what caused it and our reaction to it.  The case involving Megan Thee Stallion is ongoing, and she has written, spoken, and performed in response.  After being shot in the feet, Megan Thee Stallion told law enforcement that she in fact hadn’t been shot and had stepped on broken glass. This report was calculated – the event happened in July of 2020 and there was a real and considerable concern of police coming onto a scene with her and an armed Black man.  These are calculations that are often overlooked and point to the myriad complexities around reporting, particularly when the perpetrator is Black.

For this October, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your own perception of domestic violence and to challenge whatever comes up. Whether it’s a feeling that survivors need to do more to advocate for themselves, that prosecuting perpetrators is the clear answer, or the idea that it doesn’t matter to you if the perpetrator or survivor is Black or white.  To move toward liberation, we need to grapple with our thoughts on domestic and interpersonal violence and how inextricably linked they are to the structures and institutions that whiteness relies upon to maintain White Supremacy. 

Additional Resources: 

If you have HBO, watch the Black and Missing series, which grew out of the work of Derrica and Natalie Wilson, highlighted above.  

Check out the organization Survived and Punished, which supports survivors of domestic violence who have been imprisoned for “survival actions” such as self-defense or removing their children from abusive people.