A Punch means Love, a Slap means...

The United Nations defines and relatably explains Domestic Violence as - “a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. Abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that frighten, intimidate, terrorize, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure, or wound someone. Domestic abuse can happen to anyone of any race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or gender. It can occur within a range of relationships including couples who are married, living together or dating. Domestic violence affects people of all socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels.”

I recently read articles revealing a rise in Domestic Violence cases around the world, ever since the COVID-19 related lockdown began. One article stated that, “About 86% of women who experienced violence never sought help, and 77% of the victims did not even mention the incident(s) to anyone.” Whereas based only on reported cases, an article published by National Commission for Women (NCW) stated that, “domestic violence complaints have increased by 2.5 times since the nationwide lockdown began in India.” Domestic violence has been called out as “the next shadow pandemic.”

Today more than ever, when there’s a roar for Women Empowerment and Equal Rights for LGBTQ throughout the world-society. When countries have established and enforced laws, rules, policies and charters against such Human Rights crime. When law enforcers are capable, more than ever, of extending protection and various organisations around the world are equipped to extend help to domestic violence victims. When a victim’s own family and friends can be the identifiers and initial whistleblowers of a looming threat and be a source of their support. Despite this, we have not been able to control domestic violence, leave alone eliminating it. The gut-wrenching question we still face - Why are we failing?

In today’s enlightened world, published articles, researches and case studies highlight what Domestic Violence is and how victims (often, it is the woman in a heterosexual relationship), are isolated from the community forcing them to yield to the tortures. Isolated by being pulled away from their friends, family and neighbors, all sources of outreach for relief cut off, locked away unnoticed inside their own homes, a threat on their life to muffle a cry for help. Creating awareness about this problem is not proving enough anymore! Measures are proving inadequate in protecting the dignity, and at many times, even the life of a victim. Where are we, as humanity, failing to stop this undignified atrocity? Contradicting the UN’s definition, the common general social belief is that a small ‘lock of horns’ between couples is okay. In fact it - a little argument, a quick rise in the voice, a public snub, a tap on the head, a push, a shove, a curse flying across, a little tussle - never dulls the day. It only strengthens their relationship. But if you think about it as an outsider, don’t such perceptions easily help conceal indications of a probable violent eruption that is currently lying dormant and ignored? Domestic violence has been found to exist in long term intimate interdependent relationships. Is it not time we recognise ‘how much’ is a ‘little’ for ‘how long’ and how much of that little ‘cannot’ be justified as domestic violence?

It’s tough to imagine cruelty in a relationship when it originated out of love. William Shakespeare wrote, ‘Love is blind’. For everyone, this statement quite scandalously became the justifiable explanation to every disaster, misery, decision and choice involved in an intimate relationship. Those who don’t have access to Shakespeare’s interpretations, nor understand it, learn of love’s versions from movies. The emotional conflict arises, however, when this dream's version of ‘LOVE’ meets the social definition. Even today men and women across the Globe are expected to perform a clear set of Society accepted and upheld rules, customs and responsibilities. Any deflection from the set course is frowned upon and condemned. The social thought process governing an intimate relationship is, where ‘selflessness in love’ is only a matter of choice for men, it is an expectation from women, often tipping sharply towards ‘proof of their ideal upbringing’ in many cultures. The meaning of ‘sacrifice’ transitions from ‘being selfless’ to ‘forgiving your partner and forgetting yourself’.

Whether we agree or not, a woman, in every culture, is expected to maintain the social balance and is responsible for preserving privacy and maintaining harmony within her own family. Girls are brought up with instructions to keep a united family and to make her marriage work ‘at all costs’. She is taught cliches like ‘it’s a woman’s job to …, what will the world say?, … how will our society react?’ Fear of not receiving help or support is sealed deep within her soul with emotional clinchers - ‘ … your parents and family will lose face and will be shamed for eternity’. She grows up knowing that no matter how independent she becomes, there will probably be no way for her to get out of a dysfunctional marriage or back out of an abusive relationship. She may not walk into a committed relationship knowing that it will be cruel, but she stays chained to it knowing she has to protect her family’s dignity. What about her own dignity and self-esteem? Most women endure emotional, physical and sexual tortures in desperate efforts to make their marriage and relationships work, ignoring their own reality. They eventually delude themselves into thinking that there is still hope, that their relationship can still be salvaged. Though she was battered yesterday because of an outburst, she is still loved. Exhausted, exasperated, rejected, cornered and alone, she looks for dignity in death. But even then she is declared weak, her long endurance forgotten.

Though a clear segregation of social expectations becomes hazy in same sex relationships and cohabiting partners, it is mostly the enduring partner who falls victim to domestic violence in a homosexual relationship. The only difference in such relationships is that the support from their neighborhood is next to negligible and typically their own family and friends dismiss their plea for help. I’m sure you must be thinking, how can anyone be a victim in a relationship, in which they have met their match? According to a survey published by Division of Violence Prevention (CDC) and shared by National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), 43% of lesbian women, 26% of gay men and more than 38% multiracial men experience rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by their intimate partner during their lifetime. Surprising, isn’t it? Since same sex relationships are still not accepted by majority of the world population and are thus considered cast-outs, victims in such cases don’t receive the same attention, empathy and gravity as a heterosexual relationship. They are held responsible for attracting the brutality they are facing, since they went against laws of nature and society. Victims in homosexual relationships choose to remain silent out of fear of what people will say, fear of looking weak to another possible threat and fear of police, even when they are facing similar violence and threats as in a heterosexual relationship.

The basic conscious reasons for majority of victims to not report domestic abuse they go through, is that there is no use! But is it more layered than that.

• Victims of domestic violence are never aware that they are a victim. Psychologically it takes them considerable time adjusting to the shock from the 1st incident. So until they acknowledge themselves to be victims, they don’t feel the need to talk about it, leave alone report it.

• Neighbours as part of the social support system to victims, never extend safe shelter. They would not want to get involved in someone’s family feud.

• Considered as the biggest source of support, the victim’s mothers and fathers, only force them to make their relationship work, resolve it with their abusers within themselves or to give it time for things to get better.

• The immediate social circle including siblings, extended family members, friends and acquaintances often hold the victim responsible for their own condition, having invited it or probably entered into it knowingly.

• The abuser’s family remains in denial of their violent nature. When there is no atrocity, why would the victim need help? They would rather have the victim work out a resolution behind closed doors.

• Since such conflicts are domestic, it is a private situation. Hence until a complaint is registered even police cannot extend protection. Where a complaint is registered, victims are often forced to take it back because of family pressure, leaving the police no choice but to back-off.

• The police and law enforcers cannot provide long term protection or in some cases permanent solutions where abusers are intimidating their victims. This leaves the victim vulnerable to stalking and eventual confrontations, public arguments and physical attacks, abductions, rapes and murders.

Sadly, the silence of family and community encourages an abuser to assume a victim’s silence to be their weakness. Our Society plays an integral part in defining our thought processes by declaring what it will accept. But now, we need to ask the ‘Society’ whether it will accept the responsibility of a life lost to domestic violence? Why should our Society be feared when we all collectively are a part of it as well? Why can’t we open back the safety of our homes to our loved ones who fall prey to this honorless violence? Why should we turn a blind eye, give a deaf ear and close our doors to victims in fear of the Society, when in reality what we fear are opinions of our family and friends? We have to stop and think about how many of those people's opinions really matter enough to be acted upon. Will the same friends and family accept the responsibility for a lost life because we acted upon their opinion? While trying to stay true to the existing social norms within our Unconscious Perspectives, we quite often forget that these norms we follow blindly were created and enforced thousands of years ago by mere human beings just like us. It is time we value a life more than a social norm that no longer serves its purpose.