Women's Center speaks out on domestic violence

In honor of October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Penn is attempting to define and make strides toward educating about and preventing domestic violence, also known as intimate partner violence.

Over the last two weeks, the Women’s Center and Alpha Chi Omega sorority hosted a series of events highlighting issues of domestic violence — especially relevant given a Drexel University-affiliated acquaintance rape that occurred last week near Penn, as well as controversy surrounding sexually explicit chants by Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity brothers at Yale University.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in four women will experience intimate partner violence in their lifetimes.

“Intimate partner violence can take many forms,” said Violence Prevention Educator Nina Harris of the Penn Women’s Center. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be physical, although that’s what gets the most attention.”

According to Harris, intimate partner violence can range from emotional abuse — for example, intimidating gestures — to economic limitations, such as preventing someone from completing his or her education.

“Someone disrupting your educational experience so you can’t get your degree and earn the money you need to live counts as abuse,” Harris explained.

Indirect violence such as hitting the wall or throwing objects can also be seen as a form of physical intimidation, Harris said. “It just says you could be next.”

At discussions entitled “When Love Hurts” at the Women’s Center — intended to inform the Penn community of intimate partner violence (IPV) issues— attendees often chose to end a hypothetical relationship immediately when presented with scenarios such as “your partner doesn’t give you any privacy.”

Colleen Winn, a staff assistant at the Penn African American Resource Center, reminded discussion participants that in real life “nothing is that black and white.”

“A lot of us take a lot more than we say we would,” she said.

In response to why victims of domestic violence cannot simply leave their abusers, Women Against Abuse’s Director of Shelter Services Megan Kincade explained that women are most at risk for harm when they choose to leave an abusive relationship.

“There are two things to remember when it comes to intimate partner violence: great love and great fear,” she explained. “Many women believe the best about their abusers and hope for change because they love them.”

An example in which love for an abuser resulted in death can be seen in the case of William Spratley’s 28-year old daughter, Ameya Spratley. She was murdered on Jan. 12 by her partner, who left her partially nude body face down in a bedroom closet of her apartment, according to the victim’s father.

William Spratley said he only noticed his daughter’s situation when his daughter did not return repeated text messages the day before her death. In honor of his daughter’s memory, William Spratley urged everyone to look for “the first signs of trouble.”

“The hardest thing is saying what you could have done [to save someone] afterwards,” he said.

Kincade emphasized that the primary way to help a victim of abuse is to “just listen,” urging bystanders not to blame victims as the cause or reason for their abuse. “A lot of people think that victims of violence may have low esteem or are weak, but those are wrong assumptions to make,” she said, adding that to help a victim of domestic violence, one has to believe him or her without judgment or underestimation of the level of danger.

Penn English professor Salamishah Tillet — herself an acquaintance-rape survivor — has attempted to make strides toward decomposing the sources of “victim blaming” using her nonprofit organization A Long Walk Home.

According to Tillet, adolescent girls in ALWH’s Girl/Friends Institute have difficulty distinguishing between an abusive and healthy relationship since they have had some exposure to domestic violence and consider abusive relationships to be normal. At ALWH, “we give our program participants the tools they need to educate themselves and their community about sexual and domestic violence,” Tillet said.

For those who are acquaintances of a possible abuser in an intimate partner relationship, Kincade advised to “let them know that they are not a bad person but to seek help to stop a dangerous behavior.” She warned individuals to never physically intervene to mitigate a potentially dangerous situation between a couple. “Just call the police,” she said.

At Penn, if someone were to call the police with a complaint of intimate partner violence, an employee of Penn’s Department of Special Services would respond to the call. Director of Special Services Patricia Brennan emphasized her division’s use of discretion and support in every case.

“We are a plain-clothes division,” she said. “We will not pull up in an armored car, but we will stay with you through the entire process [of seeking help] until the end.”

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