'Waitress' emphasizes importance of addressing domestic abuse

Three women sit on a bench outside of a the small-town diner where they work as waitresses. They start up what appears to be a conversation familiar to them. Dawn: "But now here you are [Jenna], married to this handsome guy … who's got very good hair, and pregnant with a little girl. But neither of us would trade places with you for one second, now would we Becky?"

Becky: "No we wouldn't, Dawn, No we wouldn't."

As the offending, attractive-haired husband in question, Earl, tears into the parking lot to pick up Jenna, the nature of the waitresses' conversation becomes clear: Earl is a controlling jerk.

Earl speaks in a threatening tone and reacts with satisfaction when Jenna gives in to his every command. As he proceeds to collect all of Jenna's tips from the day and threatens to make her leave her job, the viewer gets the uncomfortable feeling that Jenna is walking on egg shells with her every move around Earl.

The film, "Waitress," depicts between 600,000 and 6 million women's realities in the United States per year. This number doesn't take into the account the number of men who experience the same violence and control. While women do make up the majority of domestic violence victim, 15 percent of those affected are male.

The myth that only physical abuse can be considered domestic violence saturates the media. Films and television shows typically show cases of murders or extreme physical attacks. This is an important and very real occurrence in the world. The Domestic Violence Resource Center states, "On average, more than three women and one man are murdered by their intimate partners in this country every day." However, a typical case can be much more subtle and complex.

As demonstrated in "Waitress," domestic abuse includes much more than physical abuse; intimidation, isolation, emotional and financial abuse are all common weapons perpetrators use to control their victim. Perpetrators can lower the victim's self-esteem, restrict the victim from seeing or speaking with friends and family, and control their access to finances.

These all serve to keep the victim under their control and create major barriers that keep them from leaving. It is important to recognize that these behaviors are just as serious and abusive as physical attacks and are often more difficult to detect.
With young people comprising almost half of domestic violence cases, it's important to remember these myths when observing relationships in our daily lives. Whether for our personal relationships or those of our friends and family, it is necessary to keep an eye out for these traits. They are neither excusable nor normal; they are indicative of a violent relationship and must be taken seriously.

Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE) is a student organization dedicated to ending sexual assault, dating/domestic violence and stalking on the UW-Madison campus through education and activism. In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, PAVE will be screening "Waitress" on Tuesday, October 25 at 7 p.m. in Ogg Hall.

-Olivia Jonynas

**As published in The Daily Cardinal

Cosmopolitan and sexual assault reporting on campus

The September issue of Cosmopolitan features an article that hits home for many students here at UW-Madison. Molly Triffin ‘s “The Scary Truth About Rape on Campus” details the flawed systems for reporting and processing sexual assault cases in universities across the country. It shares personal stories of victims who were failed by these systems on their campuses, one of whom attended UW-Madison. Although it is certainly wonderful that Cosmo is giving this issue national attention, there are several problems with the article and its presentation.

The article uses specific examples and personal stories from victims to communicate the severity of the problem with reporting sexual assaults on college campuses. However, Triffin fails to honor the survivors in her article by using victim-blaming language. According to her, all of these women were “allegedly” assaulted. Each statement about their assaults is qualified first by words that imply the possibility that these women are lying. They “claimed” to have been assaulted. They “say” that this horrible thing happened to them. These seemingly miniscule changes remove all blame from the perpetrator and place responsibility for the assault on the victim herself.

Victim blaming is prevalent throughout the article. It is heavily implied that those victims who choose not to report their assaults are somehow wrong. Laura, the UW-Madison student who waited a year before coming forward with her story, seems to have her reasons for hesitation trivialized. Rather than address how incredibly difficult it is to report a sexual assault to school authorities or the police, Triffin instead outright states that victims simply “don't want to believe it happened to them.” Again, Triffin's article places all responsibility on victims. She seems to invalidate the reasons a survivor of sexual assault may have for not reporting, and ultimately hold victims responsible for cases where the assailant is not convicted. She also ignores the possibility that some victims don’t feel reporting to the police or campus officials is the right step for them.

The article goes on to completely disregard a victim's right to privacy. Triffin poses the question, “So why don't [colleges] turn these cases over to the police?” Without the consent of a victim, no college should ever consider sending a case onto local police. It is entirely up to the victim should they decide to file a police report in addition to a report to campus authorities. Triffin offers the rather unsatisfactory answer that “students want to keep the matter private,” and does not acknowledge that a police report is not always what is best for the victim.

On top of the victim blaming that litters the story, there is a sense of hypocrisy present. Cosmopolitan, while helping to normalize female sexuality, is not a terribly socially conscious magazine. It is completely hetero-normative, only discussing women and their sexual encounters with men. The magazine portrays the sexes in stereotypical ways: Men are masculine and women are feminine. End of discussion. And while the magazine does promote the still taboo subject of female sexuality, it spends the majority of its pages telling women how to please their men, oftentimes boiling down the success of a relationship to conforming to gender norms and doing whatever her man wants her to do in the bedroom.

As these trends demonstrate, Cosmopolitan doesn’t understand the forces behind rape culture and how sexual assault happens. Until they magazine demonstrates it has educated itself about the implications of gender norms, how the language we use perpetuates rape culture, what victim blaming is and how it happens and, perhaps most important, how to support a survivor, it will be difficult to take moves like this seriously.

If an impact is really to be made, then the inclusion of the occasional article on sexual assault is not enough. Before Cosmo puts itself at the forefront of the movement to stop sexual violence, perhaps some of its content should be reevaluated to promote a healthier idea of sexuality.

-Tessie Benser

Men needed to win fight against domestic violence

There are countless stereotypes associated with domestic violence, but one of the most common has to be that it is a crime solely perpetrated against women. While there is some merit to this thought, it is not completely true. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 73 percent of domestic violence victims are female. Of course, this means that 27 percent are male, and yet when people think about domestic violence, the image of a strong man beating up a weak woman is typically what comes to mind.

This notion yields a negative consequence: By suggesting that women are the only victims of domestic abuse, society believes it is women’s problem to solve. Hopefully people realize this isn’t true, but the stereotype has sunk in enough that there is a noticeable gap in the number of women and number of men actively volunteering in victim advocacy and violence prevention.

At Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE), men are some of our most vital volunteers. In our commitment to educate the campus about the realities of domestic/dating violence, our male volunteers often take a leading role, writing editorials or leading a class that delves into the specifics of such crimes. I’ve witnessed firsthand that the difference men can make is profound, yet there is a gap in the gender of our volunteers.

There are a number of possible reasons for this. Social connotations are definitely one of them. Contrary to what some people may feel, it is not sissy or feminine to work for an organization like PAVE. After all, isn’t the idea of men protecting women a theme we constantly see in the media? This is not to say men should be the shields protecting women, but they can most certainly stand by women’s sides and help to end the suffering.

Another stereotype preventing male participation is the belief that their help isn’t welcome, that a man’s involvement is a perpetrator’s involvement. This is simply not true. It is no more fair to men that they are constantly labeled abusers than it is to women that they are constantly labeled victims.

People like to think in black and white, but for most situations, including this one, narrow definitions don’t fit. We know the vast majority of men are anti-violence and don’t practice it in their relationships. This routine awareness could be channeled into violence prevention, but because of these labels, it rarely is.

Perhaps the ultimate reason men (and women, for that matter) are hesitant to be active in this endeavor is because the task of eliminating violence is daunting. Tapping someone on the shoulder and saying, “Psst, don’t hit your partner!” rarely yields the effects we would like, and when your gender has been stereotyped as abusive, it can be easiest to just ignore the situation. When this holds true, it is best to start with an approachable and doable first step.

This is what Ben Atherton-Zeman does. For a crime that can feel so massive, Ben narrows domestic violence down to what someone at UW-Madison might see or experience. Taking situations that are far too familiar, Ben dissects the ways victims and those around them may react when confronted with the reality of dating violence.

He also touches on the imperfect system of support most victims encounter when seeking both personal and legal help. All of this is meant to shed light on an often-silenced issue and encourage people to do something about it.

None of this is meant to imply that if you don’t get involved with violence prevention you’re ignorant or don’t care about these issues. That’s obviously not true. And while we at PAVE would love nothing more than to see some smiling male faces in our office making buttons or at our events, we’d also be satisfied with knowing men are out there recognizing what the problem is and doing what they can in their everyday lives to make sure it doesn’t happen.

This general awareness and casual advocacy is what Ben’s message gets at. He’s not looking to create the next male head of PAVE, but rather day-to-day activists who speak up when they hear a wife-beating joke, intervene when they see an argument turn physical and support a victim when one comes to him for help. This widespread consciousness is what will ultimately eradicate domestic violence.

-Jacqueline O'Reilly

(as published in the Badger Herald on February 9, 2011)

http://badgerherald.com/oped/2011/02/08/men_needed_to_win_fi.php