Down to the Grass Roots

Today I went and did some training so I can be a volunteer for women’s aid, while this isn’t totally altruistic because I need to do some voluntary work because I’ve been out of the job market for such a long time, it has always been really important to me to do voluntary work for issues that I care about and i want to bring my feminism and my activism back down to the baseline, I feel like I’ve grown out of the whole banner waving protest thing, the feminist group I was helping run is changing direction from where it was going and so needs less input and I feel need to do my feminism differntly, I need to make a difference to individual women as well as women in general.

Most people reading this will know the obvious statistics about Domestic violence but they gave us a handout with loads of others and I’ve picked some out here because they are ones that maybe are not so known about

• Domestic violence accounts for between 16% and one quarter of all
recorded violent crime. (Home Office, 2004; Dodd et al., 2004; BCS,
1998; Dobash and Dobash, 1980)

• In any one year, there are 13 million separate incidents of physical
violence or threats of violence against women from partners or former
partners. (Walby and Allen, 2004)

• 54% of UK rapes are committed by a woman’s current or former partner.
(Walby and Allen, 2004)

• Partner violence accounts for a high proportion of homicides of women
internationally: between 40% – 70% of female murder victims (depending
on the country) were killed by their partners/former partners, whereas the
comparable figure for men is 4% – 8%. (Krug et al. 2002)

• At least 750,000 children a year witness domestic violence. (Department
of Health, 2002).

• 70% of children living in UK refuges have been abused by their father.
(Bowker et al., 1998

• A survey of 130 abused parents found that 76% of the 148 children
ordered by the courts to have contact with their estranged parent were
said to have been abused during visits: 10% were sexually abused; 15%
were physically assaulted; 26% were abducted or involved in an abduction
attempt: 36% were neglected during contact, and 62% suffered emotional
harm. Most of these children were under the age of 5 (Radford, Sayer &
AMICA, 1999)

• In a study by Shelter, 40% of all homeless women stated that domestic
violence was a contributor to their homelessness. Domestic violence was
found to be “the single most quoted reason for becoming homeless”
(Cramer and Carter, 2002).

• 70% women psychiatric in-patients and 80% of those in secure settings
have histories of physical or sexual abuse. (Phillips, 2000; Department of
Health, 2002).

• 1 in 5 young men and 1 in 10 young women think that abuse or violence
against women is acceptable. (Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust, 1998).

• 30% of domestic violence starts in pregnancy. (Lewis and Drife, 2001,
2005; McWilliams and McKiernan, 1993)
• Domestic violence has been identified as a prime cause of miscarriage
or still-birth (Mezey, 1997), and of maternal deaths during childbirth
(Lewis and Drife, 2001, 2005).

You can see more here

I asked about their position o transwomen and they said that if a woman had had gender reassignment surgery and considered themself a woman then they would take them, while there are still issues here for women who haven’t had reassignment surgery It was good to see that there wasn’t the anti trans stance that is often presumed in refuges,

I also asked about women who have No recourse to public funds and they said that although they couldn’t take them the referred them on to BASWO who do have the resources to help women in that position.

For myself, i don’t know too much about domestic violence from a partner, I know about different types of abuse from parent figures and I have had some instances of domestic partner abuse and I vacillate from saying they dont count to thinking maybe I minimise them

My first serious relationship was with a man/boy (we were 16) who was arrogant and selfish and my boundaries were fucked due to life experiences so he used to continue pawing me till I gave up and let him have sex with me, he would push me around physically and then tell me I was overreacting if he said he hurt me. he would “play” wrestle with me, even when I told him I didn’t want to do it. I only stayed with him so long because the rest of his family was lovely to me.

I also had a relationship with a woman who was belittling and controlling and on one occasion threw me across a room and threatened to kill me and I haven’t ever really processed that, partly because I never feel I have anywhere to take it because either people think that women in lesbian relationships don’t have those experiences or they think experiences like that “prove” that lesbian relationships are deviant.

Anyway I have some more training next week and I have to fill in the relevant police check forms and then I can start working for them.