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For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

theguardian.com

121–130 of 193 posts

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#121
post #115
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which do you think matters more to a person in an abusive situation? A. Paragraph two of some legal document somewhere B. "If you leave the house, I'll call the cops and tell them you're breaking quarantine, and then you'll go to jail and I'll be the only person who can get you out." I don't disagree with your last paragraph: There are other related issues and maybe some of them are worse. But how this actually plays…

An accusation of domestic abuse would be taken far more seriously than an accusation of "being outside without a reason", I would think. Especially if you're a police officer, trained to respond to domestic violence calls, but never really trained about the seriousness of epidemic management.

Domestic abuse can be psychological, too.

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#122
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An accusation of domestic abuse would be taken far more seriously than an accusation of "being outside without a reason", I would think. Especially if you're a police officer, trained to respond to domestic violence calls, but never really trained about the seriousness of epidemic management.

Domestic abuse can be psychological, too.

Domestic abuse is always psychological, though it often is also physical.

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#123
post #71
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm not saying this is the right place for his frustration, but it is a bit annoying that the narrative around domestic abuse is that it's something men to do women, while in reality the statistics show us that both men and women are guilty of domestic violence at about the same rate. There are thousands of shelters for women in the US, while for men there are less than 5 scattered across the country. Men and wo…

>while in reality the statistics show us that both men and women are guilty of domestic violence at about the same rate I find that _extremely_ suspect. > In the U.S., about 31 percent of men and 37 percent of women have experienced sexual violence, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I am not disagreeing with that statistic, but it's a si…

Many women don't realize they're in an abusive relationship either. People in this situation often try to rationalize it "oh, he only hit me once, he's not really like that," or "oh, she only slapped me once, she's actually a good person." Try not to let your gender bias get in your way of seeing the truth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_against_men

There are plenty of sources listed here that you can follow up on, but most of the sources I've seen that actually take domestic violence against men seriously actually indicate that it is more common than domestic violence against women. Something like 60% of the instances of abuse are initiated by women.

The severity of the abuse is obviously much more skewed towards male aggressors though. Men are obviously bigger and stronger (generally), so they hit harder and can take more abuse before needing hospitalization.

Also, no one sympathizes with a man who is abused by his female partner. Not only do men feel emasculated, which can cause them to never report issues, but also people don't take them seriously. Did you know that in most states, regardless of who was the aggressor, the male in the relationship is always arrested? That's right, even if you call the police with visible scratch marks or bruises that were caused by your female partner, they will arrest you, not her. I understand that these laws exist because women often had no recourse or protection, but I think the pendulum has swung too far and men just don't have access to any resources or protection in the face of the law.

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#124
post #93
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically, people who stay in abusive relationships were already stuck. The problem wasn’t cause by the lockdown. Only compounded. Changing the presentation of a document won’t change this. What would, is a society that doesn’t tolerate the problem, and provides material support for the abused. We are a long way from that.

Someone who cannot leave a relationship in which abuse did not just take place once, but repeated (hence "abusive"); when what should society do that it should not already be doing to everyone? * ensure you have food and shelter * ensure reasonably safe * ensure that children are admitted to some school * ensure you dont sink into deep poverty When a society cannot help on these points, what use is requesting these f…

You are right.

There is no use requesting these things for a small group of marginalized people.

Until society provides them for everyone, it cannot tackle the problem of abuse.

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#125
post #115
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which do you think matters more to a person in an abusive situation? A. Paragraph two of some legal document somewhere B. "If you leave the house, I'll call the cops and tell them you're breaking quarantine, and then you'll go to jail and I'll be the only person who can get you out." I don't disagree with your last paragraph: There are other related issues and maybe some of them are worse. But how this actually plays…

An accusation of domestic abuse would be taken far more seriously than an accusation of "being outside without a reason", I would think. Especially if you're a police officer, trained to respond to domestic violence calls, but never really trained about the seriousness of epidemic management.

> An accusation of domestic abuse would be taken far more seriously than an accusation of "being outside without a reason", I would think. Especially if you're a police officer, trained to respond to domestic violence calls, but never really trained about the seriousness of epidemic management.

Police not taking it seriously (in part, because it's viewed as wasted time because the accuser will so often recant even when the accusation is true) is an enduring problem with domestic violence, and police are very well trained to enforce well-defined public orders like curfews (which shelter in place orders are just a variety of) even if they aren't specifically trained for pandemics.

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#126
post #85

I think that the situation can have more positive than negative effects in this sense. A major problem with abused people is that they assume that their current life is more predictable (comforting) than the other options (being jobless, poor and alone and having a low self-estimate), so they relativize and hide the situation because they fear more the uncertainty. Maybe they will solve the problem temporarily trying…

Oh god, you clearly don’t have much knowledge of abusive partners, because you couldn’t be more wrong.

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#127
post #119
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically, people who stay in abusive relationships were already stuck. The problem wasn’t cause by the lockdown. Only compounded. Changing the presentation of a document won’t change this. What would, is a society that doesn’t tolerate the problem, and provides material support for the abused. We are a long way from that.

Which (developed Western) society tolerates the problem? The core crux of the problem is literally that the society can't really do anything - the victim has to leave, out of their own volition, and that rarely happens (people who leave quickly aren't the problem, they don't get stuck in abusive situations in the first place). I mean maybe this was a problem 30 years ago, but I've been bombarded with images, ads, inf…

Sure the victim has to leave.

But do you know what happens when they do?

Obviously, shelters have to be advertised because otherwise people wouldn’t know about them.

But it’s pretty obvious that the presence of ads for shelters says nothing about whether society is actually providing a way out for the abused.

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domestic abuse can be psychological, too.

Domestic abuse is always psychological, though it often is also physical.

Sure. The point being that if it is not physical, it is often not taken seriously.

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#129
post #120
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An accusation of domestic abuse would be taken far more seriously than an accusation of "being outside without a reason", I would think. Especially if you're a police officer, trained to respond to domestic violence calls, but never really trained about the seriousness of epidemic management.

They are nit taken that seriously absent visible injuries. And statistically cops are more likely to be domestic abusers then general population.

Yep, 40% vs 25%:

https://kutv.com/news/local/40-of-police-officer-families-ex...

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Police-domestic-viole...

Re: For people with an abusive partner, lockdown means captivity

#130
post #3

I feel like this is a valid concern, but really when it comes to abusive relationships ... a lockdown isn't the problem / aggravating circumstance /etc. I worked with kids who came from abusive / were in abusive families. The volume of abused partners who willingly stayed with the abuser was astonishingly high. They would even follow an abuser from one town to the next, even with services and options to not do so ava…

This is the most HN comment I've seen in a week. You tried not to blame the victim and acknowledge poverty is the trap but then came off as doing that in the context of personal responsibility shaming. Poverty or the fear of poverty is the real decision maker here; the math is as unforgiving as orbital mechanics. And please don't reply, "But there are programs!" Governments and NGOs convince voters and donors that th…

I remember reading that it takes on average 7 attempts for domestic victim to leave till it stucks.

They stay and come back for a lot of reasons - practical and emotional. Practically, leaving is the moat dangerous time, that is when victim get killed or attacked the most. Shelter mean isolation from her contacts and for kids and their friends. Oftentimes there is money.

Emotionally, there is hope that "he changed". There is trauma bonding that plays against leaving. Victim believes she deserves it. Victim is socialized into dysfunctional patterns that make going back to him seem as right action or make it hard to be alone or with safe partner . And often it is that victims perceives red flags warnings that makes others break up as normal masculinity - meaning she/he ends in another bad relationship right after.

There is a lot more on not leaving then just programs faults.

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