Introduction: A Message to Those Experiencing Violence

Abstract

Introduction: A Message to Those Experiencing Violence Bethany , Jacqui , Lourdes , Taniya , and Wanda So it is better to speakrememberingwe were never meant to survive —Audre Lorde, A Litany for Survival, 1978 We are five women who daily recognize we are alive. We do not take this for granted because for years we each experienced physical violence in our homes. We are the victims and survivors of domestic violence.1 We are referred to and defined by these terms in court documents; in state services; counseling; and by friends, family, and colleagues. These terms impact our own understandings of domestic violence and living after getting out of abuse. I was a victim. I am a survivor. However, these terms do not always fit how we feel or how we see our situations and the requirements to fit these terms have caused us to stumble, withdraw, or scream with despair. Victim. Survivor. The words have such distinct meanings and evoke specific states of being. Yet living with and after domestic violence never feels this concise. The timeline between victim and survivor slides across each term and any number of things can trigger us to embrace or reject either term, while we simultaneously embrace our surviving and our strengths. We met in a counseling group for women navigating life after getting out of domestic violence.2 The group had fourteen to twenty participants with two-thirds identifying as women of color.3 Most had all been in long-term [End Page 146] domestic partnerships or marriages with men, some with women,4 most of us had children, and we ranged in age from thirty-four to sixty-two. We were at various stages of getting out—some living separately from their abuser for a few months, some a year; some divorced, some in limbo, some in ongoing legal battles; some with sole custody of children, some with visitation; some in temporary housing, some in rental apartments or homes, some living in the house where abuse occurred. We all worked full time in business, customer service, finance, medical, nursing, teaching, or technology professions and earn middle income.5 The similarities in experiences of the women in this group were striking and the five of us found strength and sadness in these similarities. Strength because we recognized ourselves in each other and sadness because if such similarities exist surely things could be done to prevent or shorten the time anyone experiences domestic violence. The short form reflective narratives and prose in this colloquium were written with these emotions and impetus. This colloquium arose from our relations of commonalities and differences as five middle-income, racially diverse women (Black, Latina, multiracial, and white) who were in domestic violence relationships with men. We are women with privileges—privileges of professional job security and middle-income access to resources. Yet, while attempting to get out of domestic violence, we each experienced difficultly being seen and heard and continue to face challenges living after getting out. A cursory look at research on domestic violence service provision may provide insight to our difficulties. Although a “Third Women’s Caucus” was formed in 1978 to focus on structural barriers intersectional women of color faced in accessing domestic violence services (Allen 1985; Arnold and Perkins 1984–1985; Rasche 1988; Zambrano 1985; Williams 1981), domestic violence research has not fully embraced the necessity of an intersectional approach (Decker et al. 2019; Donnelly et al. 2005). Recent research points to the “subtle ways in which white privilege affects services to battered women of color” (Donnelly et al. 2005, 31). In reference to Black women, Kenney (2021) writes “there is limited research that examines how, if, and to what extent counselors’ cultural competence informs their interventions with African American women to encourage positive therapeutic alliances with those victims” (1). It is hard to find research focused on racially diverse women, even harder to find diverse middle-income women’s experiences of domestic violence, and most domestic violence research assumes heteronormativity. In 1987, Lettie Lockhart conducted one of the first studies looking at heterosexual domestic violence across gender, race (Black and white), class (low, [End Page 147] middle, upper), education attainment, and violence in...