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December 7, 2009
How violent must violence be before it is considered violence? Is verbal abuse violence? Is sexual abuse violence? Is virtual slavery violence?
We don't have to look very far to see violence against women, if we want to see. We just have to look next door or down the block. There are women we all know who are being abused in one way or another by their husbands and sometimes by their husbands' families. Yes, right here under our noses. But do we want to see? Do we want to know?
Unfortunately, many women faced with potential violence - or even just plain misery - are too frozen in space to budge. They stay rather than run. They don't want to give up the comfort of the familiar.
Sometimes the victims themselves will tell us to mind our own business. More often, the police will say there is no case, no justification for investigation ... until there is bloodshed. And then, as we know from news broadcasts, there may be a graveyard full of bodies and many years under the bridge before anyone looks into spousal abuse.
So what are we supposed to do? Who cares enough to stick their nose into someone else's problems?
We don't have to look very far to see violence against women, if we want to see. We just have to look next door or down the block. There are women we all know who are being abused in one way or another by their husbands and sometimes by their husbands' families. Yes, right here under our noses. But do we want to see? Do we want to know?
Unfortunately, many women faced with potential violence - or even just plain misery - are too frozen in space to budge. They stay rather than run. They don't want to give up the comfort of the familiar.
Sometimes the victims themselves will tell us to mind our own business. More often, the police will say there is no case, no justification for investigation ... until there is bloodshed. And then, as we know from news broadcasts, there may be a graveyard full of bodies and many years under the bridge before anyone looks into spousal abuse.
So what are we supposed to do? Who cares enough to stick their nose into someone else's problems?
Phyllis Carter
30
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