We like to think that bad things don’t happen where we live, and we like to think that bad things don’t happen to the people we know. As far as we’re concerned, those things only happen to random people in random parts of the country, or in other countries altogether.
This is, of course, a lie—bad things happen to everyone. And they happen to more people than you think.
According to Stats Canada, in 2018, 44 percent of women reported experiencing some form of psychological, physical, or sexual violence by an intimate partner. You read that right—44 percent.
We like to think that intimate partner violence (IPV) is a thing of the past, but it still exists for almost half of Canadian women. Statistically, many of the people close to us have faced or will face IPV at some point in their life. But why? Why, in our modern society where #girlpower is at an all-time high, do we still have this problem?
Well, to put it simply: it’s complicated.
There are a lot of reasons these ideologies have stuck around. For one, marital/spousal rape was completely legal until 1983 (that’s less than 40 years ago; can you believe that?). It might seem hard to believe, but our “modern” society hasn’t been modern for all that long. So, that combined with the traditionally low amount of punishment for the crime and the stigma of revealing abuse to friends/family? That’s just a recipe for disaster.
Really, it’s only been recently that women have been stepping forward to tell their stories; IPV has long been a taboo subject to speak about publicly. And to some extent, it still is.
We’re so quick to be uncomfortable discussing topics like sexual assault or IPV that we oftentimes we just avoid it all together. It’s a serious topic—and we don’t talk about serious topics in our daily lives. But we should.
Part of the reason that many women don’t come forward and get help is because of the suffocating stigma surrounding partner violence. Will people believe them? Do they have any evidence? If it was so bad, why didn’t they just leave? These questions are problematic for several reasons. Not only does it shift the blame to the victim for their abuse, but it forces them to justify their decisions and their previous inaction.
Because we don’t talk about serious topics often, the stigma and secrecy surrounding them is left to fester. And that’s not okay.
We should be talking about serious topics like IPV. We should be having open conversations about how we can better provide for victims, and make getting help more accessible.
We tend to like the “out of sight, out of mind” approach for serious topics. If we don’t think about it, it doesn’t have to affect us. But the reality is, our silence only harms present and future victims.
Just because something doesn’t affect us personally doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Because it does—it happens to friends, family, co-workers, and many of the important people in our lives. And “out of sight, out of mind” won’t help them. Only action will.