Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (12 page)

Sleepwalking,
I’m only sleepwalking,
With my scream of terror
Reverberating through my soul
Like an echo in a canyon.

Sometimes I hear my scream,
It silences the sound of my thought,
Silences the sound of my words,
Silences the touch of love.

Eileen Hudon (White Earth Ojibwe)

Chapter 3

Domestic Violence: An Introduction to the Social and Legal Issues for Native Women

VICTORIA YBANEZ

V
iolence against Native women is an enormous problem across Indian Country. Not only does it have devastating effects on individuals and communities, it also presents some unique challenges in the work to end violence against all women. Domestic violence experienced by Native American women is a serious health threat. According to the Centers for Disease Control, intimate partner violence is one of the most serious public health problems in the United States.
¹
The National Violence Against Women (NVAW) Survey indicates that American Indians/Alaska Natives are at greater risk of violent victimizations than are other Americans.
²
Findings from the NVAW Survey support findings from previous studies such as the 1999 report published by the Department of Justice stating that Native Americans were more than two times as likely to be violently victimized as blacks, whites, or Asians.
³
The survey found that about half of the violent victimizations experienced by Native Americans involved an offender with whom the victim had a prior relationship (about the same percentage as found among other victims of violence).

In our Native communities, the problem of domestic violence is complicated by struggles against institutional racism and oppression. Many solutions designed to protect women from domestic violence have been crafted by institutions that historically have been oppressive and punitive to Native peoples. Native women who are victims of domestic violence often find themselves being revictimized by the child protection system and the civil or criminal legal systems. While these mainstream institutions may appear supportive, historically they have minimized or ignored issues battered Native women face.

I can forgive but there are certain aspects of my history, whether it’s solely as a Cheyenne or as an Indian person, that I cannot forget because Native Americans never want to go back and relive that horror.

—HENRIETTA MANN
⁴
(CHEYENNE)

The precise origins of domestic violence are often disputed by those working to end violence against Native women. However, most experts generally agree that since the arrival of colonizers, violence against Native women has become a common occurrence across Indian Country. Violence against Native women is not considered natural in indigenous societies and is a fairly new phenomenon. The most commonly held belief is that, while many Native nations had some experience with women being mistreated or battered by intimate partners, the practice was not common nor was it tolerated prior to colonization. The arrival of foreigners gave rise to the widespread crisis experienced across Indian Country today.

Our histories shape us. We will never be able to go back and be who we were prior to colonization, nor do we want to. Antiviolence work today includes identifying and centralizing our Native values and beliefs. One of the most widespread beliefs is that
women are sacred
, which grows out of our stories and teachings. When something is considered sacred, it is to be respected, honored, and regarded as powerful. Women have been historically viewed as the backbone of indigenous society.
⁵
We must acknowledge our past and use it as a guide to shape our future.

What Is Domestic Violence?

Domestic violence refers to a pattern of physical and/or sexual violence committed by a current or former intimate partner. Domestic violence can occur in both male—female and same-sex partner relationships. The most recognized form of domestic violence is physical violence, which may include hitting, slapping, strangling, kicking, and other violent acts. Extreme forms of physical violence include sexual violence. Indicative of all forms of domestic violence is the intent to control the victims by using various tactics. These tactics include unnatural forms of power and control:
⁶
isolation, intimidation, using children, emotional abuse, economic abuse, coercion and threats, minimizing, denying and blaming, cultural abuse, ritual abuse, and male privilege. The following paragraphs will describe these tactics in detail.

Isolation
is a common tactic used by batterers to separate a woman from her support system. Behaviors include preventing a woman from leaving the house and interfering with her relationships with family and friends. Some women indicate that batterers isolate them by intercepting mail or phone calls, so that they gradually lose touch with friends and family.
⁷
Preventing her from going to school or working can also be forms of isolation.

Using intimidation
includes gestures, movements, or statements that create fear in the victim. This can include body language or statements that only the victim understands. To the unknowing person, the action or gesture might seem insignificant. For example, a batterer may tell his partner, “Be careful today.” On the surface, the statement seems benign. However, placing that statement in context might reveal a threat connected to a previous conversation or expectation. Many women have reported that their batterer threatened or harmed pets as a form of intimidation.

Using the children
is another tactic of power and control. Batterers may tell the children negative things in order to damage the relationship between mother and child. Often, the perpetrator will threaten to leave her and take the children away. Some batterers will use the children as a form of access to her after the couple has separated.

Using emotional abuse
includes calling her names as well as engaging in actions that dehumanize or degrade her. Women have reported that batterers will often play mind games that convinced them that they were going crazy. For example, one woman shared that her husband would hide her shoes and other personal items from her, placing them in the freezer or the washing machine. Since there were only two adults in the house and their children were too small to do these things, she began to believe there was something wrong with her.

Economic abuse
includes such things as controlling all of the household resources, requiring the victim to ask for money, and requiring her to account for all money that she spends. Other forms of economic abuse can include actions that threaten her employment or prevent her from being employed at all. Therefore, she is completely dependent on the batterer and cannot leave the relationship.

Using coercion
or threats as a tactic of power and control includes actions or statements that force the victim to respond in a specific way. Some examples include the batterer threatening to commit suicide if his partner leaves him, threatening to leave her and take the children and financial resources away from her, or threatening to report her to welfare for fraud if she doesn’t drop the charges for domestic violence.

A batterer will use
minimizing, denying, and blaming
as tactics of power and control. Oftentimes, the batterer will blame the woman for the violence or will make light of the violence by telling her or anyone else “it wasn’t that bad” or that “she is exaggerating the whole thing.” Some women have said that their batterer blatantly lied to others about the violence. For instance, one woman reported that she told her mother-in-law about the violence. When the mother-in-law approached her son, he responded that his wife “made the whole thing up” because she was mad at him.

Cultural abuse
is used to diminish the victim as a Native woman. This comes in many forms, but most often is seen as judging her for not being “Indian” enough, that she is too assimilated, or that she is “heathen.” The batterer might use his cultural knowledge or cultural powers to intimidate the woman or hold himself out to be superior to her.

Figure 3.1
. Sacred Circle Unnatural Power and Control Pyramid. Source: Courtesy of Sacred Circle, National Resource Center to End Violence Against Native Women.

Ritual abuse
includes drawing from spiritual and religious practices and beliefs to control the victim. This might include using interpretations of “teachings” as a threat, preventing her from practicing her own spiritual ways, using “bad medicine” against her, or praying against her. Some batterers try to prevent their partner from attending ceremonies.

Male privilege
is the belief that men are superior to women. Actions associated with this tactic include making all of the decisions because he believes he is “head of the household.” Some batterers may act like a “king of the castle” and expect the woman to act as a servant.

Using sexual assault
as a tactic of power and control includes sexual violence and coercion. Some of these actions are not obvious, such as language that is sexually offensive to her, forcing her to watch pornography, and threatening to have sex with one of their daughters if she does not have sex with him. The batterer might also make his victim feel that she is an inadequate sexual partner.

Physical violence generally takes place when the tactics of power and control described above are not effective to achieve the batterer’s desired outcome. The violence varies in frequency and severity across relationships. In order to fully understand the extent of the domestic violence, it is important to look at the big picture. In our roles as advocates, law enforcement officers, child protection workers, civil or criminal justice interveners, we must not look at just one single incident, because it does not present an accurate view of the dangerous situation.

Myths about Domestic Violence

There are many myths in our society about domestic violence. Myths are widely held beliefs that, when left unchecked, continue to perpetuate the problem of domestic violence. Myths originate from fundamental misconceptions about the nature of violence. These myths often reinforce the battering by shifting the responsibility for the violence away from the batterer to the battered woman. In addition, myths interfere with our ability as advocates, law enforcement officers, child protection workers, and civil or criminal justice interveners to effectively work with the women we see. Myths impair our judgment and create barriers to being able to fully see the reality of violence that is occurring—in one woman’s life, in our communities, and in society in general. The following section describes some of the most commonly held myths about domestic violence.

Myth: A Battered Woman Can Leave the Relationship Anytime

If it were me, I would have left him a long time ago. . . .

Why does she stay when she is being battered?

If you have worked with battered women or have experienced domestic violence, you have probably heard one of these statements, at least a few times—or maybe you have even said them before. In reality, battered women do not have the luxury of “walking away” from domestic violence.

• The risk of
  lethality
  rises significantly when a woman decides to leave the relationship. Some women say that they would rather live with the violence because it is predictable versus leaving, which could be more dangerous. If she leaves, a woman may suffer another violent attack or, worse, she may be killed if she tries to leave.
  
• Leaving the relationship often means that the victim and her children will have to leave the community. For a Native woman, this could mean having to leave her village, pueblo, or reservation—the very place where she grew up, the place she calls home and from which she draws great support. The land she lives on may play a significant role in her social and cultural identity.
  
• Leaving requires resources—both emotional and material. The ability to leave is connected to her ability to access food, shelter, clothing, money, and transportation. Battered women’s shelters sometimes provide these basic needs, but they are only a temporary solution.
  
• The emotional aspects of battering run very deep. Many battered women have reported how difficult it is to heal from the emotional and psychological trauma. Over time, surviving battering takes an enormous amount of energy. Women say they are so exhausted from the battering that they have little energy to care for themselves or their children, make decisions, plan their days, or imagine a future outside the violent relationship.
  
• In addition, some battered women want to believe that when he says, “I’ll never do it again,” he means it.