1 in 4 women are dealing with domestic violence
2 women die every week at the hands of their partner or former partner

This got me thinking – how has domestic violence affected me?

In the work I’ve done as a psychotherapist I’ve had many clients who’ve had to deal with the issue to prove to me that a great many women have experienced domestic violence, and that it is much more insidious than I had realised – however, for obvious reasons, I’m not gong to discuss that any further.

I have not had to deal with it myself, but from a few comments my mother has made I think that she was brought up in a house where it was an issue.

When I was 16 I started my A-levels. I used the opportunity to get out of my country school and go to a college in a neighbouring city. I made new friends – some great, some not so great. One of the great ones was a woman who was a few years older than me. She was someone I met through other people, we didn’t share any classes but she had worked out in the real world for a few years and now had a determination to get the grades she needed to get to university. She studied hard, held down a job, and kept an active social life going. I’m guessing you can see why I admired her; as time went on that admiration turned to a deep and abiding friendship that I treasure to this day. She is funny, witty, rude, kind, compassionate, brave, and tells me the truth; simply thinking about her makes me smile. When I left home at 17 she helped me find a job and introduced me to city living and our friendship deepened again. It was then that I found out that she had once been the victim of domestic violence.

I was shocked to be honest – it didn’t seem to fit with the gutsy, take no-nonsense, woman I loved and admired. As she told me her story, not all at once, but a piece of information here, a word there, I began to see how it had happened.

Of course she was younger then and he was older – she was impressed by his age. That was uncomfortable to hear because I could see that happening all around me, heck I could see myself having done that! He was nice to her and to begin with his concern about her whereabouts looked like caring, not an attempt at control. The abuse really started long before he hit her – her friends, the places she went, what she told her parents all became things he influenced; a thousand small methods of control. She told me that the first time he hit her he had been so sorry, so apologetic, and so certain it would never happen again that she believed him. After a long period of abuse (long to a teenager perhaps if not an adult) it ended – not because anyone stopped him, or because she left him, but because he was sent to prison for something else altogether. My friend visited him in prison, wrote to him, stayed faithful, but her friends used his absence as an opportunity to remind her of their friendship and its’ joys. She saw how much her life had changed. She was reminded what it was like not having to worry about the violence she had endured yesterday, or might endure today, and how much better she felt not lying to her parents to hide the abuse from them (how she managed that I don’t know, she was still living with her parents when all this happened – I can only say it is a credit to her ingenuity but perhaps, just this once, I do wish she wasn’t quiet so clever.) Anyway, the time apart allowed her to see what her life really should be – safe, and this lead to her ending their relationship while he was still in prison.

It’s an old well-worn story – the detail, or at least the details I have, are not really that important here. What is important is that if a woman as smart and strong as my friend could be the target of domestic violence then I knew any woman could be. It’s an uncomfortable truth. Since then I have known too many women who have had to deal with the same difficulties, some did not escape, some did. But I always remember that first encounter and I remember how she escaped – because her friends were her friends and stepped up to the plate when they were needed, they saw an opportunity and made the most of it. In the end even making a cup of tea, or telling a story, can be a powerful feminist action – it can help change a life.

Please take the time to visit Avon’s Four Ways to Make a Change campaign.

So let’s deal with point a) first- the fact this question even needed to be asked. I’m against the use of the word ‘forced’ in the question. No woman should be ‘forced’ to do anything, especially not when feeding her child. Let’s all just take a moment here to remember that breasts, contrary to popular myth, exist so that women can breastfeed. It is in fact, the primary function of the mammary gland to produce milk in order to nourish infants. I suspect that the reason this question gets asked is because in our modern, western, over sexualised culture we seem to have completely forgotten that  breasts are not sexual objects designed to titillate and pleasure men.

Moving onto point b)- the misogyny in a lot of the comments. There were of course several comments from people pointing out the sheer ridiculousness of expecting Mothers to feed their babies in toilets or  under blankets etc – when Michael Jackson stuck his kids heads under blankets in public we called it child abuse. How  is it suddenly okay when the parent is a Mother who is FEEDING her child? There were several comments from people asking what all the fuss was about, when breastfeeding is a perfectly natural thing. And then there were the comments where people argued that urination is natural, but that doesn’t mean they do it in the street. Here’s the thing- babies need feeding. Babies, when not fed become quite upset. I am fairly certain, the same people who call ‘disgusting’ upon seeing the tiniest hint of flesh in a breastfeeding mother, are the same people who ‘tut’ and mutter ‘ can’t they shut that child up? shocking’ under their breath when confronted with a Mother who is attempting to soothe her hungry child when she is too anxious to feed in public because of people’s reaction.

Also- how do these people think women breastfeed? Having breastfed one baby, bottlefed another (for long and complex reasons),  and in about 6 months time I’ll be breastfeeding a third, I’m desperately trying to work out how on earth anyone is ‘exposing’ themselves enough to warrant being stared at by people in public. It’s not as if one flops one’s breasts onto a table while the child uses a straw or something! Breastfeeding requires a baby to be latched on so closely to the breast in order to suck, that unless you’re feeding over a vest top or topless it’s nigh on impossible to see any flesh. Ifyour an inexperienced breastfeeder, who’s just getting into her routine, then yes you might ‘expose’ a bit of flesh whilst latching on, but seriously ‘indecent exposure’? That’s a bit much really.

It seems to me that there are many things tied up in this question and the attotudes the poll has revealed. Primarily there’s an issue about women and their use of public spaces- these people feel women should not feel comfortable or able to use public spaces to feed their children and that their behaviour and autonomy should be censured for ‘moral’ reasons. Those moral reasons rest on notions of womens bodies and body parts as sexual objects designed to bring pleasure to men, but not to carry out their primary function- that of feeding babies. Then their an issue about ‘forcing’ women to comply with a ‘rule’ which is based on fallacious arguments and a dominant male based oppressive power structure.

I’m not that fussed about how or where women choose to feed their babies. Breastfeeding from many points of view is prefferable to bottlefeeding,  but  for many women it isn’t a practical, medical or cultural option, and  either way it shouldn’t matter. We need to support women and their partners and families to be comfortable with their feeding choices- this means access to breastfeeding cafes, and clinics and lactation consultants. This means access to peer supporters, and proper, accurate information about both breast and bottle feeding.  This means being able to feed your baby in public in any way you damn please without fear of censure or disapproval or abuse.

And it means that as onlookers, as other humans using a public space, we do not judge. We do not comment, becuase whether supportive or not, we are intruding. We do not ‘tut’ or mutter ’shocking’. We recognize that what we see is not indecent exposure, or bad parenting or shamelessness or a woman flaunting herself. What we see is a child being given it’s meal by it’s caregiver, and that is a perfectly normal, perfectly natural thing.

“Hmm, what can I get my partner for their birthday?  Oh!  I know-  sex everyday for the next year !” When sex is gift wrapped, it is implied that it is paid for, made attractive and, ultimately,  only for the enjoyment of the recipient. Any comparisons between prostitution and the gift of sex is obvious. We all know that sex is important, but it is in fact,  a physical and emotional exchange between consenting adults and not something on a ‘to do’  list.

We all lead busy lives- there’s work , mundane day to day stuff to do and so on.  Should sex be seen as a item on a list to tick off ? I say no. On hearing experinces of couples trying to concieve they often say having sex to order, made sex just an act, a means to an end. Men and women often say they’d like more sex,  but is it because that is what the media portrays to us ?  If we aren’t having great sex and lots of it we are obvious inadequate and unattractive.  Is this why this woman decided to give her husband the gift of sex?

At first we can clearly see that it is taken at a protest . You, dear reader, may have even been there. You may even be one of the individuals in the photo. Even if you are not, in another time and place, it could be you. Your fellow protesters all around you clashing and being penned in by the police, you look forward and a police officer grabs you by the throat in order to restrain you! What have you done ? Exercised your civil and human right to protest? Or, have you identified yourself as a threat to national security, because you have chosen to exercise that precise right?

The image  speaks volumes to me about civil liberties, feminism and class struggle. It conveys to me that there are individuals that will come together in order to stand up for a cause. It also tells me that no matter how big the group is, how just the cause is, the authorities (or oppressors) will always be there to grab the idealists by the neck in order to suppress them. That said it doesn’t make me want to give up protesting , blogging , and airing my views. It makes me feel mad that protests have to be approved by the authorities, and that the same authorities, then use illegal and unjustifiable actions in the form of “kettling” and violence in order to restrain the very protest they approved.

According to Noam Chomsky, “power is illegitimate unless proof of legitimacy can be found”. In the case of the photo, the police are an institution of the state. That fact gives this institution the right to  police citizens of the state legitimately, but how far should the police be able to go in enforcing the laws of the land?  When did violence and the containment of citizens exercising their legitimate rights,   become acceptable actions the state could take against its own citizens? Pictures like this make clear that the authorities should always be questioned and observed, just as much as the authorities question and observe us.

This is my life changing photo , whats yours?