Women who have experienced abuse are often plagued with the idea that they should forgive the person who has abused them. Sometimes it is the abusive person is pushing for this, sometimes it is friends, family or church leaders, and sometimes the woman feels like it is the “right” thing to do. Some Christian women…
Women, especially Christian women, are often pressured to forgive their partners. I never understand the urgency around this. Sometimes I think church leaders want this to happen because they then think that everything will be “okay” and they can move on to other concerns but nothing is okay for the woman. It seems obvious that…
When women are experiencing on-going abuse, forgiveness is not the issue. Safety is. A woman needs to focus on trying to keep herself and her children safe. Even after separation, forgiveness is not the issue. Typically women continue to experience abuse from an ex-partner. Just because she has left does not mean that the abuse…
Women who have experienced abuse are often pressured to forgive their partners. When they feel unable to do this, they sometimes think there is something “wrong” with them or that they are not good people. But lots of times forgiveness is not the right or appropriate thing to do in a given situation.If the man…
I grew up in a church where equality between men and women was modelled. Women held positions of leadership and I saw respect and mutuality modelled by my parents and the other adult couples in my life. I did not encounter the idea that a “wife should submit” until I was in my 20’s. As…
In my second year of university, I went to a huge Christian youth conference in the states. I had a room mate who was from a fundamentalist Christian family. One night we got talking about relationships and she told me, “of course, the man is the head of the household.” I was shocked that such…
At this time of year, we are asked for donations to the food bank every time we turn around. Food banks rely on people’s generous spirits in December to get them through the rest of the year. It is good to remember that a significant number of people using food banks are women (and their…
Violence is far too common in the lives of Canadian women. One half of all Canadian women over the age of 18 have experienced physical or sexual violence. That is a shocking statistic. It comes from a Statistics Canada survey that was conducted in 1993. It was a one-time-only survey. If you or someone you…
It has become the norm that when women separate from their abusive partners they are forced by the courts to co-parent with an abusive and controlling man. Since the courts generally award 50/50 custody, these men use the children to continue their abuse in a multitude of ways. One woman described this nightmare scenario this…
The majority of men who commit rape describe their behaviour as “definitely not rape” (84%). Most rapists seem “normal” and appear to be “good guys”. They are not sociopaths or psychopaths. They are ordinary men who hold ideas about male entitlement and women’s inferiority. In other words, they are men who hold the abuse mentality…
Many people believe victims of domestic abuse do not do enough to free themselves from the abuse. They wrongly believe that women impacted by abuse passively accept the violence or lack assertiveness or are somehow “damaged” in such a way that they “accept” the abuse as “normal”. Nothing could be further from the truth. When…
Yes they can, but statistically, they do not very often. This is because abusive men face very few consequences for their behaviour. By staying abusive, they continue to have power and control. They get their way all the time. Usually these men leave a wake of destruction behind them as they go from one relationship…