{"id":4526,"date":"2019-10-10T15:31:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T22:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dixonsociety.ca\/?p=4526"},"modified":"2019-10-10T15:32:59","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T22:32:59","slug":"five-myths-about-violence-against-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dixonsociety.ca\/five-myths-about-violence-against-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Five myths about violence against women"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Violence against women has long been seen as a private problem. With the growth of feminism and the rise of the #MeToo movement, we\u2019re slowly but surely beginning to realize that keeping domestic violence “behind closed doors” endangers women. Still, the topic isn’t often discussed, and that can lead to some misconceptions. In this blog post, we’re busting five myths about violence against women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Violence against women presents itself differently in every situation and can take many forms, whether physical, emotional, sexual, or financial<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Physical abuse<\/strong> can include pushing, throwing objects, punching, threatening to hurt you, reckless driving, refusing to help when you’re sick or pregnant, or leaving you in dangerous places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emotional abuse<\/strong> can include ignoring your feelings, refusing to share money, preventing you from working, ridiculing, humiliation, threatening to hurt you or your family, or threatening to kidnap your children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sexual abuse<\/strong> can include rape, forcing particular unwanted sexual acts, forcing sex after physical abuse, using derogatory language, minimizing the importance of your feelings about sex, telling anti-women jokes, or making demeaning remarks about women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Financial abuse <\/strong>can include controlling how money is spent, withholding money, or not allowing a woman to work or earn money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associating “abuse” with just physical or sexual acts ignores the experiences of women who face many other forms of abuse. It can also make it more difficult for women to recognize other dangerous behaviour in their partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Violence against women knows no boundaries and does not discriminate based on socioeconomic status, education, race, culture, and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A survey we conducted<\/a> in 2018 of women who had participated in Wenda\u2019s Place Second Stage program found that 80% of participants had post-secondary education. More than the majority of the women who stayed at Dixon Transition House last year were Canadian citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though violence against women affects women of every race, socioeconomic\nor educational status, and so on, it’s also important to recognize that, due to\nhistorical and current discrimination and prejudice, Indigenous women are\ndisproportionately impacted by violence. The rate of self-reported violent\nvictimization among Aboriginal women in 2009 was about 2.5 times higher<\/a> than the rate for\nnon-Aboriginal women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Dixon, we are striving to ensure that Indigenous women feel safe and\nsupported when accessing our services. Thanks to Civil Forfeiture grants, we\u2019ve\nhired a staff member to build a strong, culturally safe, Indigenous component\nto our programs. This year, we also hosted a collaborative learning event for\ntransitional housing programs to facilitate discussion about how to best\nsupport Indigenous women who access transitional housing services.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMyth #2: Violence against women only affects certain groups of women<\/h2>\n\n\n\n