So first off, what is IPV? It's violence used as a means to control the other partner in the relationship. It includes various forms of abuse - physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and psychological abuse - between two people who maybe just started dating to those who have been married for 20+ years. It also includes the exes that aren't really exes, the friend with benefits, and the “it’s complicated” type of relationships. Regardless of relationship status, IPV is more common than you’d think.
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, more than 1 in 3 women and more than 1 in 4 men in the United States have experienced IPV through physical violence and/or stalking. Prior to these experiences, many experienced some form of IPV between ages 11 and 17. Love is Respect, a teen domestic violence hotline, reported that females between the ages of 16 and 24 experience the highest rate of IPV - 94 percent of those ages 16 to 19 and 70 percent of those ages 20 to 24. Teens are especially susceptible because of their inexperience and lack of exposure to healthy and unhealthy relationships.
Think about it. The adult, intimate relationship you were around most during your youth probably taught you how to interact with your partner. Their form of communication, romance, and expectations from one another probably rubbed off on you, and you took these into your relationship without even realizing it. They showed you how an intimate relationship should be - healthy or not - and it’s only natural for it to have had the greatest influence on you moving forward.
Personally, I could tell you that it wasn’t until my mother remarried that I realized what I thought was “normal” wasn’t so normal after all. This is the area of my presentation that I struggled with the most: What does a normal, healthy intimate relationship even look like?
It’s different for everyone. Our exposures shaped what a healthy relationship is for us. For instance, my ex-partner watched his father joke with his mother to the point where it got offensive and hurtful. He brought that behavior into our relationship, and it definitely took a toll on us. Don’t get me wrong, there are certain, obvious lines that we shouldn’t cross (e.g. striking or belittling a partner), but I don’t think IPV, in general, is that black and white. What I think is healthy may not be anything like what you think is healthy.
For instance, Kim Kardashian told W Magazine that her husband, Kanye West, often gives her fashion advice:
I always thought I had really good style until I met my husband and he told me that I had the worst style. He was really nice about it and cleaned out my whole closet.Fifteen-year-old (and still hopeful) Nicolette might’ve thought that’s incredibly generous and sweet of Mr. West, but today, that’s a red flag - an obvious sign of exerting power and control over a partner. However, I understand that others may see it differently or that even if they view it similarly, they may not perceive it as a form of IPV.
Let me pause and ask, did anyone talk to you about your upbringing and how that influenced your intimate relationships, or did you have to figure that out on your own? I bet it was the latter. Same for me, which is why I appreciate Planned Parenthood for creating the space for us to discuss such a sensitive issue that pervades our lives. We don’t talk about IPV enough, let alone teen IPV. As isolated as victims already are, we leave it to them to figure it out on their own. I’m hoping that this presentation, as well as this post, will encourage adults to have these conversations with our youth, even if our versions of a "healthy relationship" differ. Let's use this opportunity to keep our teens aware, safe, and supported as we continue to strive for a culture where IPV is not tolerated.
Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. I believe you are right about young adults being especially susceptible to IPV due to their inexperience and potential lack of positive relationship role models. I remember when I was first dating my parents never had a conversation with me about the different forms unhealthy relationships can take. Like you mentioned, a lot of people see IPV as just physical violence against a partner, but in reality IPV can occur in many ways. For example, I didn't really think anything of it when my high school boyfriend told me not to wear make-up - and would even wipe it off my face with a Kleenex if I came to school wearing some - or go to parties because it made him insecure. Sure, I found it annoying, but it was my first relationship so I really didn't see anything wrong with it until I went to college and was exposed to what a healthy, non-controlling relationship actually was. I completely agree with you that teens and young adults need to have conversations about what IPV really means. If they don't learn about it through meaningful discussion, a majority will have to learn it from experience - and that shouldn't be what anyone wants.
Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this important post as well as the work you're doing by presenting to these kids. Teen dating is so weird due to all the things that make being a teenager weird. Like you, I didn't indulge too much in dating in high school. I had one boyfriend that lasted one school year, and that was it. However, even though it was just the one boyfriend, he still shaped my views about what a relationship looks like. I think I was pretty lucky with him, though it is important to note that we were friends for a long time first, but there were definitely things about our relationship that I didn't see anything wrong with until my next, healthier one, such as communication and trust. Since I worked with teens for so long, I also saw this pattern in their relationships. Some would end up with a good friend, and so both of them had to be on at least kind of good behavior, so that they weren't called out by other friends. Others, whether dating someone who used to be just a friend or not, were kind of controlling towards each other, which sets them both up for problems later in life. It is great that Planned Parenthood and you are modeling what healthy relationships should looks like.
Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this insightful post and being an integral part of starting the conversation around IPV. It is extremely uplifting to hear that safe spaces such as the one provided by Planned Parenthood exist for discussing intimate partner violence. As someone who grew up in a culture that expressed strong discomfort and frowned upon ever discussing relationships and sex, I personally wish I had known about these spaces as they would have been immensely helpful in my journey of navigating difficult relationship experiences.
As you aptly note, people’s perceptions of what constitutes a “healthy relationship” varies depending on their individual experiences and exposures. For example, what I associate with “healthy relationships” mostly comes from relationships I have observed or experienced in real life or seen in the media or in films. These relationships involve people in different age groups and are set against different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, which impacted the type of characteristics that I perceived as healthy” vs. “unhealthy.” Personally, I grew up seeing relationships, including my own, in the context of South Asian culture which emphasized submissiveness and subordination of women in relationships and considered what most people would deem as “verbal abuse” as part of any normal relationship. Experiencing other relationships outside the South Asian culture context and discussions with others has opened my eyes to the problematic issues these relationship characteristics present.
Given the differences in individual experience and perception, I believe IPV is just one of many feminist issues conducive to being examined through an intersectional lens. Accounting for nuances beyond the framework of gender, such as race, culture, and education level will encourage more fruitful discussions and develop more concrete solutions for recognizing and combatting situations involving IPV.
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ReplyDeleteNicolette,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your labor in writing this blog post and presenting to youth on IPV. This has been so enlightening. I must admit that as I have gotten older, I have realized how much from my previous relationships and interactions was abusive behavior. I used to think that when my boyfriend was jealous that another boy was talking to me at school or messaging me on Facebook that it was cute and that that was his way of showing me he cared for and valued me. Now I realize how uncomfortable that made me and how that behavior now affects me in my current long-term relationship. I also remember how much I second-guessed my decision to not tell that same boyfriend the explicit details of my childhood molestation when he grew angry after reading the police report (without my consent) I filed. I even felt guilty for not telling my mom of my childhood trauma after my boyfriend told me I had to tell my mom. None of this felt abusive and I found myself justifying his actions as caring and thoughtful actions that were expressed aggressively due to his lack of communication skills.
And you are correct, Nicolette, that our first-hand views of what relationships look like are what we see our guardians engage in. I remember telling my mom that she deserved more than what her life-partner was offering her because he constantly cheated on her and lied about his whereabouts. What she responded in Spanish was, "Everyone is dealing with something. Some men beat you, some are alcoholics. Being with a man that cheats on you is better than being with a man who beats you."
In her defense, she was the oldest of 10 children in Mexico who witnessed her alcoholic father beat her mother. Her father also beat her and her siblings. This is what my mom knew to be a relationship. Her mother never left her father and did not defend her children when her father beat her and her siblings. Because of this, my mom found it easy to overlook the cheating because at least her partner was not beating us.
Thank you so much for this post. I found your post very thought-provoking because of the format it is in and because of the questions you posed. I am also grateful to the comments and the personal stories shared. The more examples we have, the more we can make connections and learn with and from one another about the red flags that come up in our daily interactions with others.
Thank you!