We need to persuade battered women to come out of their silence and reach for help, says Saloni Duggal

The International Centre for Research on Women estimate that 60 per cent of women face violence at some point in their marriage... During my short stint as a voluntary counsellor in a small organisation, we encouraged women to reach out and pour their woes to an impartial, discreet set of workers. Our main concern was helping them deal with the fury of a life led in abuse. I am talking about smart, beautiful, educated and often, affluent women.

What is abuse?
A woman is often easy prey to abuse within her relationships. Usually physically and financially weaker, she takes on the role of the less aggressive partner. Wrapping her identity around her marriage, she holds on to this fragile sense of security for life. When kids step in, the woman makes more space for them and less, even emotionally, for herself. In her new role as a tigress protecting her cubs, she is more willing to maintain the harmony in her home, come what may. Her willingness to love endlessly is her vulnerability.

The abuser wears many faces. Obvious forms of physical violence, like hitting or rough handling or using physical gestures of threatening a woman is just one power play men resort to. But the subtler forms of abuse need also to be addressed, and are just as dangerous. Being frightened or isolated in your relationship, made to feel confused about your choices, disrespected, belittled, made to live in guilt or have your confidence destroyed, being screamed at in front of friends and family, all or any of these, if constantly at play in your relationship, are going to leave deep emotional gashes.

Behavioural patterns
Does your man behave as if he ‘owns’ you and bends you out of shape to please him, ‘allowing’ you or ‘disallowing’ you to make free choices? No woman should have to shape herself into a doormat to be walked over and crushed. Do you feel compelled to make reproductive choices that you don’t like, whether it is to have babies repeatedly, constant abortions or even not being allowed to have children? Is your spouse withholding his affections or his money from you?

Do you let fear force you to live in ways you wouldn’t choose to? Do you, and this is important, feel you deserve such behaviour and cover up the acts of the abuser? Are you made to feel like you are the reason for all the ills in your man’s life? These are toughies to answer truthfully, but if you feel you are in that zone, SEEK HELP.

First to identify the problem — is it your own negative behaviour patterns that trigger problems with your spouse, or do you have a genuine case of marital abuse? Then to deal with your spouse: How do you get the horse to the pond and get him to make changes; and most important, how to take responsibility to make changes within yourself — creating a sense of resilience and independence and preserving your self-esteem?

Seeking light
Despite all advances in the other areas of our lives, whether it is a new club membership or a Swarovski crystal bric-a-brac we’ve acquired, on an emotional level we are moving in reverse gear.

We have lived our lives as victims and/or martyrs, comfortable within our cocoon of silence. When a problem raises its sinister head, we quell it by advising one another to grin and bear it. But the debris of dreams buried, and the ashes of burnt hope, pile up in our lives. Thoughts are mutilated and shaped into looming demons of shame and guilt. Bodies are battered and minds tormented.

The role of a servile, yielding woman is passed on from generation to generation, and applauded. Self-esteem plummets while we still think it should increase proportionately with our child’s medals or our husband’s income.

In an era where we celebrate ‘Woman’s Day’ with gusto, we must spread our wings and fly the expanse of our lives with grace. To have the ability to dream and to realise those dreams is the need of the day. And, to love and to feel loved is the light at the end of the tunnel.

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