Violence has its own vocabulary. There are the phrases of those who use it, the ones that humiliate women and make them feel there's something wrong with them. And there are the phrases of the people around them, which often, without meaning to, shift the blame onto the wrong person.
The phrases abusers use
- “Without me you're worthless.”
- “You're making it all up, it never happened.”
- “You're too sensitive, you blow everything out of proportion.”
- “Your friends are a bad influence, you're not to see them any more.”
- “I'm the only one who understands you.”
Repeated every day, these phrases slowly destroy a woman's self-confidence. Many women end up believing they're weak, unstable, “crazy”. The truth is different: you are not the problem.
When the blame goes to the wrong address
It's called victim blaming: the responsibility for what happened is shifted from the person who did harm to the person who was harmed.
- “She was asking for it, look how she was dressed.”
- “Why did she go there? She knew how it would end.”
- “If she hadn't provoked him, he wouldn't have done anything to her.”
It's a form of secondary violence and it does enormous damage: it makes asking for help harder, because women fear they won't be believed, and it strengthens the attacker's power.
Newspapers choose their words too
Writing “domestic dispute” instead of “domestic violence”, or “a fit of jealous rage” to describe a murder, makes what happened seem smaller. And when a news story focuses on what the victim did instead of what the attacker did, it feeds the same mechanism.
Language is not neutral. It either supports violence, or stands against it.
Choose your words with care, and share this article with people who use them every day.