Cosby: Domestic violence revealed

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By Kelly Cosby

Monday, November 2, 2009

This week is Domestic Violence Awareness Week at the University of Kansas. The student group Delta Force will be spearheading a campaign to educate students and community members about domestic violence, and several other student organizations and community groups are co-sponsoring the event.

A week of education about domestic violence is important because it’s extremely pertinent to the daily lives of many people at the University and in Lawrence.

“A lot of people don’t understand how prevalent it is,” Liz Stuewe, Lawrence senior and member of Delta Force, said.

A survey done in 2000 by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention found that one in four women is a victim of domestic violence. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Web site said most cases of domestic violence were not reported to the police.

Until I started learning about the advocacy groups on campus and what they planned to do during Domestic Violence Awareness Week, I did not know much about domestic violence. I don’t think many students think about it until they or someone they know experiences it firsthand.

It seems this problem is only made worse by common misconceptions about domestic violence.

“The overarching stereotype is so often between a husband and a wife,” Stuewe said.

Stuewe explained that domestic violence happened in non-marital relationships, LGBT relationships, between family members and even between roommates.

Another seemingly widespread fallacy is that domestic violence constitutes mainly physical abuse.

“I believe that domestic violence is any abuse, albeit verbal or physical, that takes place in the confines of a situation where one person feels like the other one has more power in a relationship,” Tanner Willbanks, Hayes senior, said.

Willbanks is the domestic violence outreach coordinator for the Commission on the Status of Women, one of the groups spreading awareness during Domestic Violence Week.

Domestic abuse often occurs in relationships where one partner tends to be more dominant than the other, Willbanks said.

“Another big misconception when it comes to domestic violence in particular is that, well, if it’s that bad, she can just leave or he can just leave,” Willbanks said. “That’s not really the case. These people have been pretty much terrorized to the point that they don’t see a way out, and part of the abuse is usually their partner convincing them that there is no way out.”

It is my hope that students will take time to educate themselves about domestic violence so if they find themselves in violent situations, they can recognize it and remove themselves immediately.

Other groups involved in Domestic Violence Awareness Week include KU Young Democrats, Queers and Allies, Amnesty International, KU College Republicans, Alpha Chi Omega, The Emily Taylor Women’s Resource Center, Women’s Transitional Care Services and the GaDuGi Safe Center.

For information on the week’s schedule, students should stop by the informational tables that will be on the lawn in front of Stauffer-Flint Hall this week.

Cosby is an Overland Park sophomore in journalism and political science.

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