BRITNEY MALONEY
Staff Writer
Students left Monday afternoon’s Convocation with purple ribbons pinned to their shirts and stress balls in their paint-marked hands.
The Intercultural Affairs Office sponsored a Convocation called “Domestic violence and the Church’s Response” in recognition of October being Domestic Violence Awareness month, after which students put their handprints on a poster along with their name, pledging not to use their hands for violence. They were also given the purple ribbons and Counseling Center stress balls to show support against domestic violence.
Heidi Gunderson, a therapist in the Pepperdine Counseling Center specializing in marriage and family therapy, spoke at the session.
She revealed statistics to the filled Fireside Room, such as that violence occurs in nearly 30 percent of American households. According to “Broken Vows,” a video Gunderson showed a section of, the prevalence of domestic violence could be much greater.
“Those are only the reported ones. That number is very low because we know that many more go unreported,” Gunderson said.
She added that women are the victims of domestic violence 95 percent of the time and that 31 percent of women killed in the United States are killed by their husbands, ex-husbands or boyfriends.
“The issue with men is control,” said Victor Lewis, a specialist at the Oakland Men’s project in the video. “Men think if they don’t get their way, then they aren’t men. We live in a society that accepts that women are property of men and when women resist, men’s property rights are challenged.”
Marie Fortune, a United Church of Christ minister, continued by discussing why women don’t leave an abusive relationship. Oftentimes women blame themselves and feel guilty for breaking their covenant marriages. Fortune said she does not share this mentality.
“Violence breaks the covenant of marriage,” Fortune said, not the woman who leaves the abuser.
More applicable to Pepperdine is that women ages 19 to 29 reported more violence than any group out of the 4 million women total who annually report a serious assault by an intimate partner. In fact, violence against women occurs in 20 percent of dating relationships, and an average of 28 percent of high school and college students experience dating violence at some point.
Gunderson concluded by providing a list of actions a friend should take if they know someone victimized by domestic violence. Some tips include accepting the abused claims as reality instead of questioning their validity, thereby giving a haven of support to victims who may not feel at home. It is also important to help the abused make the decision to leave their abuser on their own, in such a way as to help empowering them to be independent, Gunderson said.
The national domestic violence hotline, at 1(800)799-SAFE (7233), is a resource for anyone needing assistance with domestic violence issues.
Monday’s domestic violence Convocation will be followed by a month of activities led by the Intercultural Affairs Office and the Counseling Center. Next week, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. outside of the cafeteria sororities and fraternities as well as the Counseling Center and the Intercultural Affairs Office will encourage the Pepperdine community to pledge to commit no violence. They will continue the awareness that Monday’s Convocation started by putting hand prints on a banner saying, “Pepperdine pledges to commit no violence.”
10-06-2005