They say, “Don’t get him into trouble.” They say, “He’ll lose his job.”
They say, “He just lost his temper.” They say, “That’s just the way men are.”
They say, “He made a mistake.” They say, “He can change.”
They say, “Let’s not talk about it.” They say, “It will never happen again.”
Because there is a communal agreement that women can be as harmed by the men they love as by complete strangers. Her body, treated as object and a moving target, is seemingly punished for being a woman.
There is a cultural acceptance of domestic violence against women and the expectation that they suffer in silence. However, Hafsat Abiola taught us, “Any society that is silencing its women has no future.”
Still, there is a generational arrangement that we do not intervene and that we look the other way. This arrangement is reinforced with reminders that “it’s none of our business.”
There is also social conditioning that we excuse it, reduce it, and don’t make a fuss about or draw attention to it. She is expected to cover it up with long sleeves, a painted-on smile and makeup. In addition, she must make up stories about falling and feign clumsiness, taking responsibility for his lack of self-control.
Likewise, a behavioral expectation persists that she be accommodating and nice to men. “Don’t look so mean; just smile at him.”
We expect her to watch her mouth and just do what he says while also walking on eggshells. Because if he’s not happy, no one else has the right to be.
So, she walks a fine line and knows “her place.” Unironically, “her place” has been drastically reduced to the square footage of their home, mainly the bedroom and the kitchen.
While cooking and cleaning, mending and tending to everyone’s needs but her own, she must remain an example of morality and ethical decision-making— even though he is breaking his vows, the law, her bones.
She must stand by her man— even when he is unfaithful. Because he just needs to feel like the man.
There remains the deadly expectation that she lay her body down as a sacrifice on the altar of patriarchy, that her body should absorb his violence and that she should be able to take it. But Zora Neale Hurston warned, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
Some thought we would keep silent—until the whispers turned into a shout, until there were more women (and some men) than we wanted to count. Hands raised in every family, in every place of worship, in every community, every city, state and country.
It has taken years and way too many women before her—before we believed her. She is only saying what we have known, seen and hushed all along, a global and familial vow of silencing abused women.
Maya Angelou is sure that “each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” So, here goes:
My father is dishing out violence in the kitchen. As the eldest child, I take my rightful position between them and turn to face him.
My father lifts me up by my nightgown until we are eye to eye. I do not lower my gaze, so he says to my mother, “You better get her.” I am too young for a taste. It’s 1990.
He was my first love, my first real boyfriend. He is beautiful: tall, dark, and handsome.
He is ugly: addicted, angry, and conflicted. He hit me once and I dumped him immediately. It’s 1999.
He was my husband and it was a full-circle moment. My feet left the ground.
He did what my father wouldn’t. He choked me.
It seems I was old enough now. It’s 2013.
For years, I had been taught about an unnamed Proverb 31 woman. But there had been no mention of these unnamed Proverb 11 men, “who trouble their households” and, as a result, “inherit the wind” (11:29a, NRSV).
Unfortunately, while the biblical narrative documents men’s violence against women, neither a warning against physical violence nor the word abuse appears in sacred writ. Solomon warns, “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious wife” (25:24, NRSV). Yet, he makes no mention of a domestic abuse hotline or a shelter for battered women.
In fact, in most stories in the Bible, she doesn’t say anything. Instead, we see her as a silent character, seemingly named, and her purpose explained in proximity to a man as his wife, his daughter, his concubine, or his slave.
If he does say her name, it is just long enough for most readers to see her as a trickster, lustful, evil and disobedient. She is typecast as the man’s downfall and his enemy, except, of course, for the Proverb 31 woman.
A popular litany, but who can find a virtuous man who keeps his hands to himself? Who does not use his upper hand against her? Who does not blame her for his lack of discipline?
Who can find a virtuous man who will stop pointing the finger and begin to look at himself and ask, “What am I doing?” What have I done to protect all those virtuous women?”
Where are those who will point the finger at these Proverb 11 men and ensure that they “inherit the wind”?
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.