One in four women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime.

This alarming percentage, recent high-profile and prolific perpetrators convicted or spared – Ryan Giggs, David Carrick, Mason Greenwood – are proof that abuse happens to anyone. Professionals, women with jobs and careers. Still few companies have a domestic abuse policy in place.

Health and safety, discrimination and accessibility are all critical policy areas that companies are required by law abide by. If up to 25% of the female population is at risk from this experience, surely that is a significant enough number of people to warrant equivalent policy and protection? Victims and survivors of abuse are ignored, stigmatised, and inadequately supported.

Economic abuse

HSBC’s recent advertising campaign alerted that 95% of domestic abuse victims experience economic abuse, an increasingly prevalent and now outlawed form of control. This ranges from interfering with or sabotaging the victim’s employment opportunities and career prospects, taking money or bank cards, ruining work clothes, purposefully making a person late, refusing to care for children to enable critical interview, meeting, social event attendance. Let alone causing injury that leads to sickness absence.

This can happen to anyone at any level or role within an organisation, from contracted staff, to managers, board members and CEOs.

Lost output

Even taking the commercial viewpoint of hindered output and productivity over the humanistic concern, research by KPMG for Vodafone points to £316 million of lost economic output from UK businesses each year because of absences related to domestic abuse.

The potential loss of earnings per female victim is £5,800 a year, and one in four survivors are left with debt of over £5,000. A brutal loss amidst an already crippling cost of living crisis.

Spotting the signs of domestic abuse can facilitate early help and the right intervention. This helps both the victim and saves employers’ time and costs associated with performance management or capability procedures. If a third of a person’s life is spent at work, inevitably personal matters will surface, and employers are in a unique position to provide support and understanding to domestic abuse victims.

Employers have a legal duty to take reasonable care of the health and safety of employees, stipulated in common law (the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974). Is that not enough to act? An employer that fosters a culture of openness, commits to protecting workers from all forms of abuse and seeks to support victims is also likely to be better placed to recruit and retain high-performing employees than an employer that doesn’t.

Spotting the symptoms

Victims may experience anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation or bear physical injury. They may be distracted, frequently interrupted, or seem unable to concentrate, display erratic patterns of behaviour or conversely be rigid with timekeeping. These factors could result in performance issues, absenteeism, presenteeism, reduced productivity and lost output. Too often these victims are penalised as the warning signs go unrecognised.

I continue to meet, and be in the most privileged position to work with and support survivors of domestic abuse who have sustained jobs and careers in the most challenging of circumstances.

Safe Spaces

Whatever our political leanings, this Government rightly initiated a consultation on workplace support for victims of domestic abuse in 2020 as lockdowns exacerbated the issue. The report was published and an open letter sent to employers in January 2021. This urged employers to “look at what more their organisation could do to help survivors of domestic abuse”.

Creating safe places of employment cannot be underestimated for the personal wellbeing and economic security of individuals. Ensuring leaders, managers, HR professionals understand their responsibilities and have appropriate policies publicly available. Supporting the most basic human expectation of being safe in your own environment.

Many employers have developed workplace policies and provided training for staff to understand and recognise the signs of domestic abuse. Increasing awareness and understanding of the dynamics of domestic abuse. Being able to spot the signs, believing and knowing how to respond to a disclosure from a staff member or colleague. Protecting and safeguarding that person from abusive partners and harassment in the workplace (surveys show 36-75% of cases involve this). Signposting to the appropriate specialist service. Providing the safe space even to make that call.

Too many still haven’t. Two women a week continue to die at the hands of a partner or ex-partner;. Surely that is motivation enough to play a part in reducing that risk?

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The English language is rich in heritage evolved from centuries of invasions and influence. That evolution has stilted. How much of our phraseology stems from a history of patriarchy, misogyny, that we don’t even recognise?

Everyday phrases we might want to reconsider…

Before you next announce the euphemistic need for a comfort break, think of the 200,000 comfort women (or girls, a significant percentage were minors). Women from Korea, China, the Philippines forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese army in occupied territories before and during WWII. These women were held captive for months, even years, in “comfort stations” (brothels). Established to reduce the instance of wartime rape, but served to increase both rape and the spread of venereal disease. The service men would casually announce that they were taking a “comfort break” as they took time out in a station to rape an enslaved woman.

The commonly referred to rule of thumb is said to be derived from an 18th century judge, who stated that a man could beat his wife providing the stick was no wider than his thumb. This association with domestic abuse and violence continued in modern USA, where even the Commission on Civil Rights published a report as recently as 1982 on domestic abuse entitled “Under the Rule of Thumb”.

When is a man “hysterical”?

We overuse the word for a joke or situation that may not be that funny. If we reconsider hysterical in reference to a person, its origins and usage are specifically female and undoubtedly pejorative.

We owe this one to the Ancient Greeks, “hystera” being the Greek word for womb. They believed that a woman’s uterus could wander throughout the rest of her body, causing a range of medical and psychological problems – shortness of breath, fainting, fragility, weakness, and general madness. Victorian (ahem, male) doctors took the baton and extended the belief that most health or psychological problems a woman experienced stemmed from the uterus, diagnosing hysteria. A catch-all term for anything men didn’t understand and couldn’t manage. Providing a valid excuse to institutionalise women.

The condition was discredited in 1980 but continues to be used to refer to someone in a state of heightened emotion or excitable behaviour, but rarely directed at a man!

Scolding is also an approach, or reproach, long reserved for the female. At best a person who nags or grumbles constantly (typically used of a woman). At worst “a woman who disturbs the public peace by noisy and quarrelsome or abusive behaviour”. Punishable into the 18th century by the “Scold’s bridle”– an iron muzzle that encased the head, often with a gag or bit designed to suppress, even spike, the tongue and silence the victim. To be worn in public.

To love and obey

From bridle to bride, the patriarchy in marriage runs wild. To this day, a woman is given away from father to husband, like a piece of property or meat. Once he has popped the question of course. Only in the 19th century, a woman had to be married to earn her own money or even inherit property. A right to social security was only granted, through marriage, in the 20th century (housewife’s allowance). Horrifyingly, it was into the 21^st century, only 20 years ago in 2003, that rape was finally made explicitly illegal in marriage, and another 3 years in 2006 until the Church of England removed “obey” (well, offered an alternative) from the bride’s Anglican wedding vows. Even then only after a report was published accusing the Church of failing to develop itself in many “points” which could be used to prevent domestic abuse.

But back to the point, and the endless pejorative language that floats around the institution: always the bridesmaid, never the bride (vs the Best Man), the spinster (vs the Batchelor), ball and chain, trophy wife, trouble and strife, her indoors…the list goes on.

The Punchline

Onto being as pleased as Punch. There is nothing subtle about that wife-beating sadist, and a stick way bigger than his thumb. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, a murky idiom stemming from the order in which a household could enjoy their monthly bath: the father, then the sons, then the mother and the rest. Creating the risk that the baby might get thrown out with the filthy bathwater. The patriarchal pecking order at its finest.

Maybe we didn’t know the origins of some of these phrases and use them in innocent ignorance of their derogatory meaning. But we should think about the language we use and how it perpetuates centuries of misogyny. We certainly can’t claim innocent ignorance of the myriad of pejorative commonplace words that don’t have a male equivalent – bitch, bossy, career woman, frigid, homewrecker, MILF, spinster, slut. Need we continue.

The post Why Delilah? Patriarchy and misogyny in our everyday language appeared first on Sue Hunt.

No early adopter here, these recent testimonies made me finally sit down, brace myself, and watch two significant documentaries of the year, Ian Wright: Home Truths, and Freddie Flintoff: Living with Bulimia. Jolting, provoking, and heart wrenching, two stories honestly told.

I don’t entirely subscribe to mental health conditions being gender based, although some are inevitably gender biased. All humans are susceptible. But I do subscribe to the fact that sociological conditioning makes men less likely to disclose and seek help.  The production of these documentaries highlighted these powerhouses of sporting prowess and achievement can bring authenticity to extremely traumatic and horrendously common experiences and raise critical awareness for the primetime public eye.

The domestic violence that Wright grew up with, witnessing it against his mother, and the physical and psychological control and bullying that he too experienced at the hands of his stepdad was a devastating story to witness. The impact on his older brother as he tried to shield him, in vain. How did it influence his persona on the pitch, a self-confessed unmanageable anger, did it make him one of the best strikers of his generation? Was he fuelled or fenced by this childhood experience? Wright survived, and somehow thrived, but many children don’t.

Flintoff, the best all-rounder in modern cricketing memory, became consumed with bulimia nervosa after a programme of coverage from the tabloid press labelling him fat and unfit, even irresponsible, in his early twenties. Yet as he still smashed sixes and crushed wickets in response, the scars and cycle remain with him now in his forties. Interestingly he began to open up a decade earlier, in his thirties, about depression, but still couldn’t disclose his battle with bulimia. And even now, can seemingly still not bring himself to seek help as he perceives it to be under control, despite a daily battle with food and subsequent excess of exercise. Credit to his own will, he’s found a strategy and balance because he’s had a “lucky” career, rationalises the mental health challenges as a fair cross to bear.

They have each continued to have astounding careers, MBE awarded sportsmen, pundits, presenters, writers, dads, entertainers on dancefloors and in jungles. Powerful, and relatable emblems of what can be overcome and achieved.

We are so proud and fond of our sporting heroes, and so perhaps we can accept them being fallible.

That fallibility needs to continue to be discussed, shared, promoted, and one day, maybe not be seen as fallibility but just human nature, and human nature than can be supported and helped. Ian and Andrew will never be lesser sportsmen, they will only be greater humans.

And still there to watch:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000n1xx/freddie-flintoff-living-with-bulimia

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000vt7g/ian-wright-home-truths

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The headline is an average 9 incidents a day were reported to Bedfordshire police through the pandemic, starting from 1 incident in January 2020, to 289 in March 2021. These incidents are defined as where the person has made a serious attempt to take their own life, only being prevented by a limited number of reasons such as contact from the police or other emergency services.

I cannot compute why this has become a police problem, yes there will be related crimes of violence and public disorder offences, but the police needing to invest already spartan funds in mental health management and preventing suicide feels like a classic case of investment in symptom over cause.

Undoubtedly this only represents the thin end of the wedge too, NHS England reports just under 1.4m people in contact with NHS mental health services (Nov 2020), alarmingly 22% of these are children, but at only 2.5% of the population, no doubt many more cases and conditions are undiagnosed, unreported with treatment only limited to medication, or go unsupported full stop.

I look at my own social and professional circle and the number of people who have lived with anxiety or depression, are on prescribed mental health medication, receiving a form of psychological support, or who still don’t even feel able to seek help for symptoms would be more than 2.5%, and wouldn’t feed into this 1.4m. They outweigh the number of people I know who have had covid by a country mile, and the billions spent there long since dropped off the calculator.

Mental health still falls chronically short of the understanding and investment put into physical health.

Just 14% of total local NHS budget was spent on mental health support in 2019/20, and this allocated budget includes learning difficulties and dementia, so feels both a draconian definition of what constitutes a mental health condition and cannot begin to meet the growing need for services. The Government has a 5-year plan, and a commitment that funding for mental health services will grow faster than overall NHS budgets by 2023/24. Whatever that means and whether we can wait that long.

How else can we approach this growing problem? We know the condition does not discriminate, Caroline Flack, Alexander McQueen, Kate Spade, all shocking and desperately sad losses. Frankie Bridge, Alistair Campbell and our Royal Princes, all critical high-profile ambassadors.

Not to deflect from obligations of the welfare state, a recent report from Mental Health First Aid England states 1 in 4 people have had no welfare check in from their employer since the start of the pandemic, and a third never spoken to their line manager about their health. Many organisations have provisioned for self-care, but what about collective care and corporate responsibility? Stress and isolation too easily lead to anxiety and depression, and even the most archaic employer can recognise the dip in performance and morale that presents.

Train, coach, mentor, or simply talk, our mental health and wellbeing have to become more central to how we support our people and each other.

Original article and sources:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000vsx6/newsnight-04052021

https://www.bedfordshirelive.co.uk/news/bedfordshire-news/bedfordshire-police-appear-bbc-newsnight-5375035

https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/taskforce/imp/mh-dashboard/

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