2. Exploring Violence and Trauma

Violence

In my interviews I heard about an enormous range of violence. I was told about childhood violence in the home and in school, about adult violence in relationships and in the classroom, and about the ways in which current and past violence impinged on the safety of learners and workers and on women's learning as adults. Workers frequently talked of how isolated they felt with the stories of violence, of their knowledge of the absence of safety for students, and of their fears that they, too, were not safe. I was disturbed by the prevalence of the stories and by the statistics about women and girls' experience of violence, which suggest that the experience of violence, rather than freedom from it, is “normal.”

For some women violence already present in their lives “follows” them to school. Instructors, learners and counselors spoke of situations where women's decision to return to school had caused an escalation in the violence from the men in their lives. One worker said that when women get “uppity”, male violence increases. Women may have decided to return to school in preparation to escape violence, but the immediate result is often that the violence gets worse. As the woman empowers herself, the man feels minimized and seeks to dominate by escalating his violence. This experience may lead women to drop out of the program. I heard of women who were being stalked - trying to learn while their husband was outside the school waiting for them - and of women who were struggling to continue to attend school and to learn, in the face of deepening violence. Many literacy workers spoke of knowing that women's erratic attendance was often due to violence. Absences may be caused by men refusing women “permission” to attend regularly (or to do homework) or by men's physical attacks which can leave women ashamed to attend school with bruises that would reveal their situation, or with the injuries and ill-health that make attendance impossible. One worker said:

Another student just isn't coming because she's been beaten up so badly she can't walk!! I have seven women in this class - I know four are dealing with this stuff.

In programs where regular attendance is required to maintain a place or where students are funded, students who are experiencing violence can be dropped off support or out of the program, labeled as not “serious” or not ready to learn.

Women working with immigrant women, especially refugees, spoke about women who have left war-torn countries and who have experienced the violence and horror of attacks on themselves and their families. Some have endured arrest, imprisonment and torture. One counselor spoke of such women dealing with flashbacks, nightmares, disrupted sleep and depression as a result of their experiences and at the same time coping with problems of settling in a new country. They are too exhausted to learn. Immigrant women also have added deterrents against leaving violent partners. They may fear being alone in a foreign land, the disapproval of their community or experience difficulty with language. Language barriers, unfamiliarity with the system, fear of the police all make it harder or impossible for some immigrant women to access shelters or the “protection” offered by the legal system. If women have been sponsored by their spouse, they may fear being sent back to their country of origin, and may not be eligible for assistance in Canada. English programs for new immigrants do not routinely explain practical resources, such as shelters, when they are introducing other aspects of life in Canada.

Deaf students are also particularly vulnerable to abuse and to control by family members and spouses. Deaf women lacking literacy skills have less access to television, radio or books to learn information about resources or to learn information that might help them to value themselves. Workers suggested that the most common issue for Deaf women was control: control of their children, their cheques, their own movements. Workers in the Deaf community talked about their frustration of not knowing how to support women who were controlled and dependent with little say over their own lives. In particular, women who have not had the opportunity to learn American Sign Language can remain dependent on family members or spouses to interpret for them, making it harder for them to resist the ways they are controlled.

Intellectual disabilities can also increase women's vulnerability. Intellectually disabled women are more likely to be targeted on the street, and be dependent on care givers in the home or in group homes. Caregivers may be abusive. Even the assumption that a person cannot do something, may limit their potential to learn and decrease their self-esteem. The dependence women have on their caregivers may make it difficult for them to complain about any level of abuse, put-down, or exclusion and the consistency of such treatment may mean it is all they know, and so appears “normal”. Adult learners who were labeled intellectually disabled as children and sterilized without their consent, or placed in institutions where they were mistreated in many ways, are not uncommon in literacy programs.

Workers who worked with women who were homeless spoke of the ways in which men pull women in and out of homelessness. The line between being homeless or not may be as simple as whether they are in a relationship with a man who has accommodation. In Ontario, if women on social assistance have a male partner, or share accommodation with a man, the social assistance cheque usually goes to the male — unless the woman can prove he is not paying the rent — giving him complete control of their joint income ⁵. The dependence this entails makes women more vulnerable to abuse. Workers talked about the tension between men as defenders of “their” women from other men on the streets AND also as their abusers.

5 Although women who receive disability allowances, or who can show that there are chronic problems in paying the rent, may be able to receive their own cheques, recent legislative changes will make it harder for women to avoid the judgment that they are living in a “spousal” situation with a man, who is always judged to be the “head of household.”