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KANSAN.COM
4
Relationship Violence at KU
Crime Reported Incidents
Domestic violence ON CAMPUS 22
Violence between NON-CAMPUS cohabiting romantic partners
RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES
Dating violence
Violence between romantic partners, not necessarily cohabiting.
ON CAMPUS
NON-CAMPUS
RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES
Stalking ON CAMPUS 12
Repeated following and harassing of another person NON-CAMPUS 0 RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES 5
Instances of domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking occur every year and are not always reported. These figures only account for those incidents which were reported.
▶ LARA KORTE
@lara_korte
National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 www.thehotline.org
University confidential CARE Coordinator
785-864-9255
care@ku.edu
Source: 2014 Clery report
The audience of about 60 people Thursday night in the Kansas Ballroom watched a one minute clip of a young woman with bruises around her eyes, finger marks on her neck and blood dripping from her nose.
After the video ended, Beverly Gooden, creator of the viral hashtag "WhyIstayed," asked the audience to put themselves in her place.
"I imagine what it's like to be that girl," Gooden said to the audience. "Imagine falling in love, being happy, moving in together, and then one day something goes terribly wrong, maybe it's a push just a little bit too hard, or maybe she'll tell you, 'You're so stupid,' or maybe it's so subtle that you don't even realize what's going on."
Gooden told the audience that in the time it took to watch the short video, 24 people in the United States had experienced domestic violence.
Gooden, a national anti-domestic violence speaker and advocate is the creator of the viral hashtag, #WhyIStayed. Thursday night, Gooden told her own story of survival and the complexities behind domestic violence.
"And I was one of them," she said.
It all began in 2014, when video footage of NFL player Ray Rice beating his then-fiancee, Janay Palmer, gained national attention.
"My first thought wasn't run, I didn't think, 'Get out of here,'" Gooden said. "Because for six months, he had been this perfect guy, he had been kind and sweet and loving and he was a
Gooden said she was upset with the online commentary surrounding the abuse. Instead of criticizing Rice for his abusive actions, Gooden said she saw people criticizing Palmer for staying with Rice, and so she decided to take a stand.
musician, so he played me songs, you know he was a minister in our church, we both served the community, and I loved him."
Using the hashtag #WhyIStayed, she began tweeting about her own personal struggle to get out of her abusive marriage, and explained that it's not always a simple choice.
Within hours, the hashtag was trending in the U.S., and people from all over the country were sharing their own experiences.
"People - men, women, children - of domestic violence, friends of victims were tweeting their reasons and the reasons that they knew about for staying in this relationship," Gooden said.
The hashtag went on to include tweets from over 200,000 people.
My first thought wasn't run, I didn't think, 'Get out of here.'"
Beverly Gooden Anti-domestic violence speaker and advocate
"It was an incredible moment, not really because it's something that I started, but because usually when we hear about domestic violence, it's from a position of statistics," Gooden said. "You don't really hear or see a lot of people that actually lived it and these types of numbers telling their story."
Although each story is different, there are a few main reasons people tend to stay in an abusive relationship, Gooden said.
While reading through the tweets, Gooden said the four reasons she found most common for staying were dependence, fear or threats, love and the family — all factors that make leaving an abuser difficult.
Gooden said her abusive relationship began during her time in college. According to an annual Clery report, in 2014, the University received 23 reports of domestic violence, and 20 reports of dating violence.
Looking back, Gooden said the one thing she wishes she had done in college was tell someone about her partner's abusive behavior.
know where I am all the time because he loves me so much," she said. "But I think if we tell someone else that, 'My boyfriend or my girlfriend is tracking me all the time, do you think that's normal? What do you think about that?' then we have two minds thinking about one issue and it can really help us out that way."
"Because when we're by ourselves we tend to justify, we say, 'Oh that's just something else, he just wants to
For those who might be unsure of where they stand in a relationship, sharing their concerns with a friend is a simple way to assess the situation, Gooden said.
"I think that's one thing we can do that's free, easy and it doesn't take much, we don't have to go to a counseling center or go to a crisis center or call and talk to a stranger, we can just send someone a text, like, 'Hey I noticed this behavior, what do you think about that?' Gooden said.
Abby Schletzbau, a junior from Lawrence, is development director at the Center for Community Outreach and the main organizer of the event Thursday night.
Schletzbmaun said Gooden's presentation is the kickoff to the CCO's "Into the Streets" week, designed to inspire students to advocacy and service work.
"We really wanted to kick off "Into the Streets Week" with a dynamic speaker who could talk with us from a perspective where a student could take action and lead our into the street week event with a relevant social issue we could all act on," she said. "Beverly Gooden is a great example because she came to her success through use of social media, the hashtag 'Why I Stayed' was created by an ordinary person sitting at their office desk, which could be any one of us in the future."
Toward the end of her presentation, Gooden gave the audience three pieces of advice for preventing domestic violence.
The first tip was to observe.
"Observe your surroundings, observe the language of your peers. Is it violent? Is violence a joke, is rape a joke?" she said. "It's important for us to observe what's going
on around us and inside of us, because there could be something there that we need to address."
The second piece of advice that Gooden gave the audience was to feel, or strive to understand, the pain and struggles that survivors go through in an abusive relationship.
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"It's important for us to have empathy for each other, to really identify the humanity and in other words, reach out to that humanity," Gooden said. "You can even say, I don't know what it's like to be abused, I don't know what it's like to be in an abusive relationship, but I do know what it's like to feel pain, and to be hurt and to feel betrayed, let's talk about that."
“It’s going to take those of us who are in the know, who know the signs, who know the terms, who know what it looks like, to speak up about it,” she said. “And make it an issue that’s not secret.”
And finally, Gooden told the audience that no matter where they are or how they interact with others, there's one thing they can always do — speak out.
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