Overcoming Barriers to Trauma: Rural Women Facing Domestic Violence
Riley A. Thomas
Considerations surrounding rural and sparsely populated America and its criminogenic nature are overlooked. Therefore, much needed attention on rural centric crime considers factors not applicable to the urban. This fact may be related to issues that make society as a whole precieve rural criminology less important than metropolitan areas (Ceccato, 2018), where a majority of the American population lives. Therefore, a much greater emphasis and attention is needed for victims of traumatic crimes in rural areas due to the spatial differences than percieved mainstream criminology.
Aspects such as limited access to services, isolation, poverty, and rural cultural values make rural women more vulnerable to domestic violence than women living in urban areas (Ceccato, 2015). This post will mainly focus on rural women who suffer from intimate partner violence (IPV), and the geographic challenges of recieving treatment or support outside of the immediate area.
Examining intimate partner violence in this case is significant because it can be evaluated as one of the most underreported figures of crime. For example, Ceccato (2018) identifies that physical isolation may also lead to a disproportionately high declared fear of crime
because of individuals’ relative vulnerability. For a variety of reasons, women and victims of IPV may fall silent due to public perceptions, shame, guilt, or embarassment to name a few (van der Kolk, 2014). Reagrding trauma related to IPV, rates for violence against women vary geographically, making it difficult to untangle underreported cases between rural and areas (Ceccato, 2015). Additionally, the cohesive nature of rural areas adds another dimension of trauma support avoidance.
This consideration of a cohesive system stems from smaller communities being well versed with eachother, and the events that take place within the community. In other words, everyone knows everyone, and collective efficacy is rarely thrown off balance. Knowing this, woman may avoid support for their trauma with the fear of being ostracized by speaking out on violence, which may have the unintended effect of enabling domestic violence, and the inability to seek help for IPV trauma (Ceccato, 2015).
Knowing this the geographical difficulties of seeking help in rural IPV and trauma cases still remain prevalent. For example, rural communities and towns are in far geographical areas from metropolitan areas with greater support systems. In other words, long distances create isolation to a greater degree than urban areas (Ceccato, 2015). With these outlets out of reach, rural communities may lack the resources and support systems and highly populated areas have. This can lead to victims of trauma and IPV staying silent, since breaking the efficacy and cohesion of their community can have drastic effects on the abuser and the victim. The lack of support systems for women in rural areas can contribute for women to stay in their traumatic situations. Victims of traumatic domestic violence often cover up their abusers (van der Kolk, 2014) for a variety of reasons. Here, I can assume because of the limited access to getting treatment, and the unwillingness to face public embarrasmenterassment. Since the cohesive nature of small communities may put these victims of trauma in the shadows.
This post considers the challenges rural women may face when dealing with IPV and seeking treatment for their trauma. Knowing the spatial differences between the rural and the urban seek out potential barriers for women to attain the help that they need, due to factors such as isolation and reliance on their domestic partner. An attention on rural centric crime considers factors not applicable to the urban, and must be researched further to understand the hidden figures and perception of rural life.
Ceccato, V. (2015b). Rural crime and community safety. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203725689
M.D., B.V.D. K. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. Penguin US. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781101608302
2 comments
I found the topic about rural crime interesting because it, indeed, covers limitations when it comes to reporting domestic violence. I assume that the most common argument in this topic is the fact that there is not so much funding allocated to criminal justice system or community services so rural women may not feel safe to report what happened to them. Moreover, I believe that they might not realise that they can report because their awareness on such problems can be low.
I found this topic to be really interesting as it is something we discussed in a class called Family Violence that I took last year. This class discussed IPV and one of the things we talked about are the few online resources being developed for people who are in abusive relationships who face significant isolation. An interesting resource we discussed was called ‘Idecide’, which was piloted in Australia, but other programs like it are being worked on currently as well. It is an online intervention program that provides resources for people who are facing abuse. While this method did still have it’s limitations, it is a new and more accessible way for people to get the resources they need to escape abusive relationships. With the increasing accessibility to internet we are currently experiencing, I hope these programs become more common and more extensive in it’s resources for helping those who are being abused. These resources/websites would be beneficial and allow more victims to report as they’re private and can be sought out at any time by the victim, which is more accessible compared to face-to-face interventions. The limited access to resources that women living in rural areas face is a huge problem. Great job with your post, it was really interesting to read, and I immediately thought of the Idecide program when reading it!
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