Natalie Barletta – Opinions Editor
By now, many of you have heard about the football player Ray Rice hitting his then fiancé Janay Palmer in an elevator. The video was taken four years ago. As you watch this video, you most likely would be asking yourself this question-why did she stay?
Well one woman watched this video, and took to Twitter to issue a response. A North Carolina human resources manager Beverly Gooden was in an abusive relationship like Palmer. She was angry over the buzz that the video created, so she decided to take to Twitter to issue a response. Using the hashtags “Why I stayed” she typed the reasons why she stayed in the abusive relationship that she had shared with her husband in tweets. This then became viral, inspiring thousands of other women to share their stories, and even using the hashtags “why I left”.
Why I created the #WhyIStayed Twitter hashtag. http://t.co/cgcjr7t0Xn
— Beverly Gooden (@bevtgooden) September 10, 2014
Each and every story that the women shared using this hashtag was extremely powerful. As I went on Twitter to search this hashtag, some of the tweets that I read were amazing. Some were hopeful, as citing one of the reasons why they stayed was that their partner said that they’d change. Some were upsetting and shocking to read, such as saying that if they had left, their partner would kill them which is something that is upsetting and shocking.
Each of these tweets was amazing to read, because it gave the insight of the mentality of what it’s actually like to be a victim in an abusive relationship. Why they stayed, what their thought process was, and the story that they had shared. It must have taken a lot of courage for these women to say these things, and they all deserve a medal of bravery for going through what they went through and remaining strong.
One of the things that happened as a response to this event is the issue of domestic violence. Domestic violence is an important issue that I believe everyone young and old should be educated to the fullest capacity on. Love shouldn’t cause you pain, physical or mental. Your partner should make you happy, not cause you to feel trapped in the relationship.
How can we keep events like this from happening? Well, we can be educated in the signs of an abusive relationship. Obviously if your significant other is hitting you or touching you in a way that is unwanted, that’s abuse. However, abuse hits in places that don’t leave scars for the public to see. Abusive relationships can be mental as well, which can lead to a blurred line. Many think that if someone isn’t hitting them, then it’s not abuse. And that is completely false.
Mental abuse ranges from something small that one would brush off, to some of the more obvious red flags. Those include being told that your outfit is too risqué, having to ‘check in with them’, being told who you can or can not hang out with, and being forced to show who you’re talking to on via text or a social networking site. A common thing that does happen with that relationship is that the significant other will blame the partner that is abused by saying that it’s ‘their fault for why they are getting treated this way’ or ‘you made me this way’.
Many think that abuse is something that is a boyfriend abusing a girlfriend, but its something that also happens in a girlfriend abusing/controlling her partner. Abuse is something that can affect anyone, and can be prevented.
Abuse is something that will always remain to be a hot button issue. It is something that shouldn’t be okay to see or accept. Ray Rice’s video is no exception. Love should not hurt. Ever.
Photo Credit: Hibr
