More Than a Hollywood Trope: Intimate Partner Violence

By Samantha Deo Christian International Relations Student at International University Liaison Indonesia Email: samantha.christian@stud.iuli.ac.id

WARNING: this article contains mentions and descriptions of intimate partner violence. All names have been changed to protect the interviewees’ identities.

The Netflix show Maid received a plethora of praises for its portrayal of intimate partner violence (IPV) and its complexities. The show tells the heart-wrenching and poignant story of Alex, a young, 23-year-old mother with a toddler, who made the decision to leave her emotionally abusive boyfriend, Sean, and follows her journey through the adversityfilled road of reaching out, finding a job, and going in-and-out of the legal system.

Whilst the show itself is what it is—a show— what it depicts is more than a mere Hollywood trope. The world is, alas, not as benevolent to let it remain as such. Alex’s bitter account is reality for one third of women worldwide, from overly complicated bureaucratic challenges to the resounding sneers and scorns by the people around her. After realizing that Sean could punch more than a wall, Alex had nowhere to run to—emotional abuse is often not even recognized as abuse. Yet, more times than not, it is the precursor to physical violence— even more, emotional abuse destroys one’s own self in the worst possible of ways, binding them to their abusers even deeper.

I interviewed Lisa, a young woman in her twenties who went through two emotionally and physically abusive relationships where she was repeatedly beaten and struck. “They instilled a mindset in me—that I was always the one in the wrong, that it was always my fault, I should not make any excuses and I deserved to be beaten”, she added, “it made me scared to report what he did to me to the police or to the authorities. I am scared. I am very scared that I would end up shooting myself in the foot— perhaps they were right, that I was the toxic one, that I made them toxic, they are the victims, and that I am the source of the problem”.

Lisa’s statement shows just how far emotional abuse and constant manipulation can go and how deep it can intertwine itself with physical abuse. Emotional manipulation, however, is not limited to manipulation—it comes in various forms, such as not allowing one to meet other friends, to go out, or even to work with friends and colleagues of the opposite gender. The things that are often brushed off as normal or is just plain jealously sometimes hold more to it than what meets the eye. Her decision to not report her abusers to the police might come as a questionable action for many.

Why would you not want to report the person who hurt you to the police? Do you not want to put them behind bars?

Some things are easier said than done—social stigmas that stick to IPV victims and justice systems that are far from being victim-centred, often lead to harsh victim-blaming, and the whole process turns into a spiralizing hellhole for many. In some instances, IPV is even normalized and accepted as customs.

I talked to Alice, who attempted to report her father for violently hitting and beating her mother. “I tried to contact the National Commission on Violence Against Women, I immediately tried to look for people I can talk to within the community and tried my best to find people who can help”, she explained, “Instead of receiving help, I was instead asked to withdraw my reports. The people told me that it’s normal for him to kick and beat her up occasionally. I was told to still serve my father, and my mother was told that she must be able to capture his heart. They referred to him cheating in the past and said that how come other people can seduce him but not her—they told her that she should learn to look like whoever seduced him. If the other person wears make up, then she must learn to do her make up, too”.

Alice’s story was nothing less than stomach-turning—yet thousands of women receive the very treatment Alice’s mother did every single day, repeatedly being told that being abused is normal—that ultimately, the victims are the reason for broken relationships and marriages. The victim needs to change—they need to be the one to wear the prettiest dresses, to put on make up, to look better, to please better. This is an oxymoronic paradox that sustains the vicious cycle of abuse: when a victim does not report to the authorities, they are wrong for staying silent—when a victim report to the authorities, they are wrong for speaking up.

I myself question how the Indonesian justice system would deal with Lisa and Alice’s cases. The police have recently come under fire with hashtags such as #NoViralNoJustice, referring to an abundance of cases neglected by the police until it went viral. As the cherry on top, the pandemic has caused many victims of IPV to be stuck under the same roof with their abusers, limiting their access to reporting and seeking help. Assuming that the cases are processed and the court rules in favour of the victim, though, the question remains: for whom is justice served?

Does putting a perpetrator behind bars, where for the next few years—or their whole lives—they will not have to worry about food on the table or a roof above their heads, mean justice for the victims? Will it mend the wounds left by years of abuse and lift the weight of psychological trauma they will have to bear their whole lives? Does punishment equal justice?

Is this what we call justice?

When the justice system fails—or often times, before someone decides to take a case to court—one might seek support from those closest or from loved ones. Whilst some receive console and encouragement, that is not always the case— when Lisa told her mother, she received a stinging and sullen response instead. “Until today, she still blames me for what happened to me. Before I broke up with my second ex, I was brutally beaten up—she came up to me and angrily yelled at me. She told me that I should not have been so cheap and insisted that everyone has their own flaws”. Lisa added that her mother still tries to maintain a good relationship with the same ex that beat her up and shared with me how social perception affected her experience.

As her abuser had a rather thin and small stature, had multiple history of falling ill in the past, and on top of that was known as a “a happy-go-lucky goofball”, Lisa, who had also been with him once in the past, did not expect him to turn so violent. Moreover, his reputation made it hard for her to convince people just how violent he could be.

I asked if that being the case had led to people blaming her or mentioning how should have been more than able to defend herself against him, and she responded, “With the first ex, I did not dare to fight back. He would bring a machete and hold it against me—it was beyond terrifying.

With the second ex, I tried defending myself and even striking back at first, but he just hit me harder and harder. He flew into a rage whenever his body was hurt—it was like he sought to destroy whoever hurt him. I do not quite know whether it was the anger or something else, but despite his stature, he was much more powerful when he was beating me up. I was overpowered and I could not fight back”. This is not isolated to Lisa’s personal situation. When posts go viral on social media, or when news media reports about IPV, many comments sound like a broken record: Stupid, why not leave them from the beginning? Why do you just stay with them for a long time?

“It always upsets me when people ask these things. Most of the people who commented such things have never experienced what I and other survivors went through. There is always a reason why someone cannot just leave their partner so easily—often times, it was manipulation that bound one to another very deeply. In my case, I have my own issues—I could not be alone, and they made use of that. They made me feel worthless and that whatever they do to me, I still need them. They threw me down to my lowest point and made me believe that no one else would ever want me”, Lisa answered, again highlighting the nature of victim-blaming and habit of nitpicking whatever the victim did or did not do. She noticed that people—strangers, internet users, friends—only saw the tip of the iceberg, yet are quick to judge and to leave comments that has potential to further anguish the already physically and emotionally traumatized victims.

“I do not want to be pitied”, she said very sternly, “I want people to learn from my experience”. Prior to this, Lisa had mentioned many times to me about how she had hoped no one would ever have to go through such abuses. She had agreed to the interview to share her experience to shed light to the issue—but above all, she wanted to stop the cycle, so that what happened to her will not happen to anyone else.

“Find someone who loves you and treasures you, who knows how much you mean to them from the very beginning. If someone really loves you, they will not even dare to think of hurting you— it would never cross their mind at all. There is no such thing as an ‘accident’. If they hit you once, they will do it again. If you are stuck in an abusive relationship, know that no matter how many times they say they will change, they will never do. No one can change overnight, and even if they do change, it can only be done with the help of a professional, not sheer willpower. Hitting is not love. Please, you are precious. If they do not respect you, leave them—remember to always put yourself and your happiness first”, she remarked.

Lisa’s experience has inspired me to write this article. When I was a teenager, I thought that abusive partners were a thing of the big screens—that they were so rare, I would never have bumped into them even if I were to look for them. For many of us, this mindset is still tightly stuck in our heads. We perceive abusive relationships as a distant misfortune that would never hit us even once, yet it is closer to us than we think—if the statistics show that at least one out of three women have been abused, then, that makes up a large chunk of our circle of closest friends and loved one. In such, I share the same vision with Lisa: this is a problem, and problems do not resolve themselves.

Lisa and Alice’s experience is not a made-up fictional story, nor it is exaggerated for dramatization— these are real stories of real people, not fictional characters on a screen.

In Indonesia alone, there are at least 40 million Lisas and Alices—almost twice the population of Australia and eight times the population of Norway—each of them trying to find peace, console, and justice in their own ways, and the numbers keep increasing in the face of the pandemic.

This is the shadow pandemic—one that has no vaccine and no medicines. The only cure to it is to work hand-in-hand and fight for a better system—to fight for proper police intervention, to fight for trauma and emotional counselling, and to fight for a proper regulation. The National Commission on Violence Against Women recorded a massive increase of reports of 68% concerning violence against women during the pandemic compared to 2019—and these are only the cases that are reported. Thousands of others chose to remain silent like Lisa, but the question that we must ask ourselves is why— not to Lisa, but to ourselves and to the justice system.

Perhaps, in exploring these endless questions of why, we will find the answer in Alice’s experience.

Autobiography: Samantha Deo Christian is currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in International Relations at International University Liaison Indonesia. Specializing in East Asian cultural and socio-political studies, she is passionate in her endeavours and has published her works in other universities. In the past, she has worked as a Partnership and International Relations Officer for the ASEAN Youth Organization, chaired the IULI Student Executive Board 2020/2021, and is currently running a blog with her colleague.