The shocking link between women’s mental health and domestic abuse

4 Questions Your Organisation Needs to Consider to Prevent Gender Balance Deteriorating

TW: mentions suicide, mental health, abuse

New research is just out highlighting a shocking link between women’s mental health, specifically suicide attempts, and domestic abuse.

Commissioned by Agenda Alliance, an group consisting of 100 organisations such as Oxfam, Women’s Aid and Mind, the research shows that women subjected to domestic abuse are three times more likely to attempt to end their lives than their peers. When sexual abuse occurs within a relationship, the number shoots up to over seven times higher. When it comes to self-harm, women suffering violence from their partner are three times more likely to hurt themselves.

It is suggested that all professionals who come into contact with women struggling with their mental health should, as a high priority, be asking about their personal safety, especially if a woman discloses suicidal ideation.

Given that at least one quarter of all women will experience domestic abuse (DV) -  emotional abusive, coercive control and/or physical violence - this is an important factor for workplaces to be considering when it comes to supporting their women with mental health, avoiding long term mental health sick leave and retaining their staff. The cost of staff who are on long term mental health sick leave is enormous, £42-45 billion annually in the UK alone; the impact of domestic violence is a proportion of this.

Consequences for Gender Balance Within Organisations

Here are 4 things what you/your company need to be thinking about from an HR and DEI perspective, loosing women means upsetting your gender balance:

1) How can you absorb the implications of this research into its mental health policies and practices?

2) Make your mental health first aiders aware; can they gently enquire about personal safety if they are supporting women with spiralling mental health, self-harm issues or suicidal ideation, since these could be signposts to a lack of safety at home?

3) Know where to get support for your women. Have info ready with helplines, refuges and relevant organisations. Consider safeguarding requirements for children and pets. The Dogs Trust has a fostering program called The Freedom Program specifically for this situation. Women don’t leave if they will have to leave children or pets behind.

4) Consider hosting a training day on the psychology of victim blaming, to help all staff supporting women and to be better allies if domestic abuse is disclosed; any notion that they will be blamed may deter disclosure and keep women unsafe. I am accredited by VictimFocus to facilitate this training. Learn more here.

Ultimately, staff are a company’s greatest asset. Being able to support staff to stay well, be safe and be able to continue to do their job is of enormous benefit all round. Companies must create enough safety that their women can talk about what’s going on, and not be afraid to ask if someone is safe at home if their mental health deteriorates. Organisations should be working to prevent gender balance deteriorating, including loosing women to DV related absence.

Why Victim Blaming Matters for Allyship and Equality in the Workplace

Recently, I delivered a one day training on the psychology of victim blaming of women and girls subjected to male violence. It is a powerful day sharing evidence based theory designed to create shifts through critical thinking. 

While it didn't come as any surprise to see the Daily Mail put out an irresponsible headline about the murder of Emma and Lettie Pattison, it is blatant victim blaming. The insinuation is that her career and success was the reason he felt angry enough to murder them. 'Women! Don't be too successful or it might get you killed!'

I also saw a police officer over the weekend commenting on Twitter that Sarah Everard should have got a taxi home instead of walking the night she was murdered, as if it was her decision that was the cause of her murder. In another headline, a man who had murdered his wife got a light sentence because he said she had been 'nagging him' - which is misogynistic language to start with - let alone the idea that if a man is in any way criticised he then deserves a lighter sentence if his response to the criticism is to violently end the life of the woman criticising him. 

It is never the woman's fault. What we wear, where we walk, whether we get taxis or not (taxi drivers are sometimes rapists and murderers too), what we say, deciding to leave a relationship that isn't going well - none of these are the cause of violence against women. 

A perpetrator deciding to commit a criminal act is the sole cause. 
This kind of victim blaming language not only diverts attention from the real cause of the violence and excuses the perpetrator, it also undermines women's confidence and keeps us questioning ourselves and the reality of the situation. 

How might victim blaming play out in a less overt way in the workplace? 

Imagine a woman complains of sexual harassment and she is blamed for wearing a short skirt or because she is generally attractive: what kind of impact will that have on her confidence and sense of safety at work? How will this impact the culture and how other women feel in that workplace? How emboldened might the other men feel to behave inappropriately if they can blame a tight dress? . 

How about when a woman doesn't get a promotion and a man does who is less experienced, and she's told it's because of her communication style. Her communication style is direct and assertive, but is perceived negatively because of unconscious bias about how women 'should' communicate: she is seen as bossy or aggressive. Data shows that less than 5% of men receive negative feedback in formal appraisals about their communication, whereas around two thirds of women do. 

We have to stop blaming women for inequality and making it women's sole responsibility to fix it. We need to look at the bigger picture, at patterns and the lens of stereotyping that informs people's perception of women vs men. Victim blaming has to stop, on every level. 

We need to talk about p*rn and allyship. Can men really be allies in the workplace if they watch p*rn privately?

We need to talk about p*rn. 

Yes, p*rn. 

We cannot talk about DEI, allyship and all of that good stuff without talking about p*rnography, the sex industry and the huge impact it has on how women are viewed and treated, even subconsciously. It has a well researched negative impact, increasing feelings of misogyny for those who view porn regularly, and contributes hugely to the objectification or dehumanising of women, and how women are viewed as worth less than men, and only valued for their looks. 

Of course this spills over into the workplace, how could it not??? Yet I don't hear people talking about how secret p*rn habits are holding back workplace DEI efforts or people's ability to be genuine allies. And we need to. 

Today, the Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza released a report into the impact p*rnography has for children on their body image, relationships and self-esteem, as well as highlighting children's exposure to p*rn. 

No prizes for guessing that it has a damaging impact, with an rising percentage of boys expecting girls to enjoy and want violence as part of intimacy because it's so normal in p*rn. They don't check with girls that this is true before they try it out on them, and girls are being strangled, beaten and more in a misguided attempt to turn them on as boys emulate.

79% of young people have seen violent p*rn before the age of 18, (degrading behaviour, coercion or pain-inducing acts), and the report highlights that frequent viewers of porn are more likely to engage in these kinds of acts themselves. 

Andrew Tate's misogynystic version of masculinity is insanely popular; his videos have been viewed 11.6bn times on tiktok alone, the equivalent of every man globally seeing his content 4 times. Misogyny and objectifying women is popular. 

The vast majority of p*rn shows women in a dehumanising and negative light. Objects to be used and abused. Objects to be ridiculed, humiliated and looked down on. The degradation of women is the main product of the p*rn industry, and it is highly linked to human trafficking. The demand for p*rn fuels trafficking of women and children. 

It isn't possible that anyone who consumes p*rn, is a true ally to women and views women as equal to them, as people of value and people worth listening to. In p*rn the women are genuinely being violated, hurt and abused, it's not acting, what you see on screen is what is actually happening to the women. 

Watching p*rn for 'entertainment' privately, then pretending to be an ally to women at work, is incongruent at best, and certainly deluded.

It's not an easy conversation, but it's one that needs airing. I would like to see all people, especially men, that consider themselves genuine allies to women, denounce all pornography and the sex industry, and call out their friends who consume it. Let's create social pressure to make p*rn as socially unacceptable as domestic violence.