Arak Journal

Pandemic and Violence

By Elena Reim

One in three women will endure intimate partner violence in their lifetime (Childress). It is one of the greatest threats to women and this threat often lives at home with them. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and everyone was forced indoors, many were worried about how women in dangerous relationships would be impacted. The question was asked: When the biggest threat to a woman’s safety is the abuser living at home with her, what happens when the government forces that woman to stay home and be with this threat 24/7? 

The COVID-19 pandemic had drastic impacts on everyone’s daily lives. New government directives were instituted seemingly daily at the beginning of 2020. This essay will argue with information and evidence that the majority of these mandates negatively affected women in terms of gender-based violence. Additionally, while there were some attempts by the federal government to intervene in this issue, it was found to be lacking. Unfortunately, there were limitations with studies done on these subjects and the reasons for this will be highlighted and discrepancies will be explained. Finally, since this issue will not resolve itself, the essay recommends next steps to address it. 

Background & Timeline

First, it is essential to define the terms that will be used throughout. This paper will be using intimate partner violence and domestic violence interchangeably to refer to violence committed by a romantic partner. Gender-based violence is also used and is an umbrella term to describe violence inflicted on women by someone who they may or may not be romantically or sexually involved with. These three terms are not inherently sexual in nature. On the other hand, sexual assault is a form of sexual violence and may be committed by a stranger or a close partner.

To begin, understand that while gender-based violence is not new, it also is not uncommon. According to RAINN, a database documenting sexual assaults and a support website for victims, on average, there are around 464,000 victims of sexual assault each year in the US (?Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics”). This number was staggeringly high even before the lockdown forced women into close quarters with possible abusers. Then, with the introduction of a global disaster, intimate partner violence rose even higher. This, among other issues related to gender-based violence during the pandemic, was reported on by Sorenson et al. in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Their findings showed that when people were caught in a disaster, the rates of abuse increased (Sorenson et al. 4901). While this is more documented with natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina (Sorenson et al. 4901), it was also seen with past pandemics such as the Ebola virus of 2010 (Kellum et al. 2). 

Since I am building an argument about the increase in sexual assault increased along with rising rates of COVID-19, tracking the pandemic is also necessary for this piece. To start, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), COVID-19 was first seen in December of 2019. It was not until March of 2020 that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID a pandemic and President Trump declared a nationwide emergency on the 13th of March thus beginning shutdowns and widespread panic (?CDC Museum Covid-19 Timeline”). Social distancing and stay at home orders continued in effect for much of the remainder of 2020 but varied by state. It is during this time when citizens were required, or highly encouraged, to stay in their homes that the opportunity for domestic violence drastically grew. Intimate partner violence grew in tandem with this timeline of the pandemic as opportunity and means to perpetuate violence increased (Sorenson et al, 4899). While the measures taken by the US government and corresponding state governments were necessary to slow the spread of the deadly disease, it does not excuse pushing the safety of women to the background. Both issues deserve recognition and adequate resources, but so far only one has gotten attention. 

Causes of Domestic Abuse

This section will discuss how domestic abuse arises and how the pandemic played a role in increasing the possibility of abuse. The following section makes no attempt to excuse abuse but rather to explain how certain external factors can play a role in abuse and how understanding those factors can be used to prevent future abuse. To do this, I will use the routine activity theory, as summarized by Sorenson et al. This theory has three interconnected aspects: a motivated perpetrator, an appropriate target, and an absence of obstacles” (4902). In the case of domestic abuse during the pandemic, these aspects refer to an angered partner who is looking for a chance to abuse, a victim who is in close proximity and within control and an absence of obstacles such as limited opportunities to reach out for help. Routine activity theory adequately applies as the pandemic specifically exacerbated the lack of barriers due to the stay at home orders and forced the victim and perpetrator to be together. Other factors that are not specifically mentioned in the theory include financial stress, loss of housing, a gun kept at home, and increased drinking. Each of these had an integral role in the ways that women were harmed during the crisis. 

Isolation is the most obvious cause of increased domestic abuse. One of the hallmarks of the COVID-19 pandemic was the stay-at-home orders that littered the country. This was a measure put in place to stall the virus and save lives and was shown to be effective and necessary. However, keeping people at home all day everyday with few social or emotional outlets created an increased opportunity for gender-based violence to occur. Being at home not only increases the likelihood that one would be trapped with an abuser but also that they have fewer chances to speak with someone outside the home to get help. Without any socialization, a victim’s world became limited to their abuser.  

Isolation also meant that a victims every move could be monitored by their abuser. This means that their contacts with the outside world, even by phone, could be limited. This limitation reduced many women’s freedom to report violence to a hotline or 911 as the one inflicting the violence was sitting in the next room listening. Isolation was the key in both committing abuse and enabling it to continue.

Another compelling factor was the dangerous phenomenon of increased gun sales that were recorded during quarantine. Overall, there is a higher risk of women being killed in their homes if a gun is present. This is regardless of the original intent for the gun. According to researchers Sorenson et al., nine of the ten weeks with the most background checks have occurred since COVID-19 began” (4901).  Additionally, guns are the weapon most commonly chosen by abusers to kill their intimate partner. So, when guns entering homes increases, there is also an increased likelihood in homicides committed by an abuser. However, guns are not just used to kill a partner. Guns are used to threaten and keep one under the abuser’s control. The abuser may threaten to kill or injure themself, the victim, or the victims’ children. These are all ways for the abuser to control the victim and to keep the victim isolated as they will fear speaking out (Sorenson, et al. 4901). 

Another common factor in abuse is financial stress. Business closures that ravaged the nation for months caused record unemployment numbers, and it was this unemployment that led many into deep financial stress. This stress included an inability to pay for food, housing, utilities, and other necessities. It is shown that these stressors are linked with increased violence at home as well as an increased inability to leave the relationship (Sorenson et al. 4901). Without a job, or without consistent pay, the abused would not have an ability to move to a new home to escape the violence (Richards & Nix). Additionally, while shelters in places such as New York City were deemed essential services and allowed to stay operational, many shelters were not able to provide as many services and were forced to refer women to hotlines and online services (Selvaratnam). The risk of contracting the deadly virus was also likely a deterrent as staying at a shelter meant losing personal space. Overall, losing one’s income is shown to be a gateway to most other factors that force a victim to stay with their abuser.

In summary, all of the factors mentioned above play off one another. Isolation was a result and cause of job loss, job loss led to food and housing insecurity, nationwide housing insecurity led to difficulty finding a shelter. These factors do not exist separately, and any attempt to solve one should keep in mind the others. The factors listed above are not excuses for the perpetuation of violence; rather, this is a list of ways a woman’s dependency on an abuser might have been heightened during the pandemic. 

Government intervention

The COVID-19 pandemic was not something the general population was widely prepared for. A mass infection on this scale has not occurred within the past 100 years, the most recent being the Spanish Flu in 1918 (1918 Pandemic). With the advanced medical technology and vaccines protecting the world from many diseases, a pandemic with this serious of an impact was not on most people’s minds. So, when the pandemic began, all the governments of the world were focused on only this. While many decisions were more than necessary to keep people healthy and the virus at bay, there were unintended consequences that hurt a seemingly invisible community: abused women. 

Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) is a nonprofit organization that writes health policy analysis and focuses on national health issues. KFF offers an explanation of past and current policies relating to women’s health in regard to intimate partner violence. These policies are the US government’s attempt to help victims of violence that was created both before and during the pandemic. Every one of these policies and more are essential to dismantling the rise of abuse seen in the pandemic. Below are some of the most influential pieces of legislation 

Unfortunately, one policy that could have had the biggest impact on women suffering during the pandemic was not renewed in 2018 and is no longer in effect. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) allocated more funding towards prevention measures and response to gender-based violence (Ramaswamy et al.). In its passing in 1994, it was a revolutionary act. It showed the importance of tackling this specific issue and allowed for crimes of this nature to be thoroughly investigated. The funding and grants it provided have helped governments at every level and countless women (?The Importance of the Violence Against Women Act”). The VAWA was a milestone act that needs to be continued. Since the act lapsed, some of its funding was able to be reallocated into different acts that also aim to help women who have been victims of abuse. One of these programs is the CARES Act. This was a stimulus plan that aimed to help those affected by COVID-19. A portion of the money the act granted was set to provide for domestic abuse hotline services as well as for prevention efforts. Other bills such as HEROES, which was supposed to work as an extension of CARES, were introduced but ultimately never signed into law (Ramaswamy et al.). 

Women are dying from domestic violence. Women are forced to live in the streets begging for a bed in a shelter not knowing where their next meal is going to come from. Even still, these conditions are preferable to the lives they were living with their abuser. This issue is not going away and with the current lack of resources it can only get worse. Federal, state, local and even international governments need to band together to work to solve this issue. While measures have been taken, there are still so many more lives that need to be saved. 

Limitations & Outliers

It is important that gender-based violence is not said to have increased in every aspect due to the pandemic. While intimate partner violence did rise, there are other groups that did not experience this same uptick. This group is largely young women attending college. Many college women, who are assaulted on their campus, are assaulted by someone they likely know from classes or socialization. Rates of assault on campus are high throughout the school year but when emergency disasters were declared, many schools sent their students home to work virtually. Leaving campuses deserted meant that there were no women to be assaulted and no perpetrators, mostly men, to assault them. In this area, sexual violence decreased as women were able to return to the safety of their homes (Sorenson et al. 4909). 

Ultimately, more research is needed in this area. As will be discussed in the next paragraph, many instances of gender-based violence are not reported. Moreover, there is also the issue of organizing the data that researchers do have. Most research today has only been sorted by gender. This means that there is not much information about how people of color, low income people, the unemployed, members of the queer community, and other historically marginalized communities are affected. Many of these factors can be assumed using the models explained above as well as limited police reports and data from similar areas of research. Nevertheless, there needs to be specific, substantial research on this topic because it is a persistent issue that is not going away anytime soon.

Given these points, domestic violence is a complicated issue to solve for numerous reasons. It deals with private aspects of people’s lives that many are too scared to talk about. For this reason, abuse is dangerously underreported. This has left some scholars and researchers with inconclusive answers. This can cause confusion as to what happened in the midst of the lockdowns. While there is no single or simple answer, there are limitations to each study that could have produced this array of results. The first, and most important, is that most crimes of this type go unreported. Therefore, there is going to be a limited pool of data. While there are many reasons why people do not report being the victim of violence, one reason is the fear of retaliation (Felson et al. 635). Victims are afraid that the person they are reporting will only become more enraged and violent and/or that the police will not address the issue in a substantial way, especially during a time with such limited resources. If an arrest does not occur, then the victim may be forced to continue residing with the abuser. As previously mentioned, shelter space has become increasingly limited with new pandemic regulations. So, if police did not arrest the assaulter, then there are fewer alternatives for the victim to turn to. 

In contrast to the limited findings of some studies, there is an article written by Tanya Selvaratnam featuring domestic violence during the pandemic. It mentions that, in the context of reclining hotline calls, there are fewer calls not because violence is decreasing but because it is becoming harder to report (Selvaratnam). Since women are often forced to stay in close contact with their abusers, it is harder to safely report the violence. Not just through hotline calls either. Teachers are not there to be in constant contact, friends are not available to press the issue, co-workers are not present to see the signs, etc. So, while some research may be showing fewer cases since the start of the pandemic, I urge readers to remember the difficulty many women have in reporting the violence.    

Moving Forward

The pandemic was nothing the living generations were prepared for. Online school, isolation, and constantly rising death tolls were new and scary for all. However, the ways that this pandemic violently impacted women should not have been a surprise. Even with the significant underreporting, there was still likely a consequential rise in domestic violence. While this paper relied largely on faceless statistics, this is a human issue. Women, men, gender nonconforming people, and even children are seriously injured by domestic violence everyday. This cannot be ignored. The VAWA needs to be renewed as a stepping stone to bringing the resources and attention to the people who desperately need it. While the world has been waiting for the day when the COVID-19 pandemic is finally over and masks are no longer needed, the endemic of gender-based violence will continue. While this is a sad truth, there is always hope for change and the first step is to bring this subject out of the shadows so our society can tackle this issue. 

Works Cited

Works Cited

CDC Museum COVID-19 Timeline.” CDC, 4 August 2021, https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html

Childress, Sarah. For Many Women Worldwide, The Biggest Threat is At Home.” PBS Frontline, 28 May 2013, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/for-many-women-worldwide-the-biggest-threat-is-at-home/

Felson, Richard B et al. Reasons for Reporting and Not Reporting Domestic Violence to the Police.” Criminology vol. 40, no. 3, 2002.

Kellum, Jane, et al. Issues and Recommendations on Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response in COVID-19 Programming.” US Aid, 8 March 2021, https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/COVID_and_GBV_guidance_March_2021.pdf

Nix, Justin, and Richards, Tara N. The Immediate and Long-Term Effects of COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders on Domestic Violence Calls for Service across Six U.S. Jurisdictions.” Police Practice & Research, vol. 22, no. 4, June 2021, pp. 1443?1451. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/15614263.2021.1883018.

Ramaswamy, Amrutha, et al. Finding Policy Responses to Rising Intimate Partner Violence during the Coronavirus Outbreak.” KKF, 11 June 2020, https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/finding-policy-responses-to-rising-intimate-partner-violence-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/

Selvaratnam, Sanya. Opinion | Where Can Domestic Violence Victims Turn During Covid-19?” NYTimes, 23 March 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/opinion/covid-domestic-violence.html?searchResultPosition=6

Sorenson, Susan B., et al. The Endemic Amid the Pandemic: Seeking Help for Violence Against Women in the Initial Phases of COVID-19.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, vol. 36, no. 9/10, May 2021, pp. 4899?4915. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0886260521997946.

The Violence Against Women Act.” District Alliance for Safe Housing, 4 January 2019, https://www.dashdc.org/the-importance-of-the-violence-against-women-act/

Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics.” RAINN, https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

1918 Pandemic (H1N1 Virus).” CDC, 20 March 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html

Paper Prompt

Dr. Nystrom

ENGL 110-052

Fall 2022

Researched Argument

In this essay you will consider one question that this class has raised for you so far and explore it in depth. In your first essay you relied on your own interpretation of advertisements to see what they were doing, but in this essay you need to center your thoughts on an idea that other thinkers have engaged with as well. The trick of this essay, then, is that you need to develop your argument after becoming informed by the research you have found while also saying something original. The research isn’t meant to back up an argument you already had, but help you develop your newly informed argument. 

You should begin this process by thinking of a question about contemporary culture and explore it further. You may create almost any guiding question for this assignment with two caveats: I must approve your question(s) and it must relate, in some way, to the ideas we have been discussing thus far. For instance, as gender roles often come up in advertisements, your E2 could revolve around gender roles in today’s society. Just make sure you pick something that interests you, as this always result in more engaging essays for you to write and your readers to read. By the end of your research you will develop a strong argument that addresses some aspect of your initial research question(s).

The final version of this essay should run around 2,500 words. This essay, just like your first essay, will go through multiple stages of drafting and revising.

A strong Researched Argument would include:

1. A strong argument.
2. A strong voice. I want to hear you within this piece.
3. Successful incorporation of counterarguments.
4. Participation in and adding to a larger conversation concerning your topic.
5. The use of at least 6 sources (you are welcome to use the articles we have read for this class, but they do not count towards your 6 sources). 2 out of your 6 sources must be scholarly sources (peer-reviewed articles and/or scholarly books). Feel free to incorporate more than 6 sources. I highly encourage you to include or cite texts in different mediums and genres (video games, postcards, film, music and the like) as it relates to your question. 
6. Proper MLA formatting.
7. An engaging and original title.
8. A thoughtful reflection (400 words) about your writing process attached as an appendix after your Works Cited page.

Schedule:

•  On October 29th your AB is due.
• On November 8th your E2D1 is due  at the beginning of class. Also, you will workshop your paper in class.
• Week 12 (November 15th, 17th, 19th) classes will be canceled. Instead, we will have one-on-one conferences. Your E2D2 is due at the start of your conference. 
•  On December 1st E2D3 is due by 11:59 pm.