16 days of helping a Friend
November 25 to December 10 marks 16 Days of Action to End Gender-Based Violence. It begins with the International Day to End Violence Against Women and ends with International Human Rights Day. This is a time to stand in solidarity with women, girls, and gender-diverse people everywhere in the fight for a world free of gender-based violence, in all its forms.
This year’s theme, declared by UN Women, is UNiTE to End Digital Violence Against All Women and Girls. Internet spaces should be a place where women, girls, and gender-diverse folks are free to learn, play, and connect, but we know that these spaces are being overwhelmed with harassment and abuse. Digital technology is being weaponized as a tool of power and control, and young boys and men are being drawn into the manosphere and exposed to harmful versions of masculinity.
We encourage you to check out UN Women to learn more about this year’s theme, what digital abuse looks like, and what you can do to take action.
At DWS, we believe that one way folks can take action in their own lives and communities is to learn how to help a friend who may be experiencing gender-based violence, whether that’s in digital spaces or in their intimate relationships. Read on for 16 ways to help a friend.
learn about gender-based violence
Gender-based violence, or GBV, is much more complex than physical violence alone. It can also include sexual harassment and assault; emotional and psychological abuse; financial abuse; coercive control; online and digital abuse; stalking; workplace sexual harassment and more. Learning about what GBV looks like is the first step to helping someone who may be experiencing it.
Check out the following DWS blog posts to learn more: Understanding Violence, What is Technology Facilitated Gender-Based Violence, and Recognizing Risk.
know how to challenge myths and misinformation
Unlearning the myths and misinformation around gender-based violence goes hand in hand with learning about what it looks like. It can help you to uncover and examine myths you may have internalized growing up in a culture that is steeped in misogyny. Recognizing these things in yourself and in others is a step towards interrupting violence when you see it happening, and it means you’ll be more open and ready to support a friend.
Here are a couple of lists of common myths and stereotypes from UN Women and YWCA Canada. Don’t feel like you need to memorize numbers and statistics. Just having a basic understanding is a great starting point!
learn more about power and control
If you’ve already started on your journey to learn more about GBV, you may have heard about power and control. This is a range of tactics that abusers use to oppress and maintain power over those they’re targeting. Understanding power and control is at the center of understanding gender-based violence.
The power and control wheel is a great visual tool that was created in 1984 by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth, Minnesota that is still widely used today, and has been adapted to reflect many other forms of gender-based violence, including technology facilitated abuse. The inner part of the power and control wheel breaks down the many tactics that abusers will use over time to maintain control of the survivor and keep them in the relationship, while the outer part of the wheel represents the physical and sexual violence that reinforce those tactics. You can read more about the power and control wheel at The Duluth Model and see the technology and abuse wheel at Luke’s Place.
learn about supports and services
It’s important to know about anti-violence supports and services available in your area so that you can be ready to share that information if that’s something your friend wants.
We have a list of Dawson City supports on our website. To find a shelter in your area, visit ShelterSafe.ca.
believe them
Telling someone that you’ve experienced or are experiencing gender-based violence takes a massive amount of courage and vulnerability. When a friend opens up to you and shares their experience, one of the easiest things you can do is to believe them, full stop.
listen without judgement
It can be so hard to listen without judgement and without jumping to problem solving, but this is such an important step. Take a deep breath and quiet your mind so that you can really listen to what your friend is telling you. Simply being heard and believed is a gift you can give to a survivor of violence.
tell them it’s not their fault
One of the sneaky things about gender-based violence is that we’ve all been conditioned by society to believe that survivors are somehow responsible for the violence they’ve experienced. Your friend may be struggling with these feelings themselves. You could try saying things like:
“You didn’t cause the abuse.”
“You didn’t ask to be raped.”
“You were a child. You deserved protection.”
validate what they’re feeling
There are so many big and complex emotions that go along with surviving gender-based violence. Your friend may be feeling angry, frustrated, scared, exhausted, numb, or overwhelmed. You can help by normalizing whatever it is they’re feeling—because it is normal to experience a full range of emotions in response to violence. There is no right or wrong way to feel. You could say things like:
“It makes sense that you feel that way.”
“That sounds really…..” (hard, frustrating, scary, overwhelming, etc)
“It’s normal to…..” (want the abuse to stop; stay in an abusive relationship; be scared to get help)
your friend is the expert in their own life
Abuse is a deeply disempowering experience. Someone experiencing abuse is having their consent and bodily autonomy violated, perhaps many times a day. So, it can feel even more disempowering to disclose that violence to a trusted person and be met with unhelpful or unwanted suggestions and advice.
Your friend knows best what they need, even if it’s different from what you might choose to do for yourself. That could mean they don’t want to or aren’t ready to leave an abusive relationship or don’t want to report their rape to the cops, and you have to be ready to respect those choices, even if that feels hard. By respecting your friend’s choices, you are giving them back their power.
learn how to offer resources and help in a good way
A great starting point is to ask for their consent. Ask them if they’d like to explore their options. Avoid saying they “should” do something: maybe all they needed in that moment was to tell someone. If you rush into telling them what they should be doing, you’re taking away their power and autonomy, and you might very well be closing a door to further conversations with that person. In learning how to help in a good way, it’s important to be prepared to hear and accept a “no.”
Another part of helping in a good way is to be specific. Instead of saying “let me know if you need anything,” make some concrete suggestions of what you’re prepared to offer and let them choose what they need. You could offer to bring them a meal, take their dog for a walk, watch their kids for a few hours, or accompany them to an appointment.
recognize lethality
Even though we may want our friend to leave an abusive situation, it’s important to know that leaving actually increases the risk of violence escalating. That’s because abuse is about power and control, and when an abuser senses they might lose that power, they’ll ramp up their efforts to maintain it, even to the point of killing their partner. The risk of lethality is highest around the time that a survivor is preparing to leave, and in the first 6 months to a year after leaving.
It's common for survivors to minimize their risk, because violence has been normalized in their lives and because minimizing is a way to cope. It can be helpful if you’re able to point out, in a calm and gentle way, that there may be some high-risk factors present in their situation, and to help them safely connect with the supports available in your community.
You can learn more about the signs of high-risk by reading our blog post Recognizing Risk.
respect their privacy and confidentiality
If a friend shares with you that they’re experiencing gender-based violence, as with any sensitive information, it’s important to respect their privacy and confidentiality. Sharing that information without their consent is a further violation. Survivors have the right to share their story when and how they choose, and it’s not for us as friends and helpers to decide that for them.
At DWS, there are only a few situations in which we might break confidentiality: if we learn that a child is being harmed or is in danger of being harmed, if a person is an immediate danger to themselves or others, or if our records are being subpoenaed as part of a court proceeding. Outside of these very specific situations, we leave it up to the survivor to dictate how they want to move forward. This goes back to survivors being the experts in their own lives.
honour their creative ways of resisting the violence
One of the myths around gender-based violence is that survivors are weak and unable to defend themselves or keep themselves safe. But we know from listening to survivors of abuse that there are many creative ways that they resist. These can be subtle things, like resisting or breaking rules set by the abuser in small ways; taking a break for a cigarette with the abuser to de-escalate a situation; or imagining a different future is possible. Resistance can look like reaching out for help, researching options, or sending a trusted friend screenshots of abusive text messages. Fighting back, defending their children, or fleeing the violence are all more direct forms of resistance.
Honour your friend’s strength and creativity in the face of violence. They might not even realize that what they’re doing is an act of resistance: name it, and if they’re open to it, explore other ways that they resist. This goes a long way to empowering survivors, building their confidence, and recognizing their innate strength.
reach out to get help for yourself
Supporting a friend who is experiencing gender-based violence can bring up many big feelings within yourself. You might experience worry for them, you might feel angry, powerless, scared, or sad. That’s all completely normal. And it’s important not to download those feelings onto your friend. That could create a situation where they feel like they have to caretake you. They might feel like they can’t talk to you because what they’re experiencing is a burden to you. So, when you notice these feelings coming up in yourself, reach out for help in a way that doesn’t break your friend’s confidentiality.
One great way to do this is to connect with a service like the Dawson Women’s Shelter. Our 24-hour support line is open not just to survivors of violence, but also to the folks helping and supporting them. Our service is confidential. We can provide supportive listening, share resources and information, and brainstorm ways to help your friend. If you’re not in Dawson City, research the options in your community. Look for those helping the helpers and reach out to them.
Practice good boundaries with yourself and learn to recognize when you need a break to take care of yourself. Make sure that you’re getting enough rest, getting out on the land, eating a nourishing meal. We can’t keep showing up for our friends if we’re exhausted or burnt out ourselves.
learn skills to interrupt violence every day
At DWS, we’re big fans of learning about bystander intervention. There are lots of different ways you can interrupt gender-based violence happening when you see it out in the world, or online. And these skills can be used to interrupt all kinds of violence and abuse: racism, ableism, transphobia and homophobia.
It can be as direct as walking up to the person being abusive and telling them to stop or approaching the survivor and asking them if they’re okay. It can be more subtle: interrupting an interaction to ask for directions or to take a picture of you, or pretending that you recognize either the abusive person or the person being abused.
We’ve got lots of resources on our blog about this important skill. This post is a great starting point.
celebrate the wins!
Even though violence and resisting oppression is isolating and exhausting, we’re part of a vibrant community of resistance that span generations on this land. Recognize that you’re part of that community; learn about the people doing the work around you and who’ve come before you. Keep listening, expanding your knowledge, and sharing what you learn with those around you. Recognize and celebrate all the many ways that people resist violence, every single day.