Ten years ago, the University community was shaken by the murder of one of our students, a fourth-year woman only weeks from graduation. She had worked so hard to complete her college education, and had her whole life ahead of her, and dreamed of becoming a lawyer. Who killed her? The man who professed to love her.
Think you know the name of this student?
Guess again. Her name was Monica Long. The man to whom she was secretly married subjected her to repeated verbal assaults, threats and physical violence. No one in her life — not her mom and dad, her sorority sisters, friends or teachers — knew that her life was sheer hell. She finally told her parents over winter break, so they helped her move out of the apartment she shared with Arnold Valenzuela in January 2003. When she went back in to retrieve more belongings, he shot her in the head, and then killed himself — while her parents sat outside in the car.
Monica had dreamed of attending law school. “My daughter loved the University of Virginia,” her father said, and, in return, “everybody just loved her back.”
All of this happened over winter break, and by the time students returned to grounds; it was as if Monica had never existed. She wasn’t widely known, wasn’t an athlete, and her murderer was not a U.Va. student. For those of us who were here and who worked to prevent gender violence at U.Va., this was our worst nightmare. Her parents’ devastation, the grief of her friends, and ultimately the loss of one of our own, should have been enough to cause a response and commitment by the entire University community to take a stand and unite against violence. Some of us kept on educating and agitating for change. But change doesn’t come easily. It took another terrible tragedy to wake people up.
Too often we focus on numbers alone, as if only digits mattered, not the lives that make them real. I receive calls all the time from parents, reporters and students, asking how many reports of sexual assault we received in any given year (rarely do they ask about intimate partner violence). In the 2013 fiscal year, the Women’s Center received 20 reports of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and child sexual abuse (by adult survivors). I always add that the number doesn’t come close to reflecting reality. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in a nationwide survey, about one in five women and nearly one in seven men who ever experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner first experienced some form of partner violence between 11 and 17 years of age.
Most victims never tell a soul, or maybe only a friend, because their feelings of shame, embarrassment and fear are as silencing as external cultural pressure to shut up. That fear of greater harm silences women in violent relationships, and forces them to ignore friends’ encouragement to “dump him.” The fear is real: Both Monica Long and Yeardley Love were murdered after they broke up with their partners. They had had enough, yet when they took back their power and control from the abusers, they paid with their lives. What they didn’t know was that the most dangerous time in abusive relationships is after the victim talks of leaving or walks out the door.
Isolation (an abuser’s best weapon) not only keeps victims silent, but it may very well endanger lives. It doesn’t have to be that way. Leaving was obviously the best choice in both cases, but it also required taking steps to ensure their safety, because leaving does not end the abuse and sadly, most people don’t understand that fact. There are people at U.Va. — in the Women’s Center, in the Office of the Dean of Students, in the University Police Department — and in the community at Shelter for Help in Emergency or the Sexual Assault Resource Agency who can help victims get to safety.
What would be better is to not have this happen at all. Solid evidence exists that shows that when a community takes steps to end a culture of impunity, not only does the number of assaults go down, the community’s morale also improves. Think about how your life would be different if gender violence didn’t exist. Would you have a more loving, equitable relationship? Not be haunted by traumatic childhood memories? Have strong self-esteem? Have a healthy body and mind? Struggle with addictions to numb your pain? Feel anger toward one particular sex much of the time? Feel compelled toward a career in victim advocacy when you really had dreamed of being an astrophysicist — until someone in your math class assaulted you?
Even individuals who have not experienced this violence often make lifestyle decisions to avoid an assault. They may choose to go running only in daylight hours or with a buddy. They might not opt to study in the library at night, or take the night shift on a job, even if it means giving up a better salary. People in abusive relationships lose jobs over absenteeism or because their abusers bring the harassment and abuse into their workplaces. They drop out of school or transfer even though it was their life-long dream to attend Mr. Jefferson’s University.
We can end the violence at the University of Virginia. But it will take most, if not all of us, to shake ourselves out of the notion that this is someone else’s problem or something that only happens to other people. This is our community. Students, faculty, staff, administrators — all have a stake in turning the culture around so that abusers have no way to commit their acts of violence here. There are so many options for involvement and learning. One person can’t do it all, but if we all do something, we will be making the old saying true: “Many hands make light work.”
Claire Kaplan is the director of sexual and domestic violence services at the Women’s Center.
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