The Legitimacy Of An Abuse

Check out Women’s eNew’s article today about a form of abuse that’s greatly ignored: emotional abuse. And a new reality show is showing it off on national television. Big shocker.
On “The Amazing Race”, a team of two that are married shows numerous accounts of Jonathan Baker berating his wife, Victoria Fuller, calling her “stupid”, “useless” and “dumb”.
Baker has made an official statement and posted on his website that he does not abuse his wife, and referred to his actions as a “heightened version of stress and obsession mixed with medication for a sickness called Sarcoidosis.”
Yet the fact that CBS chose to exploit this treatment on the air is problematic. Jill Morris, the public policy director for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence in D.C., blames the producers. “By showing the program, they’re telling the public it’s OK to treat someone this way. They can edit this stuff out, yet they are choosing to show it to viewers. In our opinion, that is condoning violence against women.” Or at the very least, put out counter or prevention messages, says Esta Soler, founder and president of Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco.
Medical research on emotional abuse has defined it as the use of verbal and nonverbal acts that symbolically harm the other or using threats to hurt the other. Researchers also claim that because of the fact that it is not illegal, women that suffer from it are not taken seriously.
Many emotionally abused women are also more likely to report poor physical health and depression (no, duh) and were at a higher risk of developing a chronic mental illness. Support groups who work with emotional abuse victims say that the psychological treatment leads victims to be afraid to make decisions for themselves, and can destroy friendships, leading them to isolation.
For more information on emotional abuse, click here.