“Why don’t women just leave an abusive relationship?”
It’s the question people invariably ask, and an idea that was trotted out in the news lately with the case involving Ray Rice and his wife, Janay.
It’s a notion that the HBO documentary “Private Violence,” premiering Monday night, will attempt to dispel.
“It’s the wrong question to ask,” says Kit Gruelle, a domestic violence survivor and longtime advocate who plays a big role in the documentary as she helps abused women navigate an often frustrating and unhelpful legal system.
“We don’t put the onus on any other crime victim to rearrange their lives. Let’s say a bank has been robbed three or four times and the 911 call goes out and the police come to investigate the crime,” she says. “When they’re done with the investigation, they don’t go to the bank manager and say, ‘Sir, what were you thinking of, keeping all that money here when you’ve already been robbed?’
“The question that we need to ask,” she adds, “is what makes men think they have the right to treat their significant others like properties rather than as people?”
The question that we need to ask is what makes men think they have the right to treat their significant others like properties rather than as people?
- Kit Gruelle, domestic violence survivor and longtime advocate
One of those people is Deanna Walters, a mother who appears in the documentary as she seeks justice from years of abuse by her estranged husband, who kidnapped her and her 2-year-old daughter, Martina, taking them across state lines.
In one scene, Walters recounts how her husband taunted her with a plate of meatballs, saying that her daughter could eat only if she (Deanna) told the truth about having been unfaithful to him, a constant source of paranoia. Unsatisfied with her response, he then beat her with a flashlight.
Just as the meatballs were about to fall onto the floor, she grabbed them and fed them to her daughter while he continued to hit her.
It makes for grim viewing, but it’s moving to watch Walters have her day in court. Her ex-husband is now serving a 20-year sentence for domestic violence and kidnapping.
“Private Violence” premieres Monday at 9 p.m. on HBO.