| Rural Battered Women:
Isolation |
| Battered
women everywhere have experienced isolation as controlled
by their partner. But for some women, for rural battered
women, isolation becomes magnified by their environment.
Geographical isolation and other factors are a profound
reality for rural battered women that must be remembered
in our advocacy.
Consider the following:
- Rural
battered women may not have phone service.
- Usually
no public transportation exists, so if she leaves
she must use a family vehicle.
- Police and medical
response may be a long time arriving.
- Rural areas
have fewer resouces available - jobs, child care,
housing, health care, social
services,
legal/judicial
resources; or access to them is limited by
distance.
- Extreme weather conditions often exaggerate
isolation - cold, snow, and mud regularly
affect life in
rural areas and may extend periods of isolation
with an
abusive partner.
- Poor roads further thwart
transportation.
- Seasonal work may mean months
of unemployment and result in women being trapped
with
abusive partners
for long periods of time.
- Hunting weapons
are common to rural homes and everyday tools are
potential
accessible
weapons:
axes, chain,
mauls.
- Alcohol use often increases
in winter months when people are unemployed
and isolated
in their homes
- the use
or abuse of alcohol or drugs often
affect the frequency and severity
of abuse.
- Rural women may not see
a neighbor for a week or longer, especially
in winter
- after
a snowstorm
or when kids
are sick, family members are
house-bound and stress
builds up.
- Bruises may fade or
heal before she sees a neighbor, and working
with
farm tools
and equipment
provides
an excuse for injuries.
- Farm
families are often one-income families and a woman
frequently
has no money of
her own to
support
herself
and her kids.
- Family finances
are often tied up in land an equipment.
A
woman thinking
of ending
a relationship
faces an
agonizing reality that
she and her partner may lose
the family
farm,
and
he may
end up with
no job or
means of income.
- Restraining
orders are less viable for rural women
because
men cannot
be kept
away from
the farm if
it is their source of
income.
- Rural women frequently
have strong emotional
ties to
the land and
to farm animals
- if she feels a
strong
attachment to her animals
she fears they may
be neglected or harmed.
- Rural women are usually
an integral part
of a family farm business.
If she leaves
the business
may fail.
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