Violence against women: understanding to change | Manuela Ulivi | TEDxMilano

"I loved him, and I thought I could change him"
There are wars fought in our homes, they are everyday wars. They are underground, and create paralysis and pain. They are the actions of violent men against women. Lawyer Manuela Ulivi has been dealing with women's rights since 1991 and leads us to understand the "cycle of violence" and why we must change not only on the society but by starting from our education and from how we interface with each other.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

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Faced with this image,
you won't be indifferent, I know,

because this is an image of war

and evokes many feelings.

It's not just the war that destroys,

that creates disasters,

that creates wounds.

It is a war that elicits

very, very strong feelings.

Why did I choose this picture
to introduce my theme?

Because I would like you to focus
precisely on these feelings,

which are not only devastation,
but dismay also,

desperation, astonishnent and fear.

This is felt by a lot of women

in an underground war
that's alongside us every day,

one I discovered almost by chance.

It was 1990,

I approached some lawyers

who contested what then was a US decision

to attack Iraq, to attack oil countries,

and we were lawyers for peace.

And there we contested
that arrogant domination approach

they wanted to impose.

I don't know if any of you remember,

people were talking
of a possible Third World War,

the Gulf War.

Back then, a woman
approached me at an assembly

where we talked about all these things,

and she said to me,

"Why don't you join our association?

We are establishing a group of women

that take care of other women
who are suffering from violence."

I was immediately intrigued.

I went, I accepted this invitation

and I really discovered
an underground war,

a war that women were talking us about,

but compared to today
it was still unknown and unspoken.

But who were these women?

They were many types of women.

There was a lot of prejudice,

it was thought they only were
desperate women,

without resources, abilities, education.

Actually, this was not the case.

I even found some of my colleagues

who told me about episodes of violence

that always sound unbelievable.

Housewives, managers, freelancers,

lower class, middle class
and upper class people,

people with good economic status.

It is typically thought,

if someone has a good status,
is less likely to be influenced.

It's not true.

We immediately said,
this violence was transversal.

And so why was it still existing?

An aphorism comes to help me:

"Almost anything is easier to get into
than to get out of."

It's really true: in fact,
we listened to all those stories

and then we said:

"How do we help these women,
so that they can escape violence,

joining them and supporting them?"

So we started studying what could be done

in a careful, competent
and also scientific way.

But everything always came to us
from the stories of the women.

The "cycle of violence" was studied
in the late 70s in the US,

by Lenore Walker, who was a therapist.

After listening to so many women,
she elaborated it

and brought to everyone's attention.

how these stories can develop.

So, what is the cycle of violence?

She tells us how you enter this tunnel,
and how difficult it is to leave it.

There is the first phase,
called "Tension Building",

which is about provocation,

where there are many
particular moments where -

By the way, every story is different.

There is the woman who tells us

about a not-so-tasty pasta,
or something like that,

taken with the dish
and thrown into the waste bin.

Or the pasta thrown over the woman's head.

I'm quoting stories
I personally listened to.

And one wonders, why should a woman
stick with such a situation?

This is the first question
a woman is generally asked.

Well, I'd like to bring you
the voice of a woman I assisted

and who escaped violence,
and I'd like her to tell you,

because she explained very clearly,
right in front of a judge, what drove her.

Woman: "Because I loved him,
and I thought he could change".

MU: Because I loved him,
and I thought he could change.

This is just as typical.

One says,

"Well, that's weird: how come these women
put themselves in this situation?"

Yet, we must come to terms
also with our emotions.

And the other thing?

You go through a phase
where the tension builds,

and small or bold provocations are thrown,

to one where the tension erupts.

It erupts with an aggression -

but make no mistake,
it's not just a physical assault.

There may also be verbal aggression,

maybe also scaring people
through the breaking of objects,

through the slamming of doors,

through a whole series of acts
that lead to the person saying,

"Here I decide what to do
and how it is done."

And so, this is the phase
where, after the initial confusion,

you arrive at dismay,

because the very person who loves you
is doing that to you,

it is a person that you maybe
entrusted with many confidences,

they're a piece of your life.

And so, how to react to dismay?

Let me bring you again
the voice of this woman.

"I always nurtured a hope
that it was also my fault,

and that this would not have happened,
had I behaved differently."

I repeat, she says:

"I nurtured a hope
that it was also my fault".

Gosh.

A sentence that should make you shudder.

When I heard it and read it,
in the criminal trial,

I thought I misread it.

In reality this is how it is.

She hopes it's like this
to be able to escape it.

The problem is that you don't escape,
because - guess what happens?

There is the so-called "Honeymoon" phase,

which is perhaps, in the end,
the most dangerous one,

even more dangerous than aggression,

because it makes a woman think

that regret and loving care,

which the violent subject now shows,

to save a situation
he's perhaps losing control of,

maybe will make him change.

Maybe something will happen
so there will be no more,

that situation won't be repeated.

What Leonor Walker tells us instead is,
this is a recurring phase of a cycle,

it's a tunnel

and when we intercept women
we would like them in that stage,

between the honeymoon and the abuses,

to decide, because that is
the right time to escape,

it’s the moment when dismay
turns into fear,

the feelings of a war re-emerge,

and something can be changed.

Instead, the cycle starts back again

if you don't escape
and if you believe in that regret.

I'd like you to hear her voice,
for the last time.

Woman: "What was beyond me
is how he, after our quarrels,

where he harshly insulted me,
'Fuck you, bitch',

horrible words of all kinds,

after he calmed down,
he wanted to have sex with me.

And I couldn't say no,

otherwise everything
would start all over again."

She had already taken into account
the impossibility to say no,

otherwise it would
have started all over again.

A paralyzing fear,
for a woman in this situation

and allows violent people to get by.

In all these phases,
when it comes to abuse,

when the cycle starts again,

the abuse that comes next time,

I always say so the all the women I meet,

will be increasingly severe,

so running away as soon as possible
is absolutely important.

And what are the numbers for Italy
about gender violence?

You may even have heard them already.

One woman out of three,
16 to 70, has suffered violence,

and they're seven million women,
says our National Institute of Statistics.

four and half milion of whom
experienced sexual harassment

and for more than a million underwent
even more serious forms of violence,

like rapes or attempted rapes.

This is the situation of the numbers.

These numbers are robust,
repeat themselves,

and we have brought to light

also with the work
of women's help centres.

But with our work,
we also highlighted the costs.

Because we must also
ask ourselves this question:

what happens, when a woman
is stuck in a violent relationship?

Many things happen,
also in the outer world,

like going to the E.R.,

requiring a therapist, taking medications,

calling the police,
maybe she will sue him.

Suing seems to be a silver bullet,
but it is not necessarily the case.

Very often it is not, unfortunately.

There are courts

constantly at work on cases like this.

There are all the legal costs,
the costs of social services

and women's crisis centres
that play their part.

And all these costs are multiplied
by the productivity factor,

because a woman under violence

will no longer be the same person,
socially speaking,

she can't be as productive

as someone that is, more or less,
living their life peacefully.

What is the result of this operation?

It has been estimated, 26 billion euros.

And we believe,
this is also underestimated;

I'm talking about Italy,
not about the world, of course.

And in 2017 in Italy,

about 50,000 women
went to a women's crisis centre.

You understand, numbers don't match.

They should all be reconsidered,

and shortly I will also tell you how,

in order to involve all of us
in what we can do,

even if we don't work
in a women's crisis centre.

Why?

Because we would also like
to see you, women especially,

in our centre, maybe to help us.

Thre are many ways you can help
women's crisis centres,

but I'm not here today
to ask for this kind of help.

It's not a personal help,
nor a financial aid,

from the point of view of being there
and of supporting us,

because that's what one generally does
when it comes to violence.

What I would like to ask you

it is to help us all

cut this number of women

who are forced to turn
to women's crisis centres.

How, you might ask?

Well, that's a situation
we must evaluate all together,

because today we're talking about changes

and we have to think that, unfortunately,

no big changes on the matter
were seen recently.

That's because even the top manager,

even a skilled person
with financial and cultural resources

can be involved in this situation,

because it is a matter
of intimate relationships.

It is said, violence is a relationship,

is determined by a relationship
of domination between genders.

If this is true, let's think about it,

because there's prevention,
which is important for us.

What does prevention consist of?

We can all do prevention,
starting with education,

with the education of our children.

I always say, there are stereotypes
that we are still unable to shake off.

Boys are told, "Don't cry like a sissy",

Boys go for football, rugby,

boys practise sports, let's say,
with a certain strength, virulence;

girls are told instead, don't be a tomboy.

Behave yourself. Be polite. Be nice.

Be nice, mostly.

When we do all this -

Many women, many girls go to dance school,

the dance for little girls
is now the whole world.

So when we take these steps,

we risk having built

a structure that leads
that man or that woman,

that future man, that future woman

to be able to enter
the violence mechanism.

Because it is a mechanism
where one dominates

and the other one is victim.

So, be careful,

surely here, in this room,

there are people who have either
suffered violence

or have acted violently.

And, if statistics can be trusted,

as I believe,

we should start asking ourselves
questions about how we behave,

and this is the first uncomfortable thing
I'm going to tell you.

Because if we continue behaving like this,

we will also be accomplices
of certain forms of violence.

If we ignore, for example, what happens
between a female friend or colleague

and the male colleague,
who may behave incorrectly -

or worse, aggressively,

because, anyway, "you can say
many things to a woman",

she is not going to react
much like a man would.

So, let's lay the groundwork for this.

What I'm asking you is to change,

to change our way of thinking,

knowing that women are inside
the cycle of violence

also because sometimes
we turn our head away

or because we have "designed"
a manner for women

to be within those types
of situations and relationships.

Hence, we should change our minds
for changing our actions

and maybe everyone will be
a little more free and happy.

Thank you.

(Applause)