Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Summary:

Each year, millions of women throughout the world experience violence and abuse at the hands of their intimate partner. Abusers coercively control them by using a variety of tactics ranging from physical or sexual violence to emotional or psychological abuse. An additional tactic often used includes financial abuse in which the abuser controls the money in the family, exploits the victim's financial standing, and interrupts her efforts to be self-sufficient. The impact of financial abuse can leave women financially trapped in the relationship with limited financial management skills, knowledge, or self-confidence. Indeed, survivors often mention financial barriers as a top reason for keeping them trapped by the abuser in the relationship. The work of financial empowerment is critical not only to ensure the long-term safety of survivors but also to assist survivors in gaining long-term economic stability. Curiously, little of the research on domestic violence has sought to either fully understand the impact of financial abuse or to determine which intervention strategies are most effective toward the financial empowerment of survivors. Building Financial Empowerment for Survivors of Domestic Violence aims to address this critical knowledge gap by providing those who work with survivors of domestic violence with practical knowledge on how to empower the financial well-being and stability of survivors. Specifically, every practitioner, human service provider, criminal justice practitioner, financial manager, and corporate supervisor should be screening the women they encounter for economic abuse, and when such abuse is found, then work with the women toward developing financial safety plans, and referring survivors to financial empowerment programs to assist survivors to become free from abuse--

Summary:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography describing the early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother and ends when Maya becomes a mother at the age of 16. In the course of Caged Bird, Maya transforms from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to prejudice--Wikipedia, viewed November 2, 2020.

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In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.

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Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting Emily Doe on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral, was translated globally, and read on the floor of Congress. It inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Now Miller reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. She tells of her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial, reveals the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios, and illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators--Publisher's description.

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At 28, Stephanie Land's plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and with a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly. She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) coupons to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance while she didn't feel lucky at all. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. Maid explores the secret underbelly of upper middle class Americans and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them. I'd become a nameless ghost, Stephanie writers about her relationship with her clients, many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients' lives - their sadness and love, too - she begins to find hope in her own path. Her compassionate, unflinching writing as a journalist gives voice to the servant worker, and those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. Maid is Stephanie's story, but it's not hers alone. It is an inspiring testament of the strength, determination, and ultimate triumph of the human spirit--Publisher's description.

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Collection of poetry.

Summary:

A seminal and breathtaking account of why home is the most dangerous place to be a woman ... ' tour de force.--Eve EnslerTerrifying, courageous reportage from our internal war zone, a fair and balanced telling of an unfair and unbalanced crisis in American family life.--Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning, bestselling author of The Noonday Demon, Far From the Tree, and Far and AwayGut-wrenching, required reading.-EsquireAn award-winning journalist's intimate investigation of the true scope of domestic violence, revealing how the roots of America's most pressing social crises are buried in abuse that happens behind closed doors. We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it a global epidemic. In America, domestic violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, and yet it remains locked in silence, even as its tendrils reach unseen into so many of our most pressing national issues, from our economy to our education system, from mass shootings to mass incarceration to #MeToo. We still have not taken the true measure of this problem. In No Visible Bruises, journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don't know we're seeing. She frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths-that if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.

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Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe, a Coast Salish indigenous woman, has always longed for a sense of home. As a child her family moved around frequently, often staying in barely habitable church attics and trailers, dangerous places for young Sasha. As an adolescent determined to escape the poverty and abuse of her childhood in order to build a better future for herself and her people, Sasha throws herself headlong into the world, with little more to guide her than a passion for the thriving punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and a desire to live up to the responsibility of being the namesake of her beloved great-grandmother, a linguist who helped preserve her indigenous language of Lushootseed and one in a long line of powerful ancestors. Exploring what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art while offering an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas as well as the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples, Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience and above all the ability to heal that chronicles Sasha's struggles navigating a collapsing marriage while answering the call to greater purpose. Set against a backdrop of tour vans and the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk--an ethos that challenges us to reclaim what's rightfully ours: our histories, our power, our traditions, and our truths--Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to heal while fighting for our right to a place to call home.--

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A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score , he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments?from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga?that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal?and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

Summary:

A trauma revolution is quietly sweeping social services in the United States. For women who have experienced domestic violence, proving that you are a good victim is no longer enough when navigating these institutions. Women must also show that they are recovering, as if domestic violence were a disease: they must show that they are transforming from victims into survivors. Through archival research, life story interviews, and participation observation, The Politics of Surviving shows that becoming a survivor is full of contradictions, perils, politics, and pleasures. Using an intersectional lens, Paige L. Sweet reveals how the idea of resilience and being a survivor can become a coercive force in women's lives. With nuance and compassion, The Politics of Surviving wrestles with questions about the gendered nature of the welfare state, the unintended consequences of feminist mobilizations for these programs, and the women who are left behind by the limited forms of citizenship we offer them--

Summary:

In a major new work of synthesis, the author of Father-Daughter Incest extends her ground-breaking work to explore the psychological consequences of the full range of traumatic life events. Integrating clinical and social perspective without sacrificing either the complexity of individual experience or the breadth of political context, Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually.

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An anthology of powerfully honest and intimate letters written by trans and non-binary survivors of sexual violence, offering support and guidance to fellow survivors with additional resources for allies and professionals--