Well before her husband began abusing her, Jordan Wulf had considered what she would do if a man hurt her. She believed she'd be ready if abuse happened.
“Our parents tell us to have respect for ourselves, and if a man ever lays hands on you, you leave, you don't put up with that. You're better than that,” she said. “But what a lot of parents don't tell you is that not everybody shows their true colors on the first date, or the second date, or even the first year.”
The first time Wulf’s husband physically abused her was after an argument. He was upset that she was going out of town for a work trip, and ultimately pushed Wulf, who was six months pregnant with their second son, down the stairs.
Wulf was in shock. After he profusely apologized, she concluded it was an accident and that he had lost hist temper.
But that push down the stairs and her acceptance of his excuse was the start. “That was definitely the stepping stone for him to kind of know what he could do and I would still be there and forgive him,” she said.
There are plenty of safety precautions women take that men may never think about, such as carrying pepper spray, watching their drink at a bar, checking their car in a parking garage, not listening to music while walking late at night and texting friends when they get home safely.
While women and girls are taught to be aware of their surroundings in the case of a random act of violence, they're much more likely to experience violence from someone they know than a stranger.
“One in two women and 40% of men are likely to experience violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime,” said Maria Corona, executive director of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “And so we have to rethink about how we talk to our boys and girls about safety, because the sad reality is that they are at higher risks of experiencing harm and violence by someone they love and are in a relationship with.”
Dangers in domestic relationships
After 20 years of marriage, in 2022 Wulf’s husband held her hostage in their home for 11 days. During that time, he repeatedly beat her and raped her. He is now in prison.
There was continued abuse before 2022, enabled after the initial push down the stairs. But in Wulf's case, the couple's shared finances, children (her second was born without ill effects and they later had a third) and shared home complicated the idea of leaving.
Limiting their ability to have a job or access to their bank accounts or their paychecks, that's a huge problem for victims of domestic violence, and we don't often think about these tactics as a form of abuse, because we don't physically see them.Maria Corona, executive director of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Corona said coercive control is at the heart of many cases of domestic violence.
“Limiting their ability to have a job or access to their bank accounts or their paychecks, that's a huge problem for victims of domestic violence, and we don't often think about these tactics as a form of abuse, because we don't physically see them,” Corona said.
The best way for women to prevent that coercive control is to be empowered to continue their education and be financially independent.
Survivors can be saddled with debt from a financially abusive partner, or have an eviction charge on their record for leaving a property they are tied to with their abuser. Corona said more can be done at the policy level to remove these additional burdens to leaving.
As a domestic abuse survivor, Wulf shares her story with high school students and encourages open dialogues between children and their parents about how abuse can occur in intimate relationships.
“We need to kind of open up the definition of what rape is and teach women that it can be trusted partners, and realistically it's going to be,” she said.
Wulf also said the culture around raising young men needs to change.
“A lot of young men nowadays, they have this sense of entitlement that they can have whatever they want. I think we need to get back to having people respect one another, respect people's boundaries,” she said.
Wulf said in raising her sons, she emphasizes the importance of respecting the person you are with.
Men involved in random acts of violence
Despite many men rarely considering their own physical safety when moving about the world, they are about twice as likely as women to be the victim of violence perpetrated by a stranger.
That was the case for Malik Sheets, who was fatally shot in June 2020, essentially for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“He was the shining example of what you would want your child to be,” said his father, Carlos Sheets. “I mean, essentially, he always stayed out of trouble. He always had the best of grades, was in all the extracurricular activities, and he was also a really good big brother.”
Carlos said Malik was out enjoying a night with friends at a few graduation parties when a couple men came in with guns and told the guests not to ask any questions.
“They knew the gals that were throwing the party, and they were jealous possibly that they were hanging out there, and that's maybe the precursor why they got so upset,” Carlos said. “But obviously my son didn't know anything about that. They just came over to hang out and have a good time.”
Carlos said he taught his kids to look out for each other and be aware of their surroundings, but he doesn't think there's anything he could have said or done to prevent his death.
“Not being able to protect him or him protect himself in a situation we had no really control over is mind boggling. I still can't settle with how to move past that part.”
Shifting the conversation around violence
According to experts on gender-based violence, education about violence and violence prevention needs to be reframed.
Corona said right now the burden of violence prevention is largely placed on women.
“We tell our girls to make sure that they always hold their drink when they're at the bar and be careful,” she said. “And make sure that you have your keys between your fingers in order to protect yourself, etc. These are just constant reminders and burdens that are placed on girls and women because of this normalization and added attitudes of accepting violence against girls and women.”
But it shouldn't be a burden carried by women. Cody Howell, student care coordinator at the University of Iowa, said young boys need to learn ways to process emotions and resolve conflict that don’t involve violence.
We oftentimes socialize men and boys to respond to uncertainty or aggression with aggression, with anger, with fighting. That becomes the norm.Cody Howell, student care coordinator at the University of Iowa
“We teach young men and boys that the first way that you deal with those feelings is to not deal with them directly, but instead, either push them down — and that becomes internalized violence against ourselves; we use that with our drinking, our drug habits, harming oneself — or external violence against other people,” Howell said. “And that could be violence against our intimate partners, that could be violence against the people that we feel wronged us. We don't allow for any sort of processing or emotional maturity to create an option for nonviolent resolution.”
The use of drugs and alcohol by young men can make them especially reactive when conflict arises too.
“We oftentimes socialize men and boys to respond to uncertainty or aggression with aggression, with anger, with fighting. That becomes the norm,” Howell said. “And so instead of walking away, instead of seeking help, it's more of a, ‘let's fight back.’”
Howell said helping young boys and men to process the full range of human emotions is an important task for parents, mentors and teachers. That includes teaching and learning how to handle rejection.
“While it's not every man is going to perpetrate violence, every man is in a position to create safety and create a safer environment,” he said. “So if they don't want to see themselves as the bad guy, what they can do is stand up and do something right.”
