Intimate partner violence (IPV), including femicide, is nothing new. A recent book, The Castleton Massacre, explores a little-known case of long-term IPV that ended in a multiple femicide in a small Ontario town in 1963. At that time, IPV was not talked about, there were no services for women, men who abused their partners were seldom held to account by the criminal law or social conventions, the terms criminal harassment, stalking and coercive control had yet to be created, and it was difficult for a woman to obtain a divorce.
Robert Killins, a one-time United Church minister, abused his wife, Florence, for many years. She left him, taking their young daughter, Pearl, in the late 1940s. Despite moving halfway across the country, she was not able to escape her husband. Florence had a long-term relationship with another man, with whom she had three more children and, after he died, entered another relationship. Killins managed to live very close to wherever Florence and Pearl lived, and came and went from their house as he pleased, monitoring their every move. So closely did he entwine himself with her life that her subsequent children thought he was their father.
It appeared that everyone in the family was terrified of him, and Florence had no systems to turn to for assistance. To many in the community, Killins was the sympathetic, wronged husband, who was simply trying to look out for his wife and child, while Florence was the bad wife, living in sin with a man to whom she was not married.
On May 2, 1963, Killins shot and killed Florence, his sister, Gladys, who was visiting at the time and who was an ally of Florence, his daughter, Pearl, and Patsy, one of Florence’s daughters from her subsequent relationship. Both Florence and Pearl were pregnant when they were murdered. Florence’s son and other daughter managed to escape. At the inquests that followed, no mention was made of the history of abuse and stalking.
Obviously, many things have changed for the better since the time of this femicide/familicide. Women have formal equal rights, stalking is a criminal offence, either spouse can seek a divorce without the permission of the other, common-law relationships are not frowned upon, many family laws explicitly acknowledge family violence. Hundreds of shelters across the country offer refuge and safety to women like Florence and their children, and the violence that happens in families is no longer a forbidden topic of conversation.
Despite these improvements, many women whose partners abuse them continue to feel trapped, just as Florence did. Their former partner may not be living in a shack next to their house but, thanks to the stalking opportunities presented by today’s technology, for some women it feels as though he is living right in their house.
Blaming the victim
Too often, women are judged when they don’t leave the relationship immediately upon the first act of abuse. In effect, they are blamed for whatever happens to them because they stayed or returned to the abuser or because they did not call the police.
It’s past time to turn this conversation around so we stop blaming women for the abuse to which they are subjected. Simply put, women stay or return because systems fail to keep them safe. Crazy as it sounds, for some women it is actually safer to stay than to go.
We know that IPV does not end just because the relationship ends. As Ontario’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee has reported – repeatedly — actual or pending separation is the most dangerous time for a woman who decides to flee an abusive partner. The homicide risk increases six-fold as soon as the abuser knows or believes his partner is leaving.
In other words, the mere decision to leave increases the possibility that a woman will be killed by her partner. Under those circumstances, staying can look like a better option.
It’s not just lethal violence that increases upon separation. Many abusers increase their controlling and threatening behaviours in an attempt to convince their partner it is better for her to return than to stay out of the relationship and/or to get back at her for leaving.
Because the abuser no longer has ready access to his partner in the privacy of the family home, post-separation abuse often looks quite different from the abuse that went on during the relationship. Verbal abuse, threats, stalking and intimidation often increase. The abuse moves out of the family home and into the woman’s workplace, the children’s school or day-care centre and community places where the abuser knows he can find her.
He may take out a membership at her gym and show up when he knows she will be there, suddenly begin attending her religious institution, interfere with her social life and/or appear at events with her extended family.
The abuser may be verbally abusive in front of the children, emotionally manipulate the children to feel sorry for him or get them to spy on their mother for him.
Technology-enabled abuse also often escalates post-separation. The abuser may stalk the woman online, post intimate or embarrassing images of her, install spyware on her phone or in the home, place a tracking device on her car and/or threaten her via text and email.
System failure
There are many good reasons in addition to safety why a woman would decide to stay with or return to an abusive partner, many of which are because the systems to which she turns for support fail her.
The lack of safe, appropriate and affordable housing across Canada, especially in rural and remote communities, makes it very hard for a woman – particularly if she has children – to leave her partner. Lack of adequate social assistance creates financial barriers for a woman who wants to maintain a decent standard of living for her children.
Police response to post-separation abuse is inadequate at best, which leaves women on their own to try to stay safe.
Women with children are not well supported in the family law system, where there is still an attitude that children should spend equal amounts of time with both parents. When a woman raises the issue of IPV and takes steps to ensure her kids are safe, it is not uncommon for her partner to allege that she has alienated the children from him, thus shifting the court’s attention away from his abuse of her to this allegation.
Even if a woman is able to get a restraining or protection order, having it enforced can be very challenging, especially if she lives in an isolated area where police response times are slow.
One woman I worked with explained to me why she decided to return to her partner:
“At least when I was with him, I knew his patterns and could take steps to protect myself and my kids from the worst of it. Now, I never know what he’s going to do, or when or where it’s going to happen. I lost my job because he caused so much trouble there. He showed up at my dad’s 75th birthday party and assaulted my brother when he told him to leave. He screams at me in front of the kids. He stalks me online and hacks into my social media accounts. I can’t find anywhere decent to live, and the kids miss our old neighbourhood and their friends. I’ve stopped calling the police because they never do anything.”
More than 75 years ago, Florence Killins left her husband to make a better life for herself and her daughter, only to find that she could not escape his violence. We should have made more progress by now: it should never be safer for a woman to stay with an abuser than to leave him.
e need to be able to offer women and children a situation in which staying is safer than leaving.