Domestic Terror and Coronavirus

1 June

How The Crisis Has Intensified The War On Women

Written By: Rose A. and Drey N.

The world is reeling from the brutal reality of Covid-19. It has killed hundreds of thousands of poor and marginalised people, changed daily life as we know it, and brought the fragile world capitalist economy to its knees. But the effects of stay-at-home orders, while necessary for the health of people, has brought about disturbing realities for victims of domestic abuse whose lives and well-being have been put in greater danger. What are the factors that contribute to this in the present crisis and how does the structure of capitalist society interact with these? Is the reality of domestic terror just a “human inevitability” or is it something we have the power to fundamentally abolish?

“Women who have lost their jobs or been forced to work from home may now face spending 24 hours a day in the presence of their abusive partner”

As orders to work from home and self-isolate are introduced by governments around the world, more and more women in abusive relationships become trapped at home with their partners. An article from late March reports that in France, reports of domestic violence had increased by 30% since the country went into lockdown. [1] Women who have lost their jobs or been forced to work from home may now face spending 24 hours a day in the presence of their abusive partner, making it difficult for them to get the privacy necessary to reach out for help. Women can become cut off from support networks such as other family and friends as they are unable to travel to see them.

The crisis also presents new opportunities for abuse, such as:

Telling their partner that they have COVID to prevent them from leaving the house [2]
Using COVID as a scare tactic to cut their partner off from children, family or friends
Withholding medical supplies such as masks and hand sanitiser or preventing them from seeking medical help if they become sick
Manipulating their partner about the facts surrounding COVID
Blaming their partner for the COVID crisis for whatever reason [3]

Factors that make escape from domestic violence harder include unemployment and disproportionately high casual/part time[4] and low paying work[5] and the financial dependency that creates, as well as a lack of access to housing. All of these factors have been compounded by COVID. Many industries highly populated by women, such as retail and hospitality, have experienced industry-wide shutdowns, leaving hundreds of thousands of Australians unemployed, many without income. Housing unaffordability remains an issue like always, and women who may have become dependent on their partner for income cannot access the funds necessary to secure housing. Shelters are often communal spaces where disease can easily be spread due to lack of space and hygiene, and shelters become even less practical if a woman has children with her that now must be schooled online.

All the above factors have something crucial in common: they are all intrinsically tied to private property. Whether a victim is a working woman who earns less than her partner, a full-time domestic labourer, and/or the mother of dependent children, all share the capitalist tendency of financial dependency. Abused working-class people have little recourse materially or socially when they need to escape. The stories of “housewives” with no income severing ties with their abuser only to be shunned from their communities and living in conditions of squalor, barely able to make ends meet is a trope for a reason. According to research by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, when a man leaves a childless marriage, his income rises by 25% while women suffer a sharp fall in income that rarely reaches pre-divorce levels.[6] This inequality is only compounded if there are children involved as raising kids on a single mother’s income is difficult.

“The underlying social relationship, the exploitation of the wage labourer, has the concealed mythology of “freedom” and “equal exchange” surrounding it”

When male chauvinism exists in a household it is reflective of how deep-rooted bourgeois ideology is, even among working class men who are taught the myth by the ruling class that since he controls the family funds and is master of the house he too is a mini property owner despite just being a wage slave. The underlying social relationship, the exploitation of the wage labourer, has the concealed mythology of “freedom” and “equal exchange” surrounding it. Be it of wages by the capitalist or love by the patriarchal benefactor - the root cause is the same.

It is essential that we start survival programs to help protect people from domestic violence within our current capitalist system, but that we don’t stop there. The first step is building stronger communities through collective organisation and action. Domestic Violence programs should be started by communities, initiatives like the Community Union Defence League (CUDL) ‘Freedom Van’, a free moving service for people escaping domestic violence.[7] Community housing projects that provide safe housing for people at risk of homelessness are an important initiative. Community childcare programs should also be investigated as a means of socialising the domestic labour that often falls to women. These survival programs are necessary for us to construct now, but ultimately they are not enough. What we need is a socialised economy, with guaranteed housing, food, shelter and hygiene. Women need economic independence, not just from their partners that exploit them but from the capitalists that currently exploit us all.