“He drank a lot and sometimes I would razz him a little,” she said. “He sometimes got frustrated with something I said and held on to it.
And later, when we were alone, he would bring it up and it would start with him pushing me.”
The well-spoken 40-ish woman on the other end of the telephone was describing her first college boyfriend, and the “it” that would start with him pushing her was physical abuse.
She had met him at a dance when she was a 17-year-old freshman and he was a 19-year-old junior. Their social lives revolved around the Jewish sorority and fraternity they belonged to at their large university and they had a close circle of friends in its not-so-large Greek system.
“Esther,” who preferred that her real name not be used, told The Chronicle her story in anticipation of the Sunday, May 6, “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” fundraising event aimed to help stop rape, sexual assault and gender violence.
The event was initiated by Jewish Family Services’ Chai, the Jewish Coalition on Interpersonal Violence and will benefit JFS, along with Sojourner Truth House and the Task Force on Family Violence.
Esther is also doing her part to stop such abuse by talking about her experiences. For her, abuse began as a child, when she witnessed her father emotionally abusing her mother.
“My father put her down all the time, [attacking] everything from her mothering skills to how she looked as a woman.”
He abused Esther to a lesser extent, thanks to her mother’s efforts to protect her.
“He definitely put me in the middle between him and my mother. He held money over me, threatening not to pay for college. I lied about my grades because the emotional repercussions were very stressful,” she said.
Esther’s boyfriend’s father had also physically abused him.
Toward the end of that first college relationship, which lasted about two years, Esther said, there were two episodes that scared her and helped her see that what was happening to her was not right.
Some two months before she stopped seeing him, she said, “he pushed me and I fell over a coffee table and I hit my head on the floor. I realized I could have been seriously injured and he probably wouldn’t have helped me.”
Then, in what was to be the last straw for Esther, he humiliated her in front of their friends. He had been drinking again and his driving alarmed her. She asked him to be more careful.
“He ordered me out of the car in front of a fraternity house and drove off, hitting me with the car door and knocking me down with the car.
This occurred in front of our friends and I was bruised up and my dress was torn.”
Some older fraternity boys who witnessed this episode told Esther they had been watching him do this to her for two years and she needed to make it stop.
In addition, a professor and fraternity “house father,” who was also Jewish and who knew her from a class she had taken with him, pulled her aside and told her that this wasn’t good for anyone involved.
“Within two months. I got the strength to break it off,” Esther said.
“That boyfriend’s temper and family history and my family history were a lethal combination for both of us.”
After that, Esther fell in love with a young man who was subsequently killed in a car accident. Reeling from this loss and in a depression, she got involved with another member of a Jewish fraternity at her university, who was emotionally, but not physically abusive.
This relationship was more like that of her parents, she said. It lasted about three years, but midway through it, Esther left college for an internship in another place.
That three-month period “was the beginning of the end,” she said. “I got a lot of positive feedback and built self-esteem during this period. When I got back to school I realized this [relationship] was not good.”
That relationship came to a natural end shortly after she graduated. But Esther searched for answers to her relationship problems and worked with “a number of great therapists,” she said.
While a graduate student, she saw “a wonderful therapist who helped me with my self-esteem, she said. ”She helped me recognize the signs that I was feeling controlled and [learn] what to do to keep myself safe.”
Now happily married and working in a social service profession, Esther has never been in an abusive relationship again.
“I have made it my personal mission to make sure that women and children, and men as well, are in relationships where they won’t be hurt and where they learn the skills they need to protect themselves and thrive.”
After doing this work for some 20 years, she believes that self-esteem needs to be taught from kindergarten.
“Though there is a lot more outreach now, women’s studies courses are needed in high school,” she said.
One way to help someone who may be experiencing abuse, Esther suggests, is to acknowledge what you’re seeing. “Say, ‘I’m scared by what I’m seeing.’ It will help her see that it’s not right, that he should not be doing this to her.”
Esther is not alone. One in four women has been sexually assaulted by age 25, according to Hirsh Larkey, Jewish Family Services’ director of psychological services.
“People just don’t have a sense of how pervasive domestic and sexual violence are in our society,” he said.
And now it’s time for men to take action, Larkey believes.
“For many, many years women have carried the torch in the efforts to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault. But there is an important role for men and it’s time for us to step up to the plate.”
To that end, men, women and children from throughout Milwaukee will gather on Sunday for “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes,” in which participants will walk, some wearing high-heeled women’s shoes.
Presented by Verizon Wireless, the event will begin with registration at 9:30 and 10:30 a.m., at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union Concourse. The kickoff ceremony will take place at 10:45 a.m. and the walk will begin at 11 a.m.
Registration is $25 for adults/team members, $15 for students, and includes bagels and coffee, a T-shirt, high-heeled shoes (for men) and team photos and prizes for the team that raises the most money. Children 12 and under are free.
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