Ever since February 2009, when R&B singer Chris Brown was arrested for beating his girlfriend, pop superstar Rihanna, in a car on a late night in Los Angeles, domestic abuse has been thrust into the spotlight. The topic is discussed seemingly round-the-clock, but motivational speaker, TV personality and model Lady Emmy realized that it may have sparked a discussion about abuse, but it didn’t necessarily spark the right conversation — nor did it get the right people talking about the issue.
Lady Emmy, who speaks nationally about women’s issues, says the discussion of abuse needs to be modified to include younger people.
“When young people think about domestic violence and abuse, they think of it as an adult issue,” says Emmy. “Typically, when you see domestic violence and hear about domestic violence, those conversations are adult [conversations]. Kids don’t see themselves that way. They see it as ‘fighting.’ When children discuss what we as adults would consider an abusive relationship, they say ‘Those two fight all the time.’ In a teenager’s mind, they don’t view it as domestic violence. We’ve made a lot of [strides] but we haven’t spent enough time focusing on what [teen abuse] looks like and how to prevent it amongst teenagers.”
Emmy believes that young women find themselves in abusive relationships typically because they are searching for identity and lack self-esteem.
“A lot of times when a woman has poor self-esteem, the type of men she’ll accept and the type of relationships she’ll allow herself to get into are definitely [reflective of] that. … And vice versa, when she has high self-esteem, she’ll put herself in better situations and make better choices about men and the relationships she’ll be involved in and the things she will accept in her life. A lot of young women will try to find an identity in a relationship. And it’s typically the wrong relationship,” says Emmy.
“With young women who find themselves in an abusive relationship, the easy answer on the outside looking in is that you [can] always get yourself out of the situation …,” Emmy explains. “For young women that are dating, it’s so much easier for them to [break free] from a situation. But they don’t connect and see it that way. A lot of times it comes with being inexperienced at relationships.”
–todd williams
For more information, please visit www.LadyEmmy.com.
