‘Womenspace’ helps clients gain control
By DAWN GARCIA
Of the Emerald
Linda had been home only a few minutes when
she heard the front door slam. She hadn’t started
dinner because her biology lab had run late, and
something in her stomach quivered.
Mike stepped into the kitchen, expecting to smell
dinner. This was the last straw in a trying day, and his
self-restraint snapped.
"What kind of house is this to come home to," he
yelled. Mike became more enraged as he saw his two
small children drawing away from him in fear.
"This isn't even a home!” he shouted, grabbing
and shaking Linda.
For the third time that week, Mike slapped Linda
hard and threw her against the kitchen wall.
A 1979 government study on home violence
found that 50 percent of American wives are victims of
domestic physical abuse, and 10 percent of all women
are regularly beaten by their husbands or partners.
For four years, local women trapped in violent
home lives have had a peaceful haven to go to for help
— Womenspace, a Eugene organization for battered
women.
"Our overall goal is to assist women in gaining
control over their lives and to provide them with
options,” says Marleen Lasher, program coordinator
for Womenspace.
Started in 1977 by a group of three women,
Womenspace has grown into a non-profit service for
the community, with four paid and 40 volunteer
workers providing shelter and services for abused
women and their children.
"We've gone from being sort of revolutionary to
being a real part of the community,” says Lois
McClellan, a Womenspace counselor and one of the
organization’s founders.
The seriousness of domestic violence and the
importance of Womenspace to the community
becomes evident through recent statistics, Lasher
says. National studies show that one out of every five
police-officer deaths occur when intervening in a
domestic-violence episode, and one-fourth of all
murders occur within families — half of those between
spouses.
Womenspace’s services range from information
about referral sources and a 24-hour crisis line to
group counseling and a safe place to stay. In 1980, it
1
Emerald graphic
received more than 1,000 crisis calls and housed 491
women and children in a "closed" shelter.
A “closed" shelter means the location is con
fidential to protect the people staying there, Lasher
says.
“It’s very important for women coming to
Womenspace to know that he (her abuser) can’t find
her," Lasher stresses.
Fear that their husbands will find them if they
leave is only one reason why many women put up with
physical violence as long as they do, Lasher says.
Feelings of guilt, failure and inferiority are instilled in
women by their partners to maintain the sense that it is
the women who are at fault in the abuse situations.
"It's a very difficult thing for a women to decide to
leave," Lasher says.
When women do make the decision to seek
outside help, it is often after reaching a point of
desperation when they see the emotional and physical
impact the abuse is making on their children and
themselves, Lasher explains.
The woman realizes the situation is affecting her
children's sense of values when "violence becomes a
solution to conflicts," Lasher says
University psychology Prof. Linda Terry says the
use of violence to solve problems is "a disorder.”
"It’s a combination of the men having learned to
deal with women in an abusive way and not having
social skills to deal with it any other way," Terry says.
Womenspace offers a helping hand to men who
are abusers through an anger control group. The
group is headed by a man and woman counseling
team that aids men in changing their violent behavior,
Lasher says.
Counseling and a wide variety of other services
are offered, but the women at the shelter find that
"one of the biggest support systems is the abused
women supporting each other," Lasher says.
"It comes home to a woman that she's not alone."
The shelter is open to women of all ages and
backgrounds, but Lasher says the majority of women
who come to Womenspace are between 20 and 30
years old and some are students.
For information on upcoming fund-raising activi
ties including a swimming "lap-a-thon," call Women
space at 485-6513
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