Color Me Butterfly

I was just sixteen-years old the first time my eye was blackened, my lip split.  The culprit?  My seventeen-year old boyfriend who had rammed his fist into my face because he thought I was cheating on him with another boy.  Not true.  But by the time he folded me in his arms and begged for forgiveness, the swelling was already rising.

That was many, many, many years ago and that is something that, still to this day, haunts me.  My bruised face and broken pride, is, today, the bruised face and broken pride of many young teens and women.  They are teens and young women who have not even earned enough miles on their young lives to know who or what they are capable of becoming; but whom have traveled a dark and dingy road – a road that is no less traveled – one that holds a horrible truth.  What truth? You wonder.  The truth that young women ages 16 to 24 years old experience the highest rate of domestic violence and abuse.

Recently I spoke to a group of teen girls and boys, an event that was hosted by Girls, Inc. in Philadelphia.  At this event, I divided the room into two groups:  one group was asked to discuss and make an argument for why they felt girls were as responsible for a relationship as boys; the other group was asked to discuss the opposite:  why boys were as responsible for a relationship as girls.  No sooner than the young women and men moved to their sides of the room, they were already contemplating their arguments.  The result?  Some very moving, honest and real accounts about why they felt a boy or girl holds the key to how good or bad a relationship turns out.  One young man (check him out in my ‘Author’s Event Photos’) went on to say that he felt that girls are just as responsible for a relationship because they are very aggressive when it comes to dating and making choices about who they want to be with.  They can be very fast, he went on to explain.  They sometimes prefer the bad boy image, another teen added.  Fast.  Bad Boy Image.  These are very powerful statements, so powerful that it forces us to give credence to what this means.  It simply means that girls often end up in a bad and/or abusive relationship because they put themselves there.  Would you agree?  I do.

Why do I agree.  I agree because I, having experienced my first account of domestic abuse at the tender age of sixteen; and later raised a young daughter who also found herself in the perils of a similar relationship, in hindsight, now realize that my daughter and I shared equal responsibility for the choices we made.  No longer am I embarrassed to say that I, too, embraced that bad boy image and that I was fast.  Fast in the sense that I was eager to date this person knowing full well (having witnessed it early on) that this was not going to turn out to be a good thing.

It breaks my heart to know that young women who haven’t even driven a car yet, or thought about college yet, or contemplated their life’s worth yet – have embarked on a road no less traveled – a road where they are gripped by the arms of an abusive relationship.

With stats that suggests that 52% of teen girls are currently involved in ongoing abusive relationships, this population of young women is fast on the trail of a road no less traveled.  And it is my hope that we will pave a new road for these young girls and women – young girls and women, whom I hope someday will be at the forefront of our society.