Bernadette: Call it abuse
Welcome to Signal for Help, a special podcast series from the Canadian Women’s Foundation and award-winning women journalists, Media Girlfriends.
We know that gender-based violence is a problem, and we want to support survivors in our lives, but there’s a lot of stigma and silence around gender-based violence in our society: too many people who experience abuse are shamed, silenced, and stigmatized, and too many people don’t feel confident and competent in supporting them.
Featuring interviews with survivors and experts, we’ll explore how everyday people can better support survivors of gender-based violence.
This podcast includes stories of gender-based violence. Please listen with care.
Bernadette has always been drawn to helping people. And now, that’s exactly what she does living and working in Halifax as a court advocate for women fleeing abusive relationships.
This work is personal for Bernadette. She grew up in a “dysfunctional” home where she suffered corporal punishment at the hands of her father. Then, in her early 20s, met her now ex-husband, who abused her throughout their 29-year relationship. This included physical abuse during her pregnancy, as well as enduring emotional abuse such as control and belittlement.
She felt that friends and family minimized her experience, and she had to find her own way out of the marriage. Today, she often experiences minimizing language and rationale coming from those who are tasked with deciding the fate of her clients.
To help, Bernadette emphasizes the importance of validating survivor voices and educating responders with the right language to go along with a deeper level of empathy.
Transcript available here: https://canadianwomen.org/blog/new-po...