Press Release: On Oct. 3, Lorena Bobbitt and Casa Myrna Mark Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Speaking Event Traces Gallo’s 26-Year Journey from Victim and Headline to Survivor and Advocate
Read our interview with Lorena!
BOSTON, MA, Sept. 23, 2019 – Lorena Gallo Bobbitt will appear in conversation at Casa Myrna’s Resounding Voices event on Thursday, October 3 to kick off 2019’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month. In 1994, after a desperate act of self-defense, Lorena Gallo Bobbitt found herself at the center of one of the decade’s most sensational news spectacles. During the event, Lorena will open up about how she survived her husband’s abuse, endured the criminal trials and unrelenting media attention, and transformed herself into a champion for survivors of domestic violence.
“At a basic level, my story of surviving abuse is the same as those of survivors all over the world,” says Lorena. “We’ve all walked in the same shoes. When other survivors share their stories with me, I am honored. It feels like a gift. They inspire me to keep going, to keep advocating for an end to the epidemic of domestic violence.”
The two-hour event, starting at 6 PM, will take place at the Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street. Tickets are $25. All proceeds will fund Casa Myrna’s free shelter and supports for survivors of domestic violence and their children. Casa Myrna is bilingual in English and Spanish, enabling us to serve many immigrant and Latinx survivors, who, like Lorena, are particularly vulnerable to abuse by partners using their immigration status to intimidate and control them.
“In 1994, when Lorena’s story hit the news, I was 25 and had just started volunteering at Casa Myrna,” says Stephanie Brown, Chief Executive Officer of Casa Myrna. “Those of us in the movement were shouting at the top of our lungs that what Lorena experienced was a textbook case of domestic violence. But very few people wanted to hear us. A story of horrific abuse was turned into a ‘sex scandal’ and a joke.”
Indeed, as the 2019 Amazon Prime documentary Lorena (directed by Joshua Rofé and produced by Jordan Peele) details, sexism and sensationalism dominated coverage of the so-called Bobbitt trials instead of leading to a national reckoning with domestic and sexual violence. But Lorena herself has dedicated herself to bringing about such a reckoning. Since the 1990s, she has quietly worked as a facilitator and advocate to support survivors in the Washington, DC region, at first on her own and then with the help of her Lorena Gallo Foundation.
“More than two decades later, it’s past time for us to recognize how women who survived abuse and harassment, like Lorena, were demonized in the media and pop culture in the 1990s. We can’t change the past, but we must listen to them when they speak out now in hopes of protecting others from the abuse and retraumatization they experienced,” says Stephanie Brown. “We’ve come far since 1994, but not far enough: a quarter of women will still experience severe physical violence, sexual violence or stalking at the hand of a partner at least once in their lives. It’s an honor to stand with Lorena in her mission to end domestic violence and abuse in all its forms.”
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.resoundingvoices.eventbrite.com or our website www.casamyrna.org. Follow Casa Myrna on social media: Twitter @casamyrna; Instagram @casa_myrna; Facebook /casamyrna. And use the hashtags #CMResoundingVoices and #DVAM2019
Casa Myrna was founded in 1977 by a diverse group of neighborhood activists in Boston’s South End as a safe haven for women who were being abused by their partners. Today, Casa Myrna is Boston’s largest provider of shelter and support for survivors of domestic and dating violence and outreach efforts to prevent abuse.
We serve survivors of all races; ethnicities; religions; ages; abilities; languages; sexual orientations; genders, including men and trans people; and regardless of immigration status. On every step of their journey to a life free from abuse, survivors can count on us. We provide residential shelter and a comprehensive range of supports that help them recover from the trauma of abuse and build safe, stable, and independent futures for themselves and their children. In 2019, we provided shelter and support to more than 1,200 survivors and their children and answered more than 25,00 calls to SafeLink (1.877.785.2020), Massachusetts’ statewide 24/7/365 domestic violence hotline.
Key Facts about Domestic Violence
- Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior used to gain and maintain power and control over a relationship partner. It can take place between people who are married, living together, or dating, including teens. Teen dating violence is just as serious and dangerous as abuse between adults.
- Domestic violence comes in many forms and usually escalates over time. Not all abuse involves punching or hitting, especially not at first. Abuse often starts out as less obvious. Abusers may bully, tear down, insult, and belittle their victims; isolate them from friends and family; spy on or stalk them; cut them off from money, transportation, and other necessities; threaten them or their families, friends, and pets; and/or use physical and sexual violence.
- People of any gender, age, race, sexual orientation, culture, or socioeconomic group can experience domestic violence. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men become victims of severe physical domestic violence, sexual violence, or stalking. 1 in 3 teens has experienced physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse by a partner. Abuse takes place in straight and gay, lesbian, and queer relationships alike.
- Victims often stay for many reasons, including fear and because they lack the resources they need to get away. Victims fear being deported, becoming homeless, being shunned by their family or faith community, losing custody of their children, or being hurt or killed by the abuser. Abusers often escalate their abuse when they’re worried their control over their partners is weakening. That makes the times when victims try to leave the relationship the most dangerous of all.
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If you would like more information about this topic, please call Leela Strong, Director of Development and Communications, at 617-521-0127 or email lstrong@casamyrna.org.