Tess

Cody, prevention coordinator with the Iowa Coalition Against

Domestic Violence, came to Simpson to educate students on the

dangers of unhealthy relationships on Nov. 10.

The

Women’s Resource Center (WRC), Sexual Assault Resource Advocates

(SARA) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and

Allies (LGBTQA) hosted Cody for the Red Flag Campaign.

“The

Red Flag Campaign is an educational campaign to raise awareness

about what unhealthy or abusive relationships look like,” sophomore

Lauren Pass said.

The

forum was designed to give students awareness of what domestic

violence is and how to determine what an abusive relationship looks

like.

“The

goal is to get friends to notice warning signs or ‘red flags’ of

abusive relationships and be able to talk about those with their

friends when they see it,” Pass said. “Either their friends are

being abused or being abusive.”

Cody

came to Simpson to educate students on domestic violence and how to

deal with it.

She

gave the students background information on domestic violence to

give everyone enough contexts to distinguish between healthy and

unhealthy relationships.

“Call

bad behavior, bad behavior,” Cody said. “When something becomes

cyclical, when it happens a lot or is reused as a tactic to gain

leverage over and over to get your partner to do something that you

want and they don’t; that’s domestic violence.”

Most

people think that domestic violence is black and white, but Cody

said there are a lot of myths about the topic.

“Many

times I have heard women say, ‘well he only hits me when he’s

drunk,’” Cody said. “Or, ‘I was drinking. I was dumb. He was

drinking; he didn’t know what he was doing.’”

According to Cody’s presentation, people commonly think that it is

caused by substance abuse, mental illness, history of child abuse,

anger, stress and so on.

These

are myths that let people believe that if these particular

behaviors are avoided then domestic violence won’t be

experienced.

“We

make myths as a community because they make us feel safer,” Cody

said. “We think that we’re safe and we don’t have to deal with it

because it’s over there.”

Cody

pointed out described that people who are involved in abusive

relationships often find it hard to leave the partner who enforcing

the abuse.

However, relationships do not start out violent—relationships grow

to become violent.

“Everybody starts off in a honeymoon phase,” Cody said. “Everybody

thinks they’re the best person and they are so lucky that they met

them, from the get go. The first few dates, the first few years

might be fantastic. Nobody falls in love with someone who

sucks.”

Cody

led the audience in an activity to illustrate her points.

The

students were told to write down five things that are most

important to them in life. She then provided them with different

scenarios.

“Think if there is something on that list that you would give up,”

Cody said. “You either have to give it up or you have to deal with

being called names every day for the rest of your life by your

partner, degrading names.”

The

scenarios continued with the consequences of being threatened,

pushed around and shoved against a wall, being beaten horribly to

the point of always being hurt and lastly dying from being

beaten.

“They’re willing to take name calling, they’re willing to take the

occasional shove and they’re even willing to take the occasional

trip to the hospital,” Cody said. “Just as long as those things in

their life stay safe and stay sound.”

Cody

then provided the lyrics to a familiar song, “Love the Way You Lie”

by Eminem and Rihanna.

The

students were asked to use the information just learned to pick out

instances of domestic violence.

Some

were surprised at the lyrics.

“I

didn’t actually realize it as I’m singing the song to myself half

the time that it was talking about that kind of violence,”

sophomore Carrie Paglia said. “I didn’t think about that before,

and now I do.”

The

Red Flag Campaign looks to end domestic violence and prevention is

one place to start.

“The

idea of prevention is, before anything happens, we want to talk to

people about what’s healthy and what’s not,” Cody said.