The Celebration of Courage on Sunday at the Rancho Bernardo Inn raised a record-setting profit of around $240,000 to help rescue and empower women and girls, according to initial estimates.
“Our best year to date. We can save so many lives with this money,” said MaryBeth Furlano from Poway Soroptimists, who co-chaired the fundraiser with North San Diego Soroptimists Debby Swanson, Shelley Dugan and Poway Soroptimist Michelle Gaylord.
“Thank you to all who came to the event and ed the cause,” Furlano said, attributing its success to the “great team” of Soroptimists who worked together.
While the 300 attendees came knowing a significant portion of the money they donated would go toward helping domestic violence victims, its prevalence was made real to them during the event.
One in three women experience domestic violence in their lifetime. Poway Soroptimists President Dianne Smith told the audience.
One of them is Leslie Morgan Steiner, the keynote speaker. The New York Times best-selling author, columnist at The Washington Post and corporate executive has written four books on domestic violence. She has also given a TEDtalk on the subject viewed by 10 million people.
On Sunday, Steiner graphically shared how her first husband brutally abused her. It started with him strangling and hitting her head into a wall five days before their wedding, then beating her up twice during their honeymoon. The violence escalated and continued for years.
“Love and violence should never go together,” Steiner said, adding there are “so many myths and misconceptions about domestic violence” and she was going to focus on three main points.
“First, abuse happens in every community,” Steiner said. “It doesn’t matter your income level or your education level, your religion, how nice your neighborhood is or how nice your family is. It happens everywhere. I promise you there are several people in this audience … who were either abused as children, are being abused right now or are abs themselves. That’s how common it is and that’s how much it hides in plain sight.
“The second thing is abuse doesn’t look or feel like what our stereotypes of abuse are,” Steiner said. “Abs are not monsters. We would not love them and be in relationships with them and have children with them if they were monsters. … They look just like regular people and in many ways they are. They usually were victims of abuse as children and they never dealt with that trauma and rage and they take it out on the people who love them the most.”
According to Steiner, abs and abuse victims can be in so much denial that they do not realize they are being abused or abusing someone they love because society talks so little about it.
“My goal is to break that silence today and tell you a little bit about what abuse really looks and feels like,” Steiner said.
“(Third), no abuse victim leaves under his or her own power,” Steiner said. “It is impossible to leave an abusive relationship without a small army of ers. … I needed every friend I ever had … my family … a lawyer … a locksmith … a domestic violence advocate … a therapist. I needed so much help and that is why it is so important what Soroptimists is doing, so important that you give generously today and that you are ing this incredible organization.”
She added that those with the most privilege often have the hardest time asking for help.
Steiner said she grew up in a loving family with no domestic violence.
“It never, ever occurred to me, not once that a boy or a man would ever hurt me,” she said. “It was outside of my realm of consciousness. I think the people most vulnerable to abuse are either the ones who have grown up with abuse so they think it’s normal, or people like me who grow up with zero abuse and think it is never going to happen to us.”
She said the relationship with her first husband was like “a real fairytale. It was like magic.” Though only 22 and not knowing him for long, she felt like she had met her soulmate, a man “so nice and funny” with a successful career and Ivy League education like herself.
“He told me that I was the prettiest girl he had ever dated, that he loved that I was smart … he understood (my career as a writer at Seventeen magazine) … He saw me in a way my mother and my best friend from third grade never had. … It is intoxicating to be seen like that. … I loved the way this man. And it all happened really fast.”
Early in the relationship he proposed, convinced her to leave New York City and move to a tiny town in New England where they knew no one. Steiner said she knew he had been severely abused by his stepfather, but he was so kind and put it behind him, which made her love him even more.
“I walked head-first into a carefully laid physical, financial, geographic and psychological trap disguised as love and I had no idea what was happening to me,” she said. “Some people tried to slow it down and warn me. … You know they never hit you on the first date. They wait until you are trapped.”
Steiner said she married him because she attributed her fiancé’s attack to nervousness, thinking it was a one-time thing and he would not risk ruining their relationship.
“I’m strong, I’m smart and I’m independent,” Steiner recalled thinking. “I can handle this. He will never do it again. (But) denial is a very powerful psychological force.”
Steiner said nothing in her life prepared her for domestic violence.
“I thought I was in love with a really troubled man who just needed help and I was going to help him heal from his childhood,” she said. “He beat me regularly and unpredictably. There was no pattern. It wasn’t like I did something that triggered him.”
Steiner said she told no one because she did not want him to get in trouble and people would tell her to leave.
“I wanted the violence to end, but I did not want to leave him. I really loved him,” she said, claiming between the beatings that got progressively worse he was very romantic.
“Every single fight would end with him holding a loaded gun to my head,” she said, adding she got really good at using cover-up makeup to hide the bruises and she lost her self-esteem.
She broke free thanks to two people who confronted her over what they had realized, they got through her denial, and then there was an hours-long violence session where her husband came close to killing her. Steiner said she begged him to leave their apartment and once he did, that was when she called the police for the first time.
“The police were incredible,” Steiner said. “They told me really matter of fact that they saw this all the time and if I let him back he would kill me.”
Despite all this, Steiner said she knew she would go back if people did not stop her, so she told everyone what had been happening.
“I got really lucky that he let me go … he stalked me really briefly, but then he let me go and got involved with someone else,” she said. “And I went on to rebuild my life. I was 27 and had a mountain of debt (due to him).”
Steiner said she wrote her first book, “Crazy Love,” to understand and have an answer for those who asked why she did not just leave.
“It is really not quite that simple,” she said. “Every year millions of incredible, strong smart women and a few men with really big hearts get trapped in crazy love. We all need to understand the dynamics and we need to be able to help them. Because any society … that helps women and children is a stronger society and community. … It is a really good investment in women to help them leave abusive relationships and to start over.”
Steiner challenged attendees to talk with others about domestic violence because it helps them open up about their lives.
“There is no shame in being a domestic violence victim, or any kind of trauma victim,” she said.
Celebration of Courage, previously called Hats & Heels, is a redesigned fundraiser of the Poway and North San Diego Soroptimist International chapters. A significant amount of the proceeds go toward their combined Transitional Housing program that provides fully-furnished apartments and assistance for up to 18 months to women and their children who have fled domestic violence and are rebuilding their lives.
The women not only receive financial assistance as they complete their education or career training so they can their children, but mentorship from the Soroptimists.
Since it began in 1997 with one apartment, the program now has five apartments and has helped 91 women and 218 children, according to the Soroptimists.
“Today my friends, we have an opportunity to be better than we were yesterday,” said Suzanne Martin, the master of ceremonies. “And by us being better today, there are countless women and their children that will have a better tomorrow.”
North San Diego Soroptimist President Nancy Brokaw said those present were celebrating “women’s courage for stepping into a better future for themselves and for their children.”
The Soroptimists emphasized that their efforts break the cycle of violence against women and promote education as a means to independence.
In addition to Transitional Housing, other programs include STAT — Soroptimists Together Against Trafficking — founded to raise public awareness that San Diego is a hotspot for sex trafficking. According to a video shown, 1 in 4 victims are children, the average age of victims is 16, but some are as young as 12.
The Live Your Dream program gives scholarships to single mothers rebuilding their lives after domestic violence, homelessness and/or addiction and others from challenging circumstances, such as being a former foster youth. In the past year, $46,000 in scholarships was awarded to 27 recipients between the two clubs.
The Soroptimists also provide scholarships to young women graduating from San Pasqual Academy, a residential high school program for foster youths. Their Dream It, Be It program helps female students achieve their dreams through events at Abraxas High School and Meadowbrook Middle School.
See more photos at PomeradoNews.com.
