Sharon Ellis sees herself as a conqueror rather than a survivor–but she had to fight the battle alone. In 1980, fed up with her husband’s abuse, she went to her church for help. “It was there for me with the love but not necessarily with the knowledge of what to do with me,” she says. “The message I was getting was similar to the ones we receive as children. They were about self-worth, my place as a woman, my job as a woman, and that type of thing. They were not ones that would help me to get out of an abusive relationship.”
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Ellis, who has been a police officer since 1978, next turned to her friends. They also encouraged her to stay in her marriage and work things out. She says at first she tried to follow their advice. “I had to give myself permission [to leave]. It was a painfully difficult life-or-death decision, and I had to deal with a lot of guilt and shame that I had to work through on my own.”
In general, Ellis says, the clergy still isn’t well equipped to deal with domestic violence, even though a religious institution is still one of the first places women go for help. “I don’t want to generalize, but many churches have silenced women simply because of the way they practice their ministry,” she says. “If we’re going to begin talking about issues of domestic violence, we have to talk about issues of sexism in the church.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Sharon Ellis photo by Nathan Mandell.
