Aaron Miller

on May 27, 2025

• 19 min read

Summary

Domestic violence affects millions, yet most people don’t know how to help when someone they care about is being abused. Deborah Tucker has spent over five decades fighting to end violence against women, from co-founding one of the first shelters in the US to spearheading the Violence Against Women Act. In this episode, you’ll learn the five essential things to say to someone experiencing abuse, why we must work with people who use violence (not just victims), and how individual action connects to ending domestic violence altogether. Deborah’s mix of disarming charm and deep expertise shows why she’s been so effective in this fight—and how you can be too.

About Our Guest

Deborah D. Tucker is a pioneering advocate who has dedicated over five decades to ending violence against women and children. Her journey began in 1974 as a volunteer with Texas’s first rape crisis center, launching a career that would transform domestic violence response nationwide.

Tucker co-founded and led the Austin Center for Battered Women from 1977-1982, then became the first Executive Director of the Texas Council on Family Violence, where she served until 1996. Under her leadership, the Texas Council grew into one of the country’s largest coalitions with over 50 staff members, and launched the National Domestic Violence Hotline, providing 24/7 crisis support nationwide.

Tucker’s national influence includes serving as founding Chair of the National Network to End Domestic Violence during the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 and working on subsequent reauthorizations. In 1998, Tucker co-founded the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence with Sarah M. Buel, creating an organization that provides training and consultation across the country. Tucker also co-chaired the U.S. Department of Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence from 2000-2003.

Her numerous honors include induction into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2014, the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration’s Alfred M. Zuck Public Courage Award in 2012, and the Sunshine Lady Award in 2008. Currently serving as President of NCDSV’s Board of Directors, Tucker continues her lifelong mission to create safer communities for all.

Useful Links

National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence:


https://www.ncdsv.org/

National Domestic Violence Hotline:


https://www.thehotline.org/

Five Things to Say to Victims of Domestic Violence: https://www.ncdsv.org/uploads/1/4/2/2/142238266/2023-10-01-thefivethingstosay-adultvictim-puv-child.pdf

CDC Information on Domestic Violence:

https://www.cdc.gov/intimate-partner-violence/about/index.html

The Violence Against Women Act:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Debby Tucker: My dad had gone to college for while, but my mother never went to college, and both of them were determined to make sure that I went. But, I didn't know why I was going necessarily. I just knew that for them it was an important next step. And I had such a limited view that I thought that women could only be a nurse or a teacher.

So I was like, I don't wanna be a nurse. You know, some of them have to be there at like seven o'clock in the morning. That sounds horrible. School starts at 8:30, I guess I'll go the teacher route. That's how sophisticated my choice was.

[00:00:45] Aaron - Narration: Hi, I'm Aaron Miller, and this is How to Help: a podcast about having a life and career with meaning, integrity, and impact. This is season three, episode four: Ending Domestic Violence.

If you've been enjoying How to Help, then let me tell you the best way that you can help this podcast to grow. More than any number of followers or money spent on advertising or marketing, what works the best is to give it a rating in your podcast app of choice. And when there's an episode that you love, share it with a friend. There's really no substitute for those two things. So thank you for supporting the show.

As you've been listening to How to Help, you've likely noticed that I typically open each episode by setting the context with a story or some interesting piece of history related to the topic. This episode is different precisely because of the topic. Although I won't share any detailed stories of abuse, if this is a topic that's personally difficult for you, then you may want to look over the transcript for this episode to see if listening to it will be helpful.

If you haven't personally experienced domestic abuse, then this episode will definitely be helpful to you. Because even if you haven't experienced it personally, the odds are extremely high that someone you know has been abused, and I hope by listening to this you can be more helpful to victims of abuse and even to the people who use violence. If you don't think you know someone in either of these categories, you are almost certainly wrong.

[00:02:20] Debby Tucker: Oh, absolutely. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. It's not something that's confined to any one population or strata or whatever. One of my ways of saying is it goes from house coats to fur coats.

[00:02:36] Aaron - Narration: My guest today is Deborah Tucker. She's the co-founder and board president of the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence. She was also its executive director for 17 years.

You won't find anyone with more expertise on what people individually and society together can do to end domestic violence. She helped start one of the first ever victim shelters in the US. She even spearheaded the campaign to make the Violence Against Women Act into federal law.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Throughout this episode, you're going to learn things you never knew. You'll also quickly see why Debby's mix of disarming charm and deep expertise have made her so effective in fighting domestic abuse. Her start in this fight came when she was just a young college student.

[00:03:21] Debby Tucker: I fell into it in the way that a lot of people do, as a volunteer. I read an article in the Daily Texan about a group coming together to discuss sexual assault and the problems that were occurring on campus where people were being assaulted, and if you had any interest or willingness to participate, come on down kind of a thing. And I'm not sure why I latched onto it, but I absolutely did. I had like roommates at the dorm who talked about being attacked on a date or somebody in one of my classes who had obviously been harmed and asking her if I could do anything to help, and she just burst into tears and said, "I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go."

[00:04:18] Aaron - Narration: Debby began as a volunteer, working on a 24-hour phone hotline for victims to report abuse and get help. She quickly became a key volunteer and then an employee. This is something she did while she was still quite young, but too many people in positions to help were just doing a bad job.

[00:04:36] Debby Tucker: We were way in over our head. I think I was 21, and trying to understand the complexities of what people were going through. All the players, the emergency room staff, the law enforcement people.

You know, ministers were a source of great support many times, and people wanted to talk to their minister, but that didn't always turn out. Sometimes they would say the same-old, same-old things that people were saying that were very hurtful. "What did you do to make him mad? He beat you up because you did what now?" And not understanding. So anywhere you look, people can play a role and it can be helpful or it can because somebody to retreat.

And maybe it takes them another year before they reach out and ask for any kind of help.

[00:05:35] Aaron - Narration: As the hotline grew, they quickly realized that they needed to respond urgently to the needs of some of the women who called in. And this gave rise to what might have been the first ever domestic violence shelter in the United States.

[00:05:48] Debby Tucker: I can't say that it was all by ourselves that we figured that out. We had located the

Austin Rape Crisis Center in the Episcopal Seminary. They had offered us, uh, two rooms where we could operate the Austin Rape Crisis Center. And we just accidentally started taking people in to what's called Rather House, this beautiful building that visiting priest used when they were coming to the seminary for a, a visit or a program or whatever.

And one of those priests came downstairs to the kitchen and found us sitting there with a family around the table and he said, "I'm glad that you're doing this, but I'm embarrassed that it never occurred to me that we would have company at seven o'clock in the morning if this is going to be happening.

Maybe we need a, a house or a place that we designate. Uh, for folks to stay."

Of course, what were we thinking? So to his credit, we sat back and said, yeah, we're getting people who need to get away from someone who's actively harming them and their children, and we need a place for them to be safe.

[00:07:10] Aaron - Narration: Today there are over 2000 domestic violence shelters in the US.

This is still too few though, as many of them operate at capacity and have to turn away women and families in need. One study in 2015 found that in a single day, 12,197 people had to be turned away from shelters due to a lack of resources. For the Austin Rape Crisis Center, the increased support also came with increased demand, more than the rather house could fit.

[00:07:42] Debby Tucker: And I think about those early days of opening the shelter itself. We didn't know how we were going to accomplish that. And I got a call from our city manager who said, "Deborah, I want you to be in my office at eight o'clock on Monday morning. I have somebody I want you to meet." And I'm sitting there thinking the city manager wants me to come meet somebody.

What did we do wrong?

[00:08:09] Aaron - Narration: Yeah.

[00:08:11] Debby Tucker: Who did we step up with in a bad way? And so I stewed all weekend long. And I go into his office and there's this gentleman with him and I sit down and they explain to me that he is the program chair for the Home Builders Association, and that he saw a segment on the news about us wanting to establish a shelter and that we were working with the city and trying to get a building and blah, blah, blah.

And he said. "We'd like to build you a building."

[00:08:49] Aaron - Narration: John McFall, who led the Home Builders Association, organized it masterfully. Debby said it was like a barn raising, and the final construction cost was just $50,000 for a building that was actually worth $300,000. Because this was a new thing there was a lot to learn, like how to keep the residents safe.

[00:09:09] Debby Tucker: I had the experience one day of somebody pulling up, putting a rifle on his door frame and pointing it to us. And so everybody in the house was saying, "Okay, Deborah, you're the director. You get the big bucks." I think I was making 13,000 a year. "You need to go out there and talk to this guy.

[00:09:34] Aaron - Interview: Oh my gosh.

[00:09:35] Debby Tucker: "And see what he wants."

And so I went out and said to him, "We've got this really nice bench over here under this tree, and you and I can sit down together for a minute and kind of figure out why you're here, what you need, how we can make this situation better." And so he did. He put down the rifle, he got out of the car, he came over, he sat next to me on the bench.

And we just began to talk. And he was basically there because he knew that his wife and children were in the shelter and he wanted them back. And so I had a conversation with him about what did he think would make them feel safe about coming back. Would driving up with a rifle encourage them to feel safe enough to come home?

Meanwhile, everybody else had called the police, and the police showed up and confiscated the rifle and had a conversation with him about trespassing and. All that kinda stuff. And you know, we're like, okay, so anything and everything is probably going to happen.

[00:10:49] Aaron - Narration: Over the years, as more and more groups started offering victim services, there was an increased need for national collaboration. By this point, Debby was a leader in Texas in the fight against domestic abuse, and she was invited to participate in collaboration meetings in Washington DC. Groups from all over the country were invited. As you might expect, there were strong regional and cultural disagreements in how everyone saw the problem.

Even the little differences came to the surface,

[00:11:17] Debby Tucker: And one of the things that somebody said after I had spoken a little bit was, "What are you doing wearing makeup?" And I said, "I come from the south. You're not dressed. If you don't have on makeup, I'm not going to come to a meeting with anybody without some lipstick."

"Y'all may not have to worry about that, but we do." And it was like, this is going to be hard. And over time though, we began to, like any group of people that are committed to an end, we started to find ways to, to work together and to talk to each other, and to hear each other. I loved it.

[00:12:06] Aaron - Narration: One critical moment of learning and consensus came when they all agreed that victims were not to blame.

This is a perspective that's now more widely shared, but it wasn't that way until the leading advocates laid it down as an essential truth.

[00:12:20] Debby Tucker: And I think that when we all began to adopt the attitude that it's not the child or the adult has done something where they deserve to be disciplined. But in fact the person who is causing the harm believes that they are entitled to react in any way they choose up to and including physical violence or emotional abuse that is devastating, in some ways more harmful than a bruise or a hit can be. We began to come to consensus around critical positions and acknowledge that the real experts were the survivors, the victims who had lived through it. So that we weren't like the professionals telling everybody else

what to do, we were partners with them in learning.

[00:13:23] Aaron - Narration: What are the first things you wish everybody knew about domestic and sexual violence that would maybe help position them to be better helpers?

[00:13:33] Debby Tucker: I think that you can best be a helper if you're willing to listen and to recognize that you don't have to give advice or

direct somebody what to do. But you can offer resources and you can say simple things like, "I'm here when you need me or when you need to talk." Offering things, but not being pushy. You cannot tell people what to do. It never works.

And we made assumptions in the beginning that everybody wanted to get away,

and wanted to end the relationship with the, the person using violence. But in reality, when we asked and we were saying, what can we do? They would say, "Talk to him. Somebody needs to tell him to quit hurting us. And somebody needs to recognize that he was a good father at one point. He was a good husband at one point, and there are things about him that are still good. And what can we do to get rid of these awful things that he's doing now?"

And so they're the ones who made us recognize the reality that we cannot end this kind of violence without working with the people who are using it. What you have to do is listen, if there is still any kind of relationship, and if you have children together, then what do we do to make that safer and better?

[00:15:12] Aaron - Narration: You know, as you're talking about that, I, I think one of the most common responses I see, and that I've also felt, is just cynicism that a person using violence is ever really going to change. What do you have to say to the people who are cynical about any opportunity or possibility of rehabilitation?

[00:15:31] Debby Tucker: What I say is these people are not from another planet. They don't have acid dripping off of their teeth, and we can't communicate at all. They are, in fact, sons and fathers and people who were raised in our society and in our families. So do we offer to them an opportunity to live differently? I remember this one guy who told me, you know, that he was coming home from work and he was walking up to the door and he could hear everybody in his family laughing and joking, and obviously they were having a good time together, and he opened the door and walked, stepped in, and everybody froze, and turned to look at him. And the fear in their faces, and all the laughter and all the enjoyment they were having disappeared. And it was so stark for him that he was able to recognize he had created a situation where they weren't glad that he was home. They were terrified that he was home.

[00:16:50] Aaron - Narration: Blaming victims or demanding that they change their behavior doesn't actually stop abusers. And instead, it just gives room for domestic violence to grow. Sometimes we need to help others understand that too.

[00:17:03] Debby Tucker: I remember early on, one of the groups that we went to, the Lions Club, a guy stood up and, and somebody had made some disparaging remark about women bringing this on themselves by not listening to their husbands and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And one of his fellow Lion members stood up and said, "Sir, I was raised by somebody who beat my mother constantly, who beat all of us. I can tell you that there was nothing about her that caused this. She did everything she could to protect us and to stop it." And those are the kinds of conversations that we wanna see

men have with one another to really learn from each other that it doesn't matter if she is the nastiest, most inappropriate woman in the world. It doesn't mean that you get to beat her up.

[00:18:02] Aaron - Narration: Instead of telling the victim to act differently, the National Center developed this list of the five things to say to victims of abuse.

Here they are: Number one, I'm afraid for your safety. Number two, I'm afraid for the safety of your children. Number three, it will only get worse. Number four, I'm here for you when you're ready to leave. Number five, you don't deserve to be abused. These are the things that they need to hear.

[00:18:35] Debby Tucker: Oh, it's very powerful and very helpful, and that's why we have continued to use it because it works. It gives people the tools to begin a conversation because it's uncomfortable. You don't want to ask somebody point blank. You wanna say gently, I'm concerned for your safety. And to be able to say to the person who you think is causing the harm, I'm concerned for the safety of your family members. Trying to get them to think differently is so powerful.

[00:19:10] Aaron - Narration: Debby also noted that we need to believe that abusers can change. In fact, this is why Debby and others prefer the term "people who use violence," pointing to the possibility that they can become people who don't use violence. And if you feel cynicism about that, you should know that Debby, with her years of experience, has seen that change is possible.

[00:19:33] Debby Tucker: If you don't believe that people can change for the better, then you might as well give up. BEcause the human race is like amazing and people can surprise us. They can appear to be hardheaded and impossible and stuck in a prior century. And if you gently keep applying the tools, they sometimes wake up and listen.

There are some that we can't reach, obviously. And that's why from time to time, I do support somebody going to prison and being away from everyone until possibly there's a chance that they can be safe. But most of the people that we work with will change and will stop causing harm.

One of the things we've asked judges to do in Texas is encourage the person to get a mentor, to identify someone in their life that they trust and respect. It could be a, a minister. It could be their boss. It could be a, a colleague that they interact with. It could be a baseball partner, somebody you play with. Ask them to help you.

[00:20:57] Aaron - Narration: Just expecting change at the individual level isn't going to bring an end to domestic violence. For decades, we've needed systemic improvements to make it easier for victims to come forward, for them to get support if they need to leave home, and for people of influence to have policies and training in place. All of these reasons and more are what gave rise to the Violence Against Women Act, a landmark law first passed in 1994. Debby Tucker spearheaded the lobbying of Congress and started out by working with then Senator Joe Biden.

[00:21:30] Debby Tucker: So one of the things that he said to me was, "You have an assignment, and that is to get representative Jack Brooks, who is the chair of the Judiciary Committee. We can get it through the Senate. I know that I have enough votes to get it out of the Senate, but we are never going to pass it if we don't get the House Judiciary Committee to support it."

[00:21:56] Aaron - Narration: At that time, Brooks was the longest serving member of Congress, representing a district in South Texas. Debby had never met Brooks and had never tried to lobby a congressman like this before.

She connected with everyone she knew, politicians, business leaders, and really just anybody she could think of that might know him. Of course, she also went the formal route of calling his staff, introducing herself, and even going to his office in dc, meeting everybody who worked there asking for an appointment.

Finally, after about 10 months of work, Debby got a call out of the blue from a staff member on the Judiciary Committee saying that Mr. Brooks had set the Violence Against Women Act for a hearing. She was told to be ready to present and to help in whatever other ways the committee needed. On the day of the hearing, she was stunned to find the room was packed full of people.

[00:22:48] Debby Tucker: I got there, opened the door, and the room was full. And I'm like, who are these people? Why is the room full? And there were like cameras on those giant dolly things that they roll around like CBS, ABC. I'm like, what is this all about?

[00:23:07] Aaron - Narration: It turned out that the bill had become national news. And so to calm her nerves, Debby went to talk to the representatives on the committee that she already knew, including Chuck Schumer.

Everyone in the room was waiting to start and all they needed was the committee's chair, Jack Brooks.

[00:23:23] Debby Tucker: And I had my back to the door, and all of a sudden, it's got quiet. I turned around and this bandyrooster of a man is coming in the door and everyone is racing for their seats and sitting down and behaving. And on all four walls where these no smoking signs. And out of his mouth was this giant cigar.

And I'm like, okay, Deborah, this is a big moment. And I just march myself down the center aisle. Stick out my hand and say, "Mr. Brooks, thank you so much for setting the Violence Against Women Act for Hearing today. My name is Deborah Tucker. I'm chair of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. We are excited to be here. We appreciate a chance to talk this through with you and the committee."

And his response was "Debby Tucker! I've had everybody but my first grade teacher call me and ask me to set this bill for a hearing. And I just wanna know one thing." The whole room leaned in and was like, what does Mr. Brooks wanna know? And he said, "Why the ****? Don't the prosecutors help these women? Why don't they put these men in jail so that women can be safe in their own homes and not have to come to your little shelters?"

And I was just like, "Oh my goodness, sir. I don't ****ing know."

And he loved it. And he started laughing and he leaned forward with that giant cigar in his mouth and he caught the front of my hair on fire.

And he is patting the top of my head to put the fire out, and saying "We going to get your little bill out. Don't worry."

[00:25:25] Aaron - Narration: With the smell of burning hair still lingering, Debby went to her assigned seat. Soon after the hearing began, the discussion immediately went to all the complexities of the problem and concerns like those you'd expect for major federal legislation.

But Representative Brooks threw his full weight behind the bill and it passed both the House and Senate in record time. President Clinton signed it soon after.

[00:25:50] Debby Tucker: I'm really proud of the fact that in spite of our regional differences and our cultural challenges, we got to agreement that we were going to help educate folks to the fact that there is nothing that a victim can do, adult or child, by themselves to stop the person who's decided that they're going to use violence. We have to step in, family, friends, neighbors. We've gotta draw a line and say "Up with this, we will not put."

[00:26:27] Aaron - Narration: What keeps you going with hope? This is as monumental a problem as anybody could take on, and you've been at it for a long time. What, what has kept you going and what keeps going now?

[00:26:37] Debby Tucker: I think it is the fact that we've made such significant progress. Even though it's been fits and starts and a couple of steps back, and it's not been linear at all, um, there has been change and there are more and more people who get it, so to speak, and who realize that if you don't end the use of violence then other problems that you see in the world are going to continue. Where do you think that rapists and murderers come from? What families are they raised in who teaches them what to do and what not to do? We're going to never end all forms of violence if we don't end the violence that starts when somebody's a child. And to me it's one big mass of things that are all important.

Dignity, respect, safety, those are fundamental to, to progress. It's gotta operate at all levels. And we gotta get over the differences. Whatever, whoever God is has a strange sense of humor to create so many different languages and belief systems and cultures and ways of doing things. It's not ever been easy for us to understand one another. All of it takes patience and deliberate efforts to reach out and to hear people and to share what you know in a way that might help.

[00:28:30] Aaron - Narration: When I was emailing with Debby about this interview, I'd mentioned that I wanted to discuss how to help people out of domestic violence. In reply, she said we should broaden our view and talk about how we can end domestic violence. I'm confident that as promised, you learned something new about what you can do to help a loved one in this situation.

But I hope you can also see how your help plays a part in a much bigger effort: bringing an end to domestic violence altogether. If you want to get more involved in this effort, we've linked to resources in the show notes. Debby and countless others will be glad to have your help.

How To Help is hosted and written by me, Aaron Miller, and produced in collaboration with BYU Radio.

My thanks to Erica Price, Kenny Mears and Blake Morris for their help with this episode. Scoring and mixing was done by Seth Miller, and our music is by Eric Robertson and the Pleasant Pictures Music Club. For more information about this episode, use the links in the show notes. And if you haven't subscribed yet to How to Help, you can do that in your favorite podcast player and find us on all the different social media platforms.

As always, thank you so much for listening.