Isn't domestic violence mostly a low-income or minority issue?
Aren't husbands and wives equally violent?
Don't women ask for it?
If the abuse is so bad, why do women stay in these relationships?
Aren't battered women's shelters just band-aids for the problem?
Is domestic violence intergenerational?
Am I in an abusive relationship?
Is domestic violence really such a big problem?
In this country, a woman is more likely to be assaulted, injured, raped, or killed by a male partner than by any other type of assailant.
Domestic violence is believed to be the most common yet least reported crime in our nation. An estimated 3-4 million American women are beaten each year by their husbands or partners.
The U.S. Surgeon General has identified domestic violence as a major health problem to women. Wife-beating results in more injuries that require medical treatment than rape, auto accidents, and muggings combined. Each year, more than 1,000 women, or about 4 women per day, are killed by their husbands or partners.
Domestic violence is indeed a serious national problem that affects not only individual victims, but the entire community as well.
Isn't domestic violence mostly a low-income or minority issue?
Domestic violence occurs among all sectors of society. It happens to people of all racial, economic, and religious groups.
For example, police in the mostly white, upper-class Washington, DC suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland, received as many domestic disturbance calls as were received in the same period in Harlem, New York City.
However, low-income battered women are more likely to seek assistance from public agencies, such as shelters and hospital emergency rooms, because they have fewer private resources than middle- and upper-middle income women. They are therefore more likely to be counted in official reporting statistics.
Aren't husbands and wives equally violent?
In about 5% of reported domestic assaults, the offender is the male victim's wife or female partner.
Unfortunately, a well-publicized national survey purported to find husbands and wives are equally violent. The survey has been criticized by numerous prominent researchers on several grounds. Most importantly, the survey did not find out whether the violence was an act of self-defense nor did it examine the effects of the violence on the victim.
It is known that women generally resort to physical force in self-defense. It is also known that men who batter deny and minimize their acts of violence.
For these major reasons, the survey findings are highly misleading and potentially dangerous. Moreover, more than 80% of violent crimes that occur outside the home are committed by males. Why would women be so violent in the home, yet generally peaceful outside of it.
Don't women ask for it?
Battered women are the victims of violence. They do not provoke or deserve such treatment.
Typically, abusers blame their victims for provoking the violence because of verbal abuse. Although verbal abuse may cause anger, it does not provoke or justify violence.
How a person deals with that anger is a choice – some men choose violence. Only the violent party is responsible for the abuse.
If the abuse is so bad, why do women stay in these relationships?
Actually, many women do leave their abusers. In one study of 205 battered women, more than 50% had left the relationship.
Moreover, we will never know about the countless number of divorced women who choose not to identify abuse as the reason they ended their marriages.
Battered women, in general, do not passively endure physical abuse, but actively seek assistance in ending the violence from a variety of sources, including police, lawyers, health care personnel, family members, and the clergy. Frequently, it is the failure of these individuals and systems to provide adequate support which traps women in violent relationships.
A study of more than 6,000 battered women in Texas found that, on average, the women had contacted five different sources of help prior to leaving the home and becoming residents of battered women's shelters.
Certainly, many battered women also suffer in silence. These women endure physical abuse for a variety of reasons:
A battered woman frequently faces the most physical danger when she attempts to leave. She may be threatened with violence or death or attacked if she tries to flee. She fears for her safety, her children's safety, and the safety of those who help her.
For many women, leaving is not an alternative. There may be nowhere to go and little or no resources in the community to help battered women.
Because of religious, cultural, or socially learned beliefs, a woman may feel that it is her duty to keep the marriage together at all costs.
Many women want the violence, not the relationship, to end. They may take steps to try to stop the abuse. Leaving home may be their last resort.
Some women will endure physical and emotional abuse to keep the family together for the children's sake. Very often, it is when the violence is directed at her children that she will take them and leave. More than half of the children whose mothers are battered also are victims of physical abuse.
A woman may be financially dependent on her husband. She will probably face severe economic hardship if she chooses to support herself and her children on her own.
Aren't battered women's shelters just band-aids for the problem?
Battered women's shelters are not a “band-aid” solution to domestic violence, but an important life-saving response to the problem, just as ambulance and hospital emergency rooms respond to medical crises.
Shelters are a critical component of the community's efforts to ensure the safety and protection of the victims. Making available safe shelter for battered women and their children is essential to ensure such protection, particularly for low-income women who may lack resources to find safety elsewhere.
But, beyond performing crisis intervention and providing essential victim services, shelters are an important grassroots effort towards effecting the social change that is necessary to prevent and, ultimately, end domestic violence.
For example, advocates for battered women, working through shelter programs, have worked to pass important state and federal legislation on domestic violence.
In addition, shelters also are the focal point for educating the community about critical issues, training of law enforcement and other professionals who often confront domestic violence in their work, and for establishing and monitoring counseling and education programs for abusers.
Is domestic violence intergenerational?
There is evidence that violence may pass from generation to generation.
Boys who witness their mother's abuse are more likely to batter their female partners as adults than boys raised in nonviolent homes.
However, not all men who batter were raised in violent homes, so this is only a partial explanation of why some men choose to use violence.
On the other hand, there is no evidence that girls whose mothers were battered are more likely to be battered themselves. In fact, the only common factor among battering victims is that they are female. Being a woman is the only identifiable risk factor for becoming a battering victim.
-From the National Woman Abuse Prevention Project, funding by the Illinois Dept. of Public Aid
Am I in an abusive relationship?
Does Your Partner:
Embarrass you with bad names and put-downs?
Look at you or act in ways that scare you?
Control what you do, who you see or talk to, or where you go?
Stop you from seeing or talking to friends or family?
Take your money or Social Security, make you ask for money, or refuse to give you
money?
Make all the decisions?
Tell you you’re a bad parent or threaten to take away or hurt your children?
Act like the abuse is no big deal, it’s your fault, or even deny doing it?
Destroy your property or threaten to kill your pets?
Intimidate you with guns, knives, or other weapons?
Shove you, slap you or hit you?
Force you to drop charges?
Threaten to commit suicide?
Threaten to kill you?
If you checked even one, you may be in an abusive relationship. If you do these things to your partner, you should receive help. Call A Safe Place's 24-hour help line at 847-249-4450; TTY 847-249-6557.
Permission was granted by the National Domestic Violence Hotline to A Safe Place to use this quiz.
If you would like more information about A Safe Place's emergency shelter and other services, please call us at 847-249-4450 or email us at info@asafeplaceforhelp.org.
A Safe Place provides individual and group counseling to victims of domestic violence in both the residential and nonresidential programs.
The 24-hour HELP LINE, 847-249-4450; TTY 847-249-6557, can provide assistance in accessing services.
Other Domestic Violence, Shelter, and Services FAQs
