doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
invisible
This post is made in honor of all of the women, men, and children who have had to live under the threat or had to endure the atrocity of domestic violence.
The phone number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, within the U.S. is 1-800-799-SAFE.
Domestic Violence is still a very misunderstood phenomena within modern society. Very often, a victim of domestic violence is asked what s/he did in order to make the abuser so angry. The victim of abuse is often given the impetus to make everything right, to insure that the abuse does not occur again. This is not only placed on the victim by the abuser, but by well-meaning family and friends who do not clearly understand the cycles of abuse.
There are many levels of abuse that can occur within an abusive relationship. One can be a victim of one or all of these forms of abuse.
- Emotional and Verbal Abuse: This type of abuse can be the most insidious and is likely the abuse that leaves the deepest and most long-lasting scars. The symptoms of this abuse are most often humiliation, name-calling, manipulation, mind games, and put downs.
- Isolation: Very often, a victim is told not to see family or friends and is kept at a distance from most people. The abuser can take it so far as to keep the victim home from work and/or other activities in order to assert complete control.
- Threats and Intimidation: Threats of violence (to the victim, friends, family, children, pets), suicide, and threats to take away children or pets is a common occurrence within a domestic violence situation.
- Physical Abuse: This can, very often, occur after the escalation through the other steps. Sometimes physical abuse does not occur but it does not lessen the impact of the other elements at all.
While men can be victims of abuse, it is most often the women who live within abusive situations. To better understand the prevalence of abuse in our society, I thank the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Departmental Administration – Human Resources Management – Domestic Violence Awareness Handbook (http://www.usda.gov/da/shmd/aware.htm for its information.
- Women were attacked about six times more often by offenders with whom they had an intimate relationship than were male violence victims.
- Nearly 30 percent of all female homicide victims were known to have been killed by their husbands or boyfriends.
- In contrast, just over 3 percent of male homicide victims were known to have been killed by their wives, former wives or girlfriends.
- Husbands, former husbands, boyfriends and ex-boyfriends committed more than one million violent acts against women.
- Family members or other people they knew committed more than 2.7 million violent crimes against women.
- Husbands, former husbands, boyfriends and ex-boyfriends committed 26 percent of rapes and sexual assaults.
- Forty-five percent of all violent attacks against female victims 12 years old and older by multiple offenders involve offenders they know.
- The rate of intimate-offender attacks on women separated from their husbands was about three times higher than that of divorced women and about 25 times higher than that of married women.
- Women of all races were equally vulnerable to attacks by intimates.
- Female victims of violence were more likely to be injured when attacked by someone they knew than female victims of violence who were attacked by strangers.
While there is no way to completely list the victims, the causes, or the effects of domestic violence in one page, the links below will give more information. Please be informed on this issue. It is all around us and each of us should know how to deal with a situation (should it be a neighbor or a loved one) and how to find help for someone who is being abused.
For more information on Domestic Violence and Awareness, please visit the following links:
National Domestic Violence Hotline