Domestic Abuse Against Women

Words: 2399
Pages: 10

Domestic abuse is a vastly underreported, silent epidemic that occurs in every culture and country. Abuse victims no matter what race, age, gender, or social status are affected each day. While abuse has no gender and abuse against anyone is unacceptable, women represent an overwhelming majority of victims. The “National Violence Against Women Survey” reveals 1 in 4 women have experienced some form of abuse during her lifetime. Behind closed doors is where most abusive situations occur because the attacker has complete control. Instead of asking the victim why do they stay, it is what pressures make them? Society often places tremendous blame on the victim for staying in an abusive relationship, although leaving is a gradual process. Several …show more content…
Bruises and broken bones are the initial pictures that pop up when someone is asked about domestic abuse. In reality, abusive behaviors in relationships make up a larger system that includes sexual, psychological, and emotional. While the other behaviors may not result in physical injuries, they still leave damaging effects on the victim. In the early stages of a relationship, it is hard to determine if the person will become abusive, especially when everything seemed perfect. Affection and attention are of the reasons why women say they did not think their partner would ever abuse them. This is why awareness is so important in schools and on social media platforms so people can be informed about domestic violence and be able to catch red flags in the beginning. Although there are no ways to determine a batterer before the abuse starts, the following are some common red flags: frequent minor lies occurs in the beginning stages of the relationship, they uses their childhood history as an excuse for his poor attitude or feeling a general sense of entitlement, have an attitude of self-righteousness or superiority, isolates you from loved ones and only wants you to spend time with them, and displays aggressive behavior by having violent rages by minor …show more content…
Her personal accounts of domestic violence was the topic of discussion. With openness, she agreed to do the interview in hopes to provide awareness and first hand experiences of the challenges leaving. The interview began by asking her how old she was when the violence started. She responded 24 years old. The age she reported correlates with the statistic of “young women between the ages of 16-24 in dating relationships, experience the highest rate of domestic violence and sexual assault” (stopdv.org). The next question was how far into the relationship was she when the abuse started. Like many abusive relationships, “it was around 6 months into the relationship when he started to become controlling.” Thirdly, the reason for going back was her saying, "I still loved him and I was pregnant and lived with him at his house. I didn't want to seem like a failure for breaking up the family. There were promises that he loved me and it will never happen again but it did." She specified that his family knew about the abuse because they lived on the same property. Sadly, the family knew about it but did not want to get her help so they could protect him. Mentioned earlier, women also experience the same issue of lack of support from their families. The next question was what made her leave for good. Admittedly she replied, "When my son was only one week old in the hospital with a fever and he beat me up in the