Domestic Violence

According to the Law.com, domestic violence is defined as the continuing crime and problem of the physical beating of a wife, girlfriend or children, usually by the woman’s male partner. Although domestic violence can occur in homosexual relationships, the focus of this paper will be on domestic violence as it relates to a relationship between a man and a woman.

As it relates to men and women, domestic violence is a pattern of battering behavior used to establish power and control over an intimate partner. It not only involves physical abuse, but can also include emotional, financial, or sexual abuse as well. It is the type of violence that crosses all boundaries regardless of culture, ethnic background or socioeconomic status. It is a behavior often driven by the need of someone, usually a male, to control another person, which is usually a female. It often starts with shouting and words that are meant to demean, before escalating into something more physical, like pushing and hitting. Ginny NiCarthy, author of Getting free: you can end abuse and take back your life, states that, “anywhere between twenty-five and fifty percent of women who have intimate relationship with men will be physically abused by them at least once”. She also goes on to mention that “most of the women tend to stay, despite the abuse”.

One of the most complicated issues facing health care professional and government agencies today is domestic violence. Every fifteen seconds in the United States an act of domestic violence occurs. It is the most widespread form of violence and is the number one cause of injury to women. With over six million women in the U.S., one in ten is a victim of domestic violence. In the state of Georgia it is the number one cause of injury for girls and women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four. Reports also show that at least thirty percent of women in Georgia will be abused at least once in their lifetime. Recently, violence among partners has received increased attention and the need to identify victims of domestic violence has become more established. Although this violence is a widespread problem, it is difficult to measure and record. Like rape, it is a crime that frequently goes unreported. Due to the nature of the crime, information is difficult to obtain because the crime usually occurs at night, in the home, and with no witnesses. Many women are embarrassed and feel as though no one will help them, so they often times do not report the crime. Many also stay with the men who abuse them until they can’t take it anymore, or until they die, at the hand of their abusers.

Although domestic violence remained an issue, it wasn’t until the late 1970s, that domestic violence became a major issue that was widely recognized. During this period, protest from women, many of who were victims themselves, started a movement that would change the way we perceived and handled domestic violence. Normally viewed as a private matter, the movement further emerged in the 1980s and 90s into an era that proved just how important, dangerous, and harmful this social problem was becoming.

Increased reports led to intervention by criminal justice and public health officials. In 1994, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act. It was later amended in 1996, to recognize domestic violence as a national crime. It also established numerous federal laws, as a way of taking the burden off of local, state, and county officials. It was made clear that without this intervention, a significant amount of domestic violence cases would escalate into more serious incidents and in some cases, eventually death.

What is domestic violence?

Domestic violence is the coercive behavior through which abuse, be it physical, emotional, or sexual is used though intimidation, threats, harmful, or harassing behavior. Most domestic violence usually consists of physical attacks, but what most individuals are not aware of is that emotional and sexual abuse is a form of domestic violence as well.

Physical abuse also known as battering is the use of physical force against another person in a way that injures the person, or puts the person at risk of being injured. This form of abuse can include, but is not limited to, slapping, pushing, punching, restraining, assaulting, and in extreme cases, murder. Physical abuse can occur just one time, but that is very seldom the case. It is most commonly a pattern of physical assault, threats and restraints. It is the most common form of domestic violence, because the man feels as though he can scare the women, with physical abuse, more than any other form of abuse. In the eyes of abusers it is a form of control. The abuser uses violence as a form of manipulation to keep their partner afraid and fearful of seeking help.

Many individuals of physical abuse try to hide their injuries because they are embarrassed to reveal that domestic violence is occurring in their relationship. This is exactly the kind of control the abuser wants to have over their victims. If the victims are afraid to speak out or seek help, that means the abusers have won, they have gained the control that is being sought. Many victims feel if they are not being hit or slapped around, they are not being abused, but they are. This is referred to as emotional abuse, which is more destructive.

Emotional abuse is a form of abuse that can be verbal or nonverbal. Common forms of emotional abuse include intimidation, yelling, screaming, name-calling, embarrassment, and telling the victim that they are worthless on their own. The effects of emotional abuse are far more detrimental than physical abuse. The individuals that suffer from verbal abuse tend to have low self-esteem and suffer from depression. These victims then start isolating themselves from family and friends, because they have a feeling of self worthlessness and are embarrassed to be seen in such a condition. The abuser does this as a way to intentionally cause mental suffering. His motivation is not to cause suffering, just in the present, but in the future as well. It is during this stage of abuse, we begin to see extreme weight loss from lack of appetite, anxiety attacks, and suicide attempts. Thus, emotional abuse is by far the most harmful form of domestic violence.

Sexual abuse is another form of domestic violence. According to Dictionary.com, sexual abuse is defined as the forcing of unwanted sexual activity by one person on another, as by the use of threats or coercion. In recent statistics, it was reported that 201,394 women are forcibly raped by an intimate partner annually. Sexual abuse is also a harmful form of domestic violence, because many victims of sexual abuse begin to have distorted images of their body and low self-esteem.