Thoughts on Abuse

WARNING:  MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING CONTENT

I caught an online ad the other day which shocked me. It said that 1 in 4 women suffered from domestic abuse. 1 in 4? Are they expecting me to believe that 25% of women are abused by their partner? I have over several Aunts and Uncles who all seem happily married. That means that, statistically, more than two of my Aunts are being abused. So which Uncle is domestically violent?  I'm not accusing anyone, but statistically it's probable.

Obviously, this thought was preposterous to me, but I couldn't get that statistic out of my head. 1 in 4? It couldn't be right. So I did some digging on the internet and discovered that it's not true. At least not in the sense I'd taken it, anyway. It's not 25% of women. However, according to womens aid, it is 1 in 4 women - over the course of their lifetime. 6-10% of women in any one year. My immediate reaction was Thank goodness. It only took a second, though, before the horror of this situation hit me. 6-10% in one year? Let me try and put that in some kind of rough perspective.

Population in the United States is roughly 305,987,096. Let's say half of those are women - so 152,993,548. 124,588,737 of those women are 15 or older. Not many 15 to 20 year olds are married so we'll say we're talking about 124,000,000 and make it a nice round number.

So - 6-10% in any one year. At best, that makes 7,440,000 women affected. At worst, it's 12,400,000.

12,400,000 women being abused by their partners in a year. Wait, there's worse to come.

Over 2 women a week are killed by their partner, or ex-partner. I think the ad said domestic abuse is the primary cause of death in women between the ages of 15 and 55, but I'm not sure.

Domestic abuse worsens during a woman's pregnancy, and if there are children in the house.

Most domestic abuse goes unreported. I could also mention that it's not only women, that men suffer domestic abuse as well - but that the numbers are considerably smaller.

Of all female homicide victims, 42% are killed by current or former partners. 4% of male homicides are due to their partners. However, I'd ask how many more men are victims of homicide than women in general? I know that men are around 3 times more likely to be victims of assault, so I'd imagine that the numbers of male homicide victims are much larger than female, but I don't know.

I'd also like to point out that domestic abuse isn't just physical. It's defined as:

"Any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse (psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional) between adults who are or have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender or sexuality." This includes issues of concern to black and minority ethnic (BME) communities such as so called 'honor killings'."

Domestic abuse, in other words, can be compltely non violent. Here are a list of the signs of domestic abuse, according to women's aid:

Destructive criticism and verbal abuse: shouting/mocking/accusing/name calling/verbally threatening.

Pressure tactics: sulking, threatening to withhold money, disconnect the telephone, take the car away, commit suicide, take the children away, report you to welfare agencies unless you comply with his demands regarding bringing up the children, lying to your friends and family about you, telling you that you have no choice in any decisions.

Disrespect: persistently putting you down in front of other people, not listening or responding when you talk, interrupting your telephone calls, taking money from your purse without asking, refusing to help with childcare or housework.

Breaking trust: lying to you, withholding information from you, being jealous, having other relationships, breaking promises and shared agreements.

Isolation: monitoring or blocking your telephone calls, telling you where you can and cannot go, preventing you from seeing friends and relatives.

Harassment: following you, checking up on you, opening your mail, repeatedly checking to see who has telephoned you, embarrassing you in public.

Threats: making angry gestures, using physical size to intimidate, shouting you down, destroying your possessions, breaking things, punching walls, wielding a knife or a gun, threatening to kill or harm you and the children.

Sexual violence: using force, threats or intimidation to make you perform sexual acts, having sex with you when you don't want to have sex, any degrading treatment based on your sexual orientation.

Physical violence: punching, slapping, hitting, biting, pinching, kicking, pulling hair out, pushing, shoving, burning, strangling.

Denial: saying the abuse doesn't happen, saying you caused the abusive behaviour, being publicly gentle and patient, crying and begging for forgiveness, saying it will never happen again.

The thing is - I'm pretty sure everyone I know has experienced one of these at some point, and not one of us would consider it domestic abuse.

So, the questions are: Are the reports of domestic abuse always justified? Is a woman going to have a blazing row with her partner and decide to call it in as a method of punishment? And if this is the case, do those statistics get recorded? I'm not saying that screaming abuse at someone is ever acceptable, but there is a level of rage that's forgiveable as human nature. There's a massive difference between having the occasional screaming match, where names are called and plates are smashed - and a consistent level of daily abuse. I do wonder how many times the police are called as a tactic in 'winning' an argument.

Personally, I think whatever can be done to help victims of abuse - male, female, domestic or public - should be done. However, I'm not sure people are getting to the bottom of things. Violence seems to be viewed in a very strange light. In my honest opinion, all types of violence are unacceptable. I may not seem like that kind of person, but honestly, the only time it's appropriate to raise your hands to someone is in self-defense, and if everyone accepts this then self-defense shouldn't be necessary. I know I'm the last person who should be preaching about this, and I know I'm not the best anti-violence poster girl, but don't care if you're a man hitting a woman, a woman hitting a man, a man hitting a man, a woman a woman, unless it is in self-defense, you are in the wrong. It's the imposing of will by a physically stronger person over a weaker. It's nature's greatest mistake. Being able to control a situation simply because you can batter people into submission is a way to total destruction. But time and time again you see the glorification of violence. Instead of moving away from the idea that solving problems by having a good punch up, the popular media now seems to be suggesting that people should solve all of their problems with a fist or a gun.

Violence begets violence. We've known that ever since humanity was able to think introspectively, but what do we do? We continue to show it as aspirational, as escapist fantasy. It's a bit sick, if you think about it. I know, I know - you're not really supposed to think about it. It's just entertainment ... right?

Consider the following:

• October, 1994: Police say Utah teenager obsessed with the movie Natural Born Killers, a film about young people on a murder spree, killed his stepmother and half sister.
  
• March, 1994: A psychiatrist testified that serial killer Danny Harold Rollings could have been influenced by the movie Exorcist III which he watched just hours before beginning a spree of rapes and slayings.
  
• December, 1993: A judge in England said the American movie Child's Play 3 influenced two Liverpool 11-year olds to murder a two-year-old.
  
• November, 1993: A forensic psychiatrist who testified for the prosecution during the trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer said Dahmer would watch such movies as Hellraiser II before going to cruise for victims.
  
• October, 1984: A Milwaukee man splashed gasoline on his wife and burned her to death after watching the TV movie The Burning Bed, about a woman who sets fire to an abusive husband.
  

I believe the only thing that's going to reduce abuse of all kinds is education, and as so many people take their social education from the TV, I don't think it's wise to continue to portray violence as second nature. Personally, I think a man beating up a man is as despicable as a man beating up a woman. It's still a stronger person dominating a weaker one for their own sense of power. However, there is a difference between two people looking for a fight and battering each other in some primeval power-struggle. If they consent then I suppose it's a fair fight.

We don't live in Utopia, so there are a couple of things that need to be done. Firstly, I think every girl over the age of 13 should be given every opportunity to build her confidence. Something happens to girls around that age; often they go from being happy, secure queens of their own lives to blushing every time they're called on in class, never making a wise-crack, believing they're somehow not good enough. At the same time, boys start developing their own brand of confidence, which can be even more intimidating to girls. So, girls need to be encouraged to perform; to show off their intellectual or physical skills, and to be able to hold their own in mixed groups.

To sum up, what I'm trying to say is that women lose their confidence at a very young age, making them susceptible to patterns of abuse. If we can create an uber-race of strong, confident women, it will go some distance to combatting domestic abuse. I'm not saying that abused women just need to stand up for themselves - while that also needs to be done - I'm saying that if they learn from a young age that they're worth more than a violent partner gives them, it should help cut the numbers of people in abusive relationships. They may well be able to cope with verbal abuse without letting it dominate them as well. Give a sense of strength and power back to the abused, and teach those who may be vulnerable from a young age that they have worth.