preview

Annually 4.8 Million Women Are Physically Assaulted Or

Decent Essays
Open Document

Annually 4.8 million women are physically assaulted or raped by someone they know or their intimate partners, which translates to three women being killed by their partners each day in the United States (Naylor). The United States has an alarming rate of violence against women, which is a grave violation of human rights. Its impact ranges from immediate to long-term physical, sexual, and mental effects for women and girls, such as depression, PTSD and death. Although both genders are guaranteed the same rights and freedoms, women are more often than not faced with injustices and violence at greater rates than men. Treated as second class citizens, for a majority of the country 's history, women are oppressed even further through …show more content…

Harm and power are the main goal.
Gender based and intimate partner violence poses major public health problems and violations of women 's human rights. This pattern of violence can be traced back to the start of American society, when women were stripped of property rights, or any type of ownership, and they’re lives were owned by their husbands. The market culture that began to morph, as well as the self made man model that circulated in American culture, in a way convinced men that they were stronger than women. A tough man was an individual who knew how to keep his wife in her place, whatever means possible including committing intimate partner violence. In a time when women were beginning to exercise their reproductive rights and take leadership roles in the country, the self made man felt endangered and lashed out. In the 70’s through late 80’s there was a “surge” in reported intimate partner violence cases across the US, however even before this surge there were hundreds, if not thousands of women suffering from abuse. The men were unable to cope with their power over women vanishing from their hands.
Although laws have been enacted in the last 20 years to protect survivors of intimate partner violence, such as the Violence Against Women Act (1994), the abuse continues. As Richard argues’ that although politicians and people of the new generation are sympathetic to violence, in this

Get Access