Being A Victim Of Domestic Violence

Anyone can be a victim, any age, sex, race, culture, religion, education, employment, marital status or sexual orientation. Women however, are more likely to become victims than men. As for the perpetrator of abuse, they have no typical manifestation. In public the abuser may appear loving and friendly towards their partner and or family. They commonly have low self-esteem, and don't like to take responsibility for their actions. So they may try to hide the abuse by inflicting injuries that will not require medical attention. Abuse may be physical, emotional, sexual, and psychological. Abusive persons are usually people who like to be in control of other people. Here this form of control is usually a behavior, which is learnt as a means to getting what they want.

This behavior is considered to be abusive because it negatively affects the victim and the people around them like other family members, friends, co-workers, etc. Due to gender rules in society, women are typically seen as weak and submissive and a majority of the time they tend to be the main victims when it comes to domestic violence. Statistics shows that this crime kills about “one-quarter of all American women” (Life at Home, 365) a year while millions of other women suffer at the hands of their partner. With time domestic violence has morphed into five main categories which include physical, verbal, financial, sexual and psychological or emotional abuse. That includes anything that is meant to harm, threaten, frighten, manipulate, humiliate, intimidate, or falsely accuse the victim. It takes place all over the world and is evident in every social class. It can happen to anyone regardless of their race, gender, age, sexual orientation, or beliefs. Domestic violence is most common with adults, especially those who are married yet they are certainly not the only ones to experience domestic abuse. Research shows that when children witness domestic violence between their parents, boys are more likely than girls to abuse their future intimate partners, while girls who normally witness domestic violence are more likely to be the victims as adults in future relationships (Weebly.com). There has been

Although we lost Ellen Pence, a woman who changed how domestic violence is addressed, in 2012, there are many lives that are being saved to this day because of her work. Ellen Pence found her calling in 1977 when she began working for the Minneapolis Housing Authority that helped individuals relocate with housing complications (StarTribune, 2010). It was then that she immersed herself through domestic violence cases and set the standard for addressing these cases. Ellen Pence is especially known for establishing the Duluth Program, a program that address batterers in the court systems, and Praxis Training, which are training on addressing domestic violence for law enforcement, advocates, community agencies, and institutions. Pence’s 35 years of service change the way domestic violence cases were handled, educated key players in domestic violence cases, and showed the world what it was like to be a victim of domestic abuse. Without her efforts, many individuals in power addressing these cases would be lost and those to who are victims would not be understood as they are today.

There are a vast amount of factors that can contribute to an individual being more vulnerable to abuse, these include:

The prevalence of domestic violence in the United States is that it is occurring far more often than many individuals would choose to admit. This form of violence is by no means new and culturally the problem itself does not discriminate, there is no specific criteria that completely omits one from becoming a victim of domestic violence. The dynamics of domestic violence consist of the aggressor utilizing violence to maintain dominance and control over the victim. The victimization that is consistent with domestic violence can come in various forms including, physical, sexual, psychological, mental/emotional, and financial. Domestic violence victimization is a cycle that usually is difficult to terminate by many victims as well as aggressors. Individuals involved in abusive relationships continue to remain in them for various reasons such as, maintaining financial stability, desire or hope that things will change overtime, fear that their abuser, will further harm them for leaving the relationship, embarrassment of their situation, or there may be children involved and the victims wants to avoid some of the harsh realities associated with a broken home. Oftentimes domestic violence victims blame themselves for the violence encountered by their abusers, figuring that if they do things differently the next time, maybe they won’t be victimized again by their partner. Conversely, violence committed by abusers is often self-driven and hinges on very minor actions executed by the

And the answer to this would be; anyone can become a victim of domestic violence. Although most would assume that only women could be affected by this heinous crime, this is not the case. Granted, in a 2001 U.S. study, “85 percent of the victims were female with a male batterer” (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics), but the other 15% did not fit into this category. This 15% represents the males with female batterers, as well as those victims in lesbian and gay relationships. It is not as common, but uncommon is not synonymous with nonexistent. Again, it can happen to anyone.

The one word that best characterizes the experience of domestic violence victims within the criminal justice system is, "complicated." Victims suffer from a two-fold problem when dealing with the criminal justice system. When dealing with law enforcement and courts, many victims might be not taken seriously or their wishes not respected. This poses a significant problem, as if victims feel they cannot trust the system to help them, they will not seek help in the future when they need it. This, in turn, creates the opposite of the deterrent effect the criminal justice system wants, as abusers learn that their victims will not seek help, allowing them full control over them.

Intimate partner violence starts with emotional abuse and every so often advances to physical or sexual battering. Several Factors cause abuse such as: a sense of control or power on someone life, low self-esteem, fury concerning women, poverty,

Within the American society many different types of domestic abuse that exist, but I will be discussing four of them. Physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse. In the U.S 85% of women are physically abused compared to 15% of men. Physical abuse means inflicting pain on someone by use of physical force with the intention to harm them. Women between the ages of 18 and 34 may experience domestic violence at some point in their life. There are 38,028,000 women throughout the U.S that have been physically abused in their lifetime by an intimate partner, and 4,774,000 women that experience abuse daily (Vagianos, 2015). In the world there is a stereotype that only women are victims of domestic abuse, but men can also fall victim to this abuse. According to Psychcentral.com men are thought to be the only ones who abuse their spouse/partner due to the fact that they are stronger but, 33% of men have been abuse in their lifetime. Even though women are said to be weaker than men it is still possible for them to abuse men physically, by biting slapping or even destroying their personal belongings women also tend to emotionally abuse their partner more often

The article Witnessing Domestic Violence as a Child and Adulthood Emotionality: Do Adults “Feel” the Consequences of Exposure to Partner Abuse Later in the Life Course by McKee and Payne made an hypothesis of how children witnessing domestic violence at home will influence them psychologically in the future. This study focused on the relationship between child witnessing abuse at home and the emotional impact of adults. A random sample of telephone interviews is being used in this study to collect data from the respondents. The finding was categorized between the gender of male and female. They found that female is easily to be impacted psychologically than male. Life course theory was being used to talk about the social structure which knowing

The most profound assistance we can give to someone in any situation is education. As stated previously those who are uneducated on what exactly domestic abuse is and how it will affect them are more likely to stay in the abusive relationship than those who are educated beforehand. Many schools; and even outside of school programs offer sex education classes. These programs teach our teens about protecting themselves and making smart decisions when where their sexuality is concerned. If our schools teach young adults about protecting themselves sexually why not teach them to protect themselves physically

It includes physical injury, obesity, substance abuse, depression, low self esteem and anxiety disorders. The article states women are prone to violence because they had a partner or parents who abused them all the time or parents .Scholarly has suggested that women who are dating are more likely to experience violence than married couples. There are different types of violence which are physical violence, psychological abuse, emotional abuse or sexual violence.

This abuser can pass these issues on to children and relatives, by them witnessing the shocking behavior. Many children who are from domestic violence relationships are neglected, and are prone to replicate the behavior, now and later on in life. While many factors that can predisposition a person to be prone to domestic violence, there are no specific demographics of domestic violence.

Ellie and I lay in our beds, neither one of us knew what to say. In the other room, our host parents were arguing. We didn’t know what about, but we knew it was serious. Then we heard a “THWACK” followed by silence. Ellie and I sat up in our beds and looked at each other, I could tell she was as scared as I was. “Was that? Did he just?” she asked me. Then the arguing started back up again. We calmed back down until we heard it again. “THWACK” We knew then, the noise we heard, was him beating her. We got up, our hearts racing; neither of us knew what to do. We got our nerves together to go get help. When we opened the door to our room we saw the children sitting on the couch crying out for their mother. I could see the fear in their face and I knew something needed to change.

Abusers effort to dominate their partners has been linked also to low self-esteem or feelings of inadequacy, unresolved childhood conflict, the stress of poverty, hostility and resentment towards women(misogamy), hostility and resentment towards men (misandry), personality disorder, genetic tendencies and social-cultural influences.