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Essay on Domestic Violence is Primary Abuse of Women

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The primary types of violence that women experience are those that are perpetrated by a husband or an intimate male partner (Levitt, Swanger, & Butler, 2008, p. 435; WHO, 2010). Intimate partner violence (IPV) includes physical and emotional abuse, forced intercourse or sexually degrading acts, and various controlling behaviors, such as isolation from family and friends and restriction from economic independence. These different types of abuse, in most cases, coincide over extended periods of time (WHO, 2010).
Based on recent findings, the prevalence of domestic violence around the world has been proven to be quite high. In 2005, the WHO interviewed over 24,000 women between the ages of 15 and 49 years in various Asian, African, and …show more content…

Religion has a tremendous influence on an individual’s behaviors and attitudes in public and private domains, all of which can potentially affect health outcomes (Chatters, 2000). Like most social determinants, religion has its positive and negative attributes on health. Theological emphases on love, compassion, and righteousness in a variety of religious faiths can be helpful for social and coping resources, encouraging positive attitudes and emotions, and endorsing specific health-promoting lifestyle and behaviors (Flood & Pease, 2009). However, with regard to IPV, several doctrines can be used, or sometimes misused, by perpetrators of violence to justify the brutality they conduct against women or to sustain the ideology on women’s vulnerability (Flood & Pease, 2009). Religious beliefs that exemplify patriarchal cultural norms by upholding masculine ideals and women’s subordination have been cited as one of the main contributing factors to IPV due to the unequal power ascribed within the relationship (Levitt et al., 2008). Men who believe that it is acceptable to physically harm their wives have twice the risk of perpetrating IPV, and like a dose-response relationship, the risk increased as acceptance of violence supported by religious dogma increased (WHO, 2010). IPV has received increasing

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