While young men are more apt to become victims of violent acts perpetrated by strangers, women are much more likely to become victims of violent acts perpetrated by spouses, lovers, ex-spouses, and ex-lovers. In 1999, more than 6 million women were victims of assault. In fact, 6 of every 10 women in the United States will be assaulted at some time in their lives by someone they know. Every year, approximately 12 percent of married women are the victims of physical aggression perpetrated by their husbands, according to a national survey. These acts of aggression are committed in anger and often include pushing, slapping, and shoving.Some women experience much more severe acts of aggression. Each year about 4 percent of married women are the victims of violence that takes the form of beating and/or threats of or actual harm caused by use of a knife or a gun. In fact, acts of aggression by a husband or boyfriend are one of the most common causes of death for young women, and roughly 2,200 women in the United States are killed each year by their partners or ex-partners. Over a recent 10-year period, according to the National Crime Survey, on average, more than 2 million assaults on women occurred each year. More than two thirds of these assaults were committed by someone the woman knew.The following U.S. statistics indicate the seriousness of this long-hidden problem:- The most vulnerable female victims are African American and Hispanic, live in large cities, are young and unmarried, and are far from their families.- Every 15 seconds, someone batters a woman.- Only 1 in every 250 such assaults is reported to the police.- More than a third of women victims of domestic violence are severely abused on a regular basis.- About five women are killed every day in domestic violence incidents.- Three of every four women murdered are killed by their husbands.- Domestic violence is the single greatest cause of injury to women, surpassing rape, mugging, and auto accidents combined.- About 25 to 45 percent of all women who are battered sustain such attacks during pregnancy.- One quarter of suicide attempts by women occur as a result of domestic violence.How many times have you heard of a woman who is repeatedly beaten by her partner or spouse and asked, “Why doesn’t she just leave him?” There are many reasons why some women find it difficult, if not impossible, to break their ties with their abusers. Many women, particularly those with small children, often are financially dependent on their partners. Others fear retaliation against themselves or their children. Some women hope that the situation will change with time (it rarely does), and others stay because their cultural or religious beliefs forbid divorce. Finally, some women still love the abusive partner and are concerned about what will happen to him if they leave.Psychologist Lenore Walker developed a theory known as the “cycle of violence” to explain how women can get caught in a downward spiral without knowing what is happening to them. The cycle has three phases:1. Tension building. In this phase, minor battering occurs, and the woman may become more nurturant, more pleasing, and more intent on anticipating the spouse’s needs in order to forestall another violent scene. She assumes guilt for doing something to provoke him and tries hard to avoid doing it again.- Acute battering. At this stage, pleasing her man doesn’t help and she can no longer control or predict the abuse. Usually, the spouse is trying to “teach her a lesson,” and when he feels he has inflicted enough pain, he’ll stop. When the acute attack is over, he may respond with shock and denial about his own behavior. Both batterer and victim may soft-pedal the seriousness of the attacks.- Remorse/reconciliation. During this “honeymoon” period, the batterer may be kind, loving, and apologetic, swearing he will never act violently toward the woman again. He may “behave” for several weeks or months, and the woman may come to question whether she overrated the seriousness of past abuse.- Then the kind of tension that precipitated abusive incidents in the past resurfaces, the man loses control again and he once more beats the woman.Unless some form of intervention breaks this downward cycle of abuse, contrition, further abuse, denial, and contrition, it will repeat itself again and again – perhaps ending only in the woman’s, or rarely, the man’s death.It is very hard for most women who get caught in this cycle of violence (which may include forced sexual relations and psychological and economic abuse as well as beatings) to summon up the courage and resolution to extricate themselves. Most need effective outside intervention.*2/277/5*
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