Domestic abuse in the spotlight

[DanaC]

Some statistics for the UK:

◦45% of women have experienced some form of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

◦Around 21% of girls, experience some form of child sexual abuse

◦At least 80,000 women suffer rape every year.

◦In a survey for Amnesty International, over 1 in 4 respondents thought a women was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing, and more than 1 in 5 held the same view if a woman had had many sexual partners.

◦On average, two women a week in England and Wales are killed by a violent partner or ex-partner. This constitutes nearly 40% of all female homicide victims.

http://www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk..._against_women

Now, I am not for a moment suggesting with this that women are the only victims of domestic violence. Men are also victims, and because of the shame that particularly attaches to men who are abused by women, they are even more hidden than female victims. But, where two women die to a partner or ex-partner every week in England and Wales, somewhere in the region of one man every three weeks dies at the hands of a partner or ex-partner.

Domestic and sexual abuse against women and girls is endemic in western culture. One of the things that allows that paradigm to continue is the general assumption of untrustworthiness which attaches to women in their relationships and lifechoices. It feeds into many aspects of life, from right-wing assumptions that women cannot be trusted with the important choices in reproduction, to even liberal and very unsexist men assuming that chicks are duplicitous in sex and courtship and that many will make unfounded accusations.


Most people know someone who always seems to have problems with their partner, who seems to be at his beck and call, who doesn't have many friends outside of work and their relationship, who isn't bruised but is overly concerned with what their partner will say/think about any decision or situation.

And yes, there are people out there who will make a mountain out of a molehill. But I would bet all that I have that they are vastly outnumbered by those trying to convince themselves and everyone around them that the mountain was made by a mole.