There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness – Han Suyin

During the Vietnam War 58,000 American soldiers were killed. During the same time, 51,000 American women were killed by the men who professed to love them.

Frequently Asked Questions About Domestic Violence

There are many questions and misconceptions about the causes and effects of domestic violence and the best way to help all those involved — abusers as well as victims and their children. The following are some of the most frequently asked questions about domestic violence. The answers seek to dispel some of the common misconceptions and suggest positive directions for those working to find new and effective solutions to this serious problem.

If a couple is having a problem with domestic violence, doesn’t it just mean they have a bad relationship? Maybe poor communication is the problem?

Bad relationships do not result in or cause domestic violence.

The idea that a bad relationship cause’s violence in the home is one of the most common and dangerous misconceptions about domestic violence. First, it encourages all parties involved – including and especially the victim – to minimize the seriousness of the problem and focus their energy on “improving the relationship” in the false hope that this will stop the violence. It also allows the abuser to blame the bad relationship, and thus the violence, on the victim, rather than acknowledging his own responsibility.

More importantly, improving the relationship is not likely by itself to end the violence. Violence is a learned behavior. Many couples have bad relationships yet never become physically violent with each other. Many batterers are violent in every one of their relationships, whether they consider them to be bad or good. The violent individual is the sole source and cause of the violence, and neither his partner nor their relationship should be held responsible. Indeed, regardless of the quality or future of a couple’s relationship, stopping the violence must be a top priority and an end in itself — and only the batterer can do that.

Are most incidents of domestic violence caused by alcohol or drug abuse?

Many people have alcohol and/or drug abuse problems but are not violent. Similarly, many batterers are not substance abusers. How people behave when they are under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs depends on a complex combination of personal, social, physical and emotional factors. And like many other kinds of behavior, alcohol- or drug-affected behavior patterns are often culturally learned.

In our culture, many leisure and social events involve heavy drinking, which can, unfortunately, contribute and/or lead to conflicts ending in violence. Furthermore, many people in troubled situations — such as victims of domestic violence — use alcohol and/or drugs as a way to avoid facing their problems.

It is often easier to blame domestic violence on an alcohol or drug abuse problem than to admit that you or your partner is openly, soberly violent. Episodes of problem drinking and incidents of domestic violence often occur separately and must be treated as two distinct issues. Neither alcoholism nor drug abuse can explain or excuse domestic violence.

Is domestic violence triggered by stress? Such as the loss of a job or some financial or marital problem?

Daily life is full of frustrations associated with money and work, our families, and other personal relationships. Everyone experiences stress, and everyone responds to it differently.

Violence is a specific learned and chosen response to stress, whether real or imagined. Certainly, high levels of domestic violence are related to social problems such as unemployment; however, other reactions to such situations are equally possible. Some people take out their frustrations on themselves with drugs or alcohol; some take it out on others with verbal or physical abuse. Some work out stress by taking up sports or hobbies, while still others fight back in socially positive ways. Learning to handle stress in constructive ways can be an important step in stopping violent behavior.

Doesn’t domestic violence occur in lower class or minority communities?

Domestic violence occurs at all levels of society, in all classes and communities, regardless of their social, economic or cultural backgrounds.

Researchers and service providers have found, however, that economic and social factors can have a significant impact on how people respond to violent incidents and what kind of help they seek. Affluent people can usually afford private help — doctors, lawyers and counselors — while people with fewer financial resources (i.e., those belonging to a lower economic class or a minority group) tend to call the police or other public agencies. These agencies are often the only available source of statistics on domestic violence, and consequently, lower class and minority communities tend to be overrepresented in those figures, creating a distorted image of the problem.

What did she do to provoke him to violence?

When it comes to domestic violence, it does not take two to fight. Many victims report that the violence occurs unexpectedly, sometimes without warning. Often, the incident is caused by something insignificant that the offender later claims as ample provocation. Unfortunately, the victim may blame herself — as may everyone else.

However, no one makes another person act violently; it is a choice. When a person is provoked to anger, he or she can choose how to respond, and many possible responses are available. Even if a violent incident is preceded by a heated verbal argument, nothing — either words or actions — justifies violence against a person, except in cases of self defense.

Don’t most batterers lose control during violent incidents and not know what they’re doing?

If batterers were truly out of control, as many claim to be during violent incidents, there would be many more domestic violence homicides. In fact, many batterers do “control” their violence, abusing their victims in less visible places on their bodies, such as under the hairline or on the torso. Further, researchers have found that domestic violence occurs in cycles, and every episode is preceded by a predictable, repeated pattern of behavior and decisions made by batterer.

Aren’t there just as many cases of “husband battering” as wife battering, even if they aren’t reported?

Relatively few cases of husband battering show up in police records, clinics or anonymous random surveys. _The overwhelming majority of adult victims of domestic violence are current or former wives, girlfriends or lovers of the batterer. _According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice, 85% of all victims of intimate personal violence in 2001 were women.

The one exception to these findings is in the area of spousal homicide, where victims are equally male and female. However, studies indicate that at least half of the male victims of domestic violence homicide are killed by their partners in self-defense after a history of spousal abuse.

Isn’t domestic violence a less serious problem than “real” violence, such as street crimes?

It is a terrible and unrecognized fact that for many people, home is the least safe place to be. Domestic violence accounts for a significant proportion of all serious crimes, including aggravated assault, rape and homicide. Furthermore, when compared with stranger-to-stranger crime, rates of occurrence and levels of severity are still underreported for domestic violence.

Domestic violence is real violence, and it often results in permanent injuries or death. Adult victims of this crime are terrorized and traumatized; children often are physically and/or emotionally scarred for life.

Aren’t some people — especially men — naturally violent? Once a batterer, always a batterer?

Violence is a learned behavior; consequently it can be unlearned. Most batterers can change their behavior if they want to. They can learn to alter the structure of expectations and demands underlying their relationships with the women in their lives, and they can learn to respond to stress, frustration and anger in different ways.

Some men don’t want to hurt the ones they love, but they don’t know how to stop. Learning how to change violent behavior takes serious commitment and consistent effort over an extended period of time. Programs that offer special education and counseling, especially in groups with other men, can help a batterer to accept responsibility for his behavior, identify his violent behavior patterns, develop new expectations of his partner, and practice ways of handling situations without resorting to violence.

Unfortunately, most batterers do not believe they have a problem and never seek help to stop their violent behavior.

Why do so many people refuse to admit that they — or their friends or relatives — have a domestic violence problem?

Denial is an integral part of the problem of domestic violence. Everyone involved or affected by violence in the home — abusers, victims, friends and family members, co-workers and neighbors — usually attempts to minimize or deny the seriousness and potential lethality of the situation.

The abuser often denies that he is violent, or he attempts to minimize the seriousness of his violent behavior. He does not want to acknowledge the realities of the situation: that he is hurting and beating someone he loves, and he alone is responsible for his violent behavior and for changing it.

Similarly, the victim may minimize the violence because she does not want to accept and face the fact that the person she loves most is abusing her. Furthermore, because the batterer may go through dramatic, Jekyll-and-Hyde changes of behavior, the victim may be genuinely confused. Is he the violent man who hit her last night, or the contrite man who bought her roses the next day and promised it would never happen again? Often, this period of reconciliation following a violent episode (a regular and recognized phase of the cycle of violence) serves to undermine the victim’s confidence in her perceptions and her sense of reality.

Finally, family, friends and other people who come into contact with the couple may minimize or deny the violence. Friends and family often do not see the abuser’s violent side, and/or they are afraid, confused or suspicious. Thus, many people collude in minimizing and denying the problem of domestic violence. This dynamic only makes the problem worse and does everyone — including the batterer — a disservice.

If she doesn’t like being battered, why doesn’t she leave or ask for help? Aren’t there social service agencies, hospitals or other places she could go?

Many victims do ask for help or try to get away from violent partners; however, they often encounter many obstacles and problems, including further violent assaults. A victim may be afraid to leave or ask for help because the batterer may have threatened her (or her children) with further and worse violence if she does. Unfortunately, many of these threats are carried out. In addition, many victims suffer from the effects of isolation and denial; they are truly unaware of the seriousness of their situation and of the existence of victim support services and other resources available to them in their community.

Even when a victim does ask for help from public health, social service or law enforcement agencies, she may encounter policies and practices which tend to minimize the violence and discourage her from taking further steps to address it. At hospitals, for example, emergency room personnel are rarely trained to recognize the physical and psychological signs of domestic violence, or, in such cases, to take the time to explore the causes of a victim’s injuries. In addition, many law enforcement agencies historically have followed policies of arrest avoidance in domestic violence cases. Responding officers were directed to mediate or defuse the situation as quickly as possible so that they could move on to the next call.

If a victim turns for help to religious, mental health or legal agencies or professionals, she again may encounter disbelief or outright denial of her problem or even be blamed for “provoking” the violence herself. By skimming over the circumstances of her situation and quickly moving on to the next call or client, these service providers in effect are telling the victim that her problem is unimportant, unsolvable or not real.

This is not to deny that practical demands, rather than indifference, may shape the responses of many health care, law enforcement and social service professionals. Yet, such considerations do not diminish the real terror and peril which a victim of domestic violence faces.

This material was excerpted from DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, A TRAINING CURRICULUM FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT, VOL. 11: REFERENCE MATERIALS published by The Family Violence Project of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.