Why Women Stay in Abusive Relationships

@chai2,

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Their chance" meaning when they have some means of moving, having a job, a place to live.

They are biding their time.

The right time has also been a good time to kill the husband and get away with it. There is a whole genre of cable tv movies devoted to this, and a few Hollywood movies as well. Farrah Fawcett got all kinds of high fives for doing the "The Burning Bed", right around the time that courts were routinely giving women a free pass for cold blooded murder on mere unsubstantiated allegation of the dead man being an abuser. Hell, even the Menendez brothers tried that scheme when they went to trial for killing their parents. Thankfully judges are now willing to look a little closer into the facts, victim power play emotional manipulation is slightly more difficult to pull off now.

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The study of Linda Kelly is flawed as it does not distinguish between
women acting violently in self-defense (which was the most frequent
cited reason given for the use of violence). Only 3 % of the women
used in this particular study claimed to use violence as self-initiated.
It also does not specify if these are all heterosexual or same-sex domestic
violence cases. Furthermore, the study was conducted in 1970.

Today's figures list men as 33 % being the victim, but again, it is not defined
if it includes homosexual domestic cases, or any other particulars to the
cases such as self defense.

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@CalamityJane,

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Only 3 % of the women
used in this particular study claimed to use violence as self-initiated.

And if you had paid attention to the rape thread you would know that it is no different for men, except that men are less likely to retaliate then women are. When you notice violence (both physical and emotional) with a couple you can bet your shorts that it runs both ways. You will also find that self reporting is very flawed. You will also notice my quote indicated that the preponderance of the studies show that women are as violent as men, but nice try trying to refute all of them by finding an alleged flaw in one of them.....

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@hawkeye10,

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Women do not get hit more then men, the only difference is that men do more damage

But, Hawkeye, you seem to dismiss the fact that men do more damage as though it is some insignificant detail.

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In 2002, 24 percent of U.S. homicides that were as a result of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) were men, compared with 76 percent involving women as victims. The National Crime Victimization Survey reported in 2003 that 85 percent of IPV victims were women.
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/domviol/men.htm

Men do kill their female partners, or ex-partners, at a significantly higher rate then they are killed by their female partners or ex-partners. And the men tend to receive shorter prison sentences than their female counterparts.

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The average prison sentence of men who kill their women partners is 2 to 6 years. Women who kill their partners are, on average, sentenced to 15 years. (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1989)
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/domviol/facts.htm

And physical injury, inflicted by a male partner, short of homicide, does significantly impact women.

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Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States, more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. ("Violence Against Women, A Majority Staff Report," Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 102nd Congress, October 1992, p.3.)

25% - 45% of all women who are battered are battered during pregnancy.

Domestic violence does not end immediately with separation. Over 70% of the women injured in domestic violence cases are injured after separation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found in a national survey that 34 percent of adults in the United States had witnessed a man beating his wife or girlfriend, and that 14 percent of women report that they have experienced violence from a husband or boyfriend. More than 1 million women seek medical assistance each year for injuries caused by battering. (Federal Bureau of Investigation; U.S. Department of Justice National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS); Horton, 1995. "Family and Intimate Violence")

People with lower annual income (below $25K) are at a 3-times higher risk of intimate partner violence than people with higher annual income (over $50K). (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Intimate Partner Violence in the U.S. 1993-2004, 2006.)
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/domviol/facts.htm

And economic factors, and lack of resources, may help to keep a woman in an abusive relationship.

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Studies of domestic violence consistently have found that battering occurs among all types of families, regardless of income, profession, region, ethnicity, educational level or race. However, the fact that lower income victims and abusers are over-represented in calls to police, battered women's shelters and social services may be due to a lack of other resources.
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/domviol/myths.htm

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Battered women often make repeated attempts to leave violent relationships, but are prevented from doing so by increased violence and control tactics on the part of the abuser. Other factors which inhibit a victim's ability to leave include economic dependence, few viable options for housing and support, unhelpful responses from the criminal justice system or other agencies, social isolation, cultural or religious constraints, a commitment to the abuser and the relationship and fear of further violence. It has been estimated that the danger to a victim increases by 70% when she attempts to leave, as the abuser escalates his use of violence when he begins to lose control.
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/domviol/myths.htm

And no one would suggest that a man should remain in a relationship where he is abused by a female. So, Hawkeye, why are you trying to turn this into a gender issue? Nothing you have posted refutes the fact that considerably more women are killed by their male partners than is the reverse, and considerably more woman are medically treated for physical injuries inflicted by male partners than is the reverse. All of which suggests that it is dangerous for a woman to remain in an abusive relationship.

Abuse of a partner is wrong, regardless of which gender is doing the abusing. The issue is Intimate Partner Abuse. No one deserves to be abused. No one should remain in an abusive relationship, particularly a physically abusive relationship.

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@firefly,

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But, Hawkeye, you seem to dismiss the fact that men do more damage as though it is some insignificant detail.

I do not dismiss it, I am the one who mentioned it.

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And economic factors, and lack of resources, may help to keep a woman in an abusive relationship.

In the old days that was a reasonable argument, now that women are doing better than men on the economic side not only is it not, but if we are to be far now men should be receiving the extra services because increasingly it is them who are economically disadvantaged.

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Abuse of a partner is wrong, regardless of which gender is doing the abusing

Then dont do it, and dont let anyone do it too you. It is the bossing of others around, the deciding for others how they should run their relationships and how they should **** that I object to.

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@hawkeye10,

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It is the bossing of others around, the deciding for others how they should run their relationships

The government has every right to butt in when domestic violence is occuring--physical assault of a domestic partner is no different than assault of a stranger. People have a right to be protected from assaults. And the domestic abuse often includes the children in the home as well as the partner.

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30% to 60% of perpetrators of intimate partner violence also abuse children in the household. (Edelson, J.L. (1999).

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@ossobuco,

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I'm not arguing right now, but I'm curious re the first post. Sort of a wellwrit promo. Perhaps a viral take.

osso, I think the poster writes various short pieces, dealing with relationships, which she may place on this site or other sites.
She has some of her other work here.
http://www.streetarticles.com/about_author/lashawn-dallas/3650

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@firefly,

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The government has every right to butt in when domestic violence is occuring--physical assault of a domestic partner is no different than assault of a stranger. People have a right to be protected from assaults

That is way disingenuous, because with assault there is little debate about what the offense is and where the line is and the line has remained nearly constant over time. With sex crimes we have the state in league with radicals that make no secret that they are trying to use the laws to change how people behave, they have criminalized that which was never a crime before, often acts that are common, and often acts that vast numbers of the citizens not only think does not raise to the level of crime but which is perfectly normal.

On one hand we have the state upholding the standards of the people, on the other we have the state using laws to coerce people into behavior changes that it would like to see.

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@firefly,

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And the domestic abuse often includes the children in the home as well as the partner.

Learning about conflict, and learning to deal with conflict, SHOULD BE a skill set picked up in childhood. As we have talked about before your way of managing society is to use the laws to keep the thumb on people so that none of the nastiness that is humanity comes out. Sorry, but as anyone who knows their Freud knows that effort is doomed to failure, and you will deprive the next generation of skills that they will need by your efforts to keep their little minds pure to boot.

As way of example look at what happens when city folk lose touch with the land....they like their hamburgers well enough until they see a cow slaughtered, and then they are so horrified/traumatized that they get the idea that eating meat is not only bad for them but bad for everyone. This is a very tasty high protein food here, one that generations have loved and been powered by. Your ways make for weak squeamish humans, who are not too bright and who are not very good at taking care of themselves. We have gone pass far enough, it is very clear that it is time for this bad idea loosely referred to as the nanny state, to end. Any further coddling of citizens is the wrong direction to go in so far as our long term best interests are concerned. It is time to concentrate on producing whole and strong individuals who can take care of themselves and their loved ones and who want to. I dont want one more person conditioned to run to the state to complain and to blame someone else when life does not work out as well as they might have wanted or expected.

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@hawkeye10,

I have not talked about this a lot over the last year or so, but you will see where I am coming from with my approach to raising kids. I see my job as to raise healthy, happy and strong adults. It is not my job to protect them as children from every bruise, to make every day a disney fantasy land. I demand that my kids take as much responsibility for themselves as they can as early as they can.

What we see with the nanny state is the equivalent of the helicopter parent who over programs their kids lives and who demands to know every detail of every day so that they can protect their little precious imbeciles. If anything might be wrong, if anybody does anything that these kids do not like the parents want to hear about it so that they decide if something needs to be done.

**** THAT! They need to learn about life, they need to have experiences that sometimes dont turn out so well so that they will be able to successfully manage their lives when they get to be adults. How are kids ever going to learn about what happens when choices are bad, or about risk, if nothing is ever allowed to go bad in their days?? I have over the years had some problems as my kids see other kids run to mom and dad for every little hurt feeling, they sometimes have tried this with me. Big mistake, and dont come tattling either unless there is some real danger involved, because I dont want to hear it. I did childhood once, I dont need to do it again.... at least try to figure that **** out before you bother me about it.

I am happy to say that my kids think that they have been very lucky, they think that they are far more able to handle what comes their way then most of their friends are.

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@hawkeye10,

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That is way disingenuous, because with assault there is little debate about what the offense is and where the line is and the line has remained nearly constant over time.

There is nothing at all disingenuous about what I said because I am discussing assault. And the statistics I posted, concerning women who have been killed, or required medical treatment, due to physical assaults by their intimate partners, speak for themselves. And they contradict your contention that women are as violent as men. There is considerable difference in the degree and severity of violence that men display toward female partners when compared with what women display toward male partners. There is nothing ambiguous about the relative numbers of bodies in a morgue. 75% of those killed by intimate partners are female.

The topic of this thread concerns why women stay in abusive relationships. You can't stick to the topic because of your apparent preoccupation with sex and "feminists" and your rather atypical view of sex crimes.

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On one hand we have the state upholding the standards of the people, on the other we have the state using laws to coerce people into behavior changes that it would like to see.

That's not really accurate. You seem rather naive to the fact that it was deemed perfectly acceptable for a man to hit his wife as a way of "keeping her in line", just as it was perfectly acceptable for him to rape his wife until relatively recently. Women were regarded as property. Women didn't have the vote. The laws regarding spousal abuse (both physical and sexual spousal abuse) were intended to grant women the full protection of law they deserved as full citizens. And, in both the cases of physical and sexual spousal abuse, the laws did reinforce or coerce behavioral changes--it was no longer considered acceptable, or legal, to beat or rape your wife. They did criminalize behavior which was not considered criminal before or which was not taken seriously as a crime.

A fair amount of the justification of abusive treatment of female partners has its original basis in religion. And religious and cultural factors still operate to keep many women in abusive relationships.

I am sorry to see, Hawkeye, that you are using yet another thread, not to discuss the topic, but rather to ramble on and spout your half baked pseudo-sociological theories regarding male/female relationships and to voice your dissatisfaction that the law exists to curb human impulses. That is the purpose of laws--to protect people from the impulses of others--and that includes protection from being physically abused.

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@firefly,

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And they contradict your contention that women are as violent as men. There is considerable difference in the degree and severity of violence that men display toward female partners when compared with what women display toward male partners.

That is a VERY narrow definition of violence, because what you have just done is the measure it by the degree of harm done only. So in your mind the person who attacks me with a baseball bat is less violent than is the one who attacks with a gun. No, one had a better weapon but that says little about the degree of violence that is executed. You are holding it against men that we are made bigger and stronger, which we had nothing to do with. AND you are as always refusing to deal with the fact that abuse and violence in relationship is almost always one that is carried out by two people, not one.

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75% of those killed by intimate partners are female.

Yes, it is in all the feminist talking points. You all never mention however that when women kill they wait for the cops to come, but when men kill the tend to kill themselves too, so that when the family violence caused deaths are added up men die at about the same rate as women. But no, you just go on and on with this big lie that domestic violence is cause by men and that the women get the worst of it. It is a damn shame that feminists have gotten away with this willful distortion of the facts in pursuit of their political agenda for so long, but now that the mens rights groups are rising maybe we can do something about that. And I think it is time to call out that feminists have proven themselves to be cold heartless lying bitches as well, with absolutely no interest in honesty nor in the wellbeing of men.

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@CalamityJane,

Wow. What part of Ive never done it dont you understand. What im saying is that my wife loves me to the point that anything that happens between us would be worked out between us. Privacy. Trust. Loyalty. I know these concepts have been lost in todays times due to the nanny state that was discussed earlier in these post, so I dont blame you. these qualities have always described the minority.

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@hawkeye10,

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You all never mention however that when women kill they wait for the cops to come, but when men kill the tend to kill themselves too, so that when the family violence caused deaths are added up men die at about the same rate as women

Hawkeye, you really should take the time to do some research before shooting your mouth off and making unfounded statements. Most men who kill their female partners do not also kill themselves. In fact, only about 30% of men kill themselves after killing their female partner.
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:XVxmdhuOHF4J:www.sp2.upenn.edu/fieldctr/news/documents/StLouisPostDispatch-FamilyKillersRevealPatterns.pdf+do+men+who+kill+spouses+also+kill+themselves&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiPBbgBOFYx3vGnO0eoKkG5RjlZ03R9Z-pbbtZlTB5evkqb3TKL0TsIFJgStCOcUVBzCxfFlC40l6DmBVZb-Nys535siAt8fLqBY6XMifdbfx09LdoKZYP5EcpQ7zVUSnPAoB6g&sig=AHIEtbQvxIaB38tL3njiUktvSPB-QKCIbg

By any standard you choose to use, more women than men die as the result of intimate partner violence--in fact, women die at 4 times the rate of men due to violence from their partners.

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You are holding it against men that we are made bigger and stronger, which we had nothing to do with

No, I'm not holding anything against men. Women are just as capable as men when it comes to using a lethal weapon such as a gun, and they can also inflict serious damage or death with a bat or knife. It is not the man's greater size that is the problem, it is also his loss of control over his aggressive impulses and the manner in which he expresses those impulses. And that is the same problem that exists when the woman loses control over her aggressive impulses and shoots, or stabs, her partner, or runs him over with a car, or poisons him, or even hires a hit man to kill her partner for her.

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But no, you just go on and on with this big lie that domestic violence is cause by men and that the women get the worst of it.

I have never said that all domestic violence is caused by men. Men, as well as woman, are victims of intimate partner violence. However, more women than men sustain serious injury requiring medical treatment, and considerably more women than men are killed by their partners. This does not mean that men aren't being abused by their partners, but the true nature and extent of that problem may be obscured by the fact that men are reluctant to report the problem to anyone. Therefore, resources, such as shelters and social services, tend to focus on the known victims who are overwhelmingly female. Men may also be better able to leave or escape from an abusive relationship because they may not be caring for, or see themselves as responsible for, young children, and they may have better financial resources than many of the females in abusive relationships. One in 4 homeless women have been the victims of domestic abuse, suggesting that low income women often have nowhere to go when they flee an abusive situation, and low income women are 3 times as likely to be the victims of domestic abuse compared to more affluent women.

Your continued obsessive preoccupation with "feminists" obscures your ability to adequately consider the issue of intimate partner violence/abuse with any objectivity. You become childishly obsessed with trying to prove that women are just as bad as men. That really isn't the issue. The issue is the problem of domestic abuse and how to decrease the incidence of such abuse regardless of which gender is being victimized. Yes, "feminists" tend to emphasize the problem as it affects women because historically this has been a "woman's issue" and women are still being the most seriously injured, and most often killed, as the result of domestic violence. That doesn't mean that all "feminists" are "cold heartless lying bitches" it simply means their public advocacy focuses on women, and if they hadn't taken up this cause for women, no one else would have done it. Rather than insult or belittle them, you should learn from the feminists and try to use their successful methods of advocacy to help men who are victims of domestic abuse. It really will be other men who are better able to encourage male victims of domestic violence to come forward so that they can be provided with whatever services they need, and male advocacy groups are needed to accomplish that.

But, Hawkeye, the topic of this thread was directed to the issue of why women remain in abusive relationships. That is a perfectly reasonable issue to discuss. Why men remain in abusive relationships might have an entirely different set of reasons and causes, and that issue would probably be better explored in a separate thread.

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@firefly,

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Hawkeye, you really should take the time to do some research before shooting your mouth off and making unfounded statements

I stand by my assertion. Here is a study that shows in West Virginia 03-05 the male death rate was 40, the female 43 for intimate partner events and 52, 51 respectively for overall domestic violence. Perhaps your brain is too muddled with feminist propaganda for you to understand the reality.

http://www.wvdhhr.org/ocme/dvreport05/fatalities.pdf

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@hawkeye10,

The links you are posting do not seem to work.

The statistics I posted were national--75% of those killed by a domestic partner are female. The national statistics better reflect the overall scope of such homicides than what might occur in any particular geographic area.

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I stand by my assertion.

Except your assertion was that men who kill their partners most often then kill themselves. That assertion is unfounded. Only 30% of men who kill their partners then kill themselves.

Stop taking my remarks out of the context in which they were made. If you have to do that, in order to bolster your faulty case, you really have no argument to make.

Considerably more women than men sustain serious physical injury, and are killed, as the result of violence from domestic partners. That is not propaganda of any sort, that is the grim, and objectively measurable, reality of domestic violence. And that is the case globally, not just in the U.S..

That is why it is imperative for women to get out of abusive relationships. They can become life-threatening.

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@lockeWiggins,

lockeWiggins wrote:

Wow. What part of Ive never done it dont you understand. What im saying is that my wife loves me to the point that anything that happens between us would be worked out between us. Privacy. Trust. Loyalty. I know these concepts have been lost in todays times due to the nanny state that was discussed earlier in these post, so I dont blame you. these qualities have always described the minority.

You're wrong again! Trust, privacy and loyalty are still here today, and
I don't even come from this "nanny state" as you call it. Nonetheless,
domestic violence has nothing to do with loyalty, privacy, trust or love -
it has everything to do with dominance, overpowering, and mental illness -
that's why you are in the minority, lockeWiggins, you're one sick puppy!

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@firefly,

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The national statistics better reflect the overall scope of such homicides than what might occur in any particular geographic area.

your usual lying bitch bullshit...On page 398 of the encyclopedia of domestic violence 2007 you will notice it pointed out that there is no way to capture homicide/suicide events in the national data collecting schemes. This has very conveniently for the feminists been left out. The only way to collect this data currently is with smaller studies, using resources that are labor intensive to collect.

http://books.google.com/books?id=OcDBZ0uNNVIC&pg=PA398&lpg=PA398&dq=male+domestic+violence+suicide+rates&source=bl&ots=6zW63tpNKv&sig=C42Vf1AhdXvcRgLeTNFcnASdkeY&hl=en&ei=6TqnTZzYEpKcsQOpy8z3DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBzgU#v=onepage&q=male%20domestic%20violence%20suicide%20rates&f=false

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That is why it is imperative for women to get out of abusive relationships. They can become life-threatening.

I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, it is all about risk and who gets to decide if that risk is taken. And like a true feminist bitch you say that it is imperative for women to get out but not a peep out of you about it being important for men to get out, because you dont give a **** about men do you...and of course you are not ready yet to talk about domestic violence being a dynamic that happens between two people, it is not as advertised an affliction that men impose upon women. And as we are talking about allowing the government to run our relationships lets keep in mind what the risks are that are being used to justify this grab of power from the individual...as I calculate it a adult woman in West Virgina has a 1 in 57,200 chance of being killed by her intimate partner this year. I certainly want this number to be better, but this is extremely low odds.

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@CalamityJane,

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Nonetheless,
domestic violence has nothing to do with loyalty, privacy, trust or love -
it has everything to do with dominance, overpowering, and mental illness -

Cut the crap, it has to do with the exercise of power in relationship, which you despise so much that you want it to made into a criminal enterprise.

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@CalamityJane,

Why the hell are you making this about me. I dont believe in abusive relationships. would never abuse my wife. and would never stay in an abusive relationship. but just because I choose not to do it does not mean that I am so closed minded that I dont understand why others would not feel the way that I do.

Oh and some cases it does have everything to do with loyalty, trust, and privacy. I stated one possibility out of a multitude of possibilities as to why a woman would stay in an abusive relationship. Are you seriously sitting before me and telling me that there has never been a case where a woman stayed in a an abusive relationship because she wanted to maintain the trust, loyalty, and privacy of her and her lovers relationship.

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