What is Domestic Violence

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Domestic violence isn’t physical violence alone. violence is any behavior the aim of which is to realize power and control over a spouse, partner, girl/boyfriend, or intimate loved one. Abuse may be a learned behavior; it’s not caused by anger, mental problems, drugs or alcohol, or other common excuses.

When the overall public cares about violence, they typically think in terms of physical assault that leads to visible injuries to the victim. this is often just one sort of abuse. There are several categories of abusive behavior, each of which has its own devastating consequences. Lethality involved physical abuse may place the victim at higher risk, but the future destruction of personhood that accompanies the opposite sorts of abuse is critical and can’t be minimized.
Please explore the subsequent sections to find out more about the way to identify violence.

Types of Abuse:

  • Control
  • Physical Abuse
  • Sexual Abuse
  • Emotional Abuse & Intimidation
  • Isolation
  • Verbal Abuse: Coercion, Threats, & Blame
  • Using Male Privilege
  • Economic Abuse

Control Controlling behavior may be a way for the batterer to take care of dominance over the victim. Controlling behavior, the assumption that they’re justified within the controlling behavior, and therefore the resultant abuse is that the core issue in abuse of individuals. it’s often subtle, nearly always insidious, and pervasive. this might include but isn’t limited to:

  • Checking the mileage on the odometer following their use of the car.
  • Monitoring phone calls, using caller ID or other number monitoring devices, not allowing them to form or receive phone calls.
  • Not allowing their freedom of choice in terms of clothing styles or hairstyle. this might include forcing the victim to decorate a selected way like more seductively or more conservatively than they’re comfortable.
  • Calling or coming home unexpectedly to see abreast of the victim. this might initially start as what appears to be a loving gesture, but becomes a symbol of jealousy or possessiveness.
  • Invading the victim’s privacy by not allowing time and space of their own.

Forcing or encouraging their dependency by making the victim believe that they’re incapable of surviving or performing simple tasks without the batterer or on their own.
Using the youngsters to regulate the victim parent by using the youngsters as spies, threatening to kill, hurt or kidnap the youngsters, physical and/or sexual assault of the youngsters, and threats to call the Department of kid Safety (DCS, formerly CPS) if the victim parent leaves the connection.

Physical Abuse:

  • According to the AMEND Workbook for Ending Violent Behavior, physical abuse is any physically aggressive behavior, withholding of physical needs, indirect physically harmful behavior, or threat of physical abuse. this might include but isn’t limited to:
  • Hitting, kicking, biting, slapping, shaking, pushing, pulling, punching, choking, beating, scratching, pinching, pulling hair, stabbing, shooting, drowning, burning, hitting with an object, threatening with a weapon, or threatening to physically assault.
  • Withholding of physical needs including interruption of sleep or meals, denying money, food, transportation, or help if sick or injured, locking victim into or out of the house, refusing to offer or rationing necessities.
  • Abusing, injuring, or threatening to injure others like children, pets, or special property.
  • Forcible physical restraint against the victim’s will, being trapped during a room or having the exit blocked, being held down.
  • The batterer hitting or kicking walls, doors, or other inanimate objects during an argument, throwing things in anger, destruction of property.
  • Holding the victim hostage.

Sexual Abuse:

Sexual abuse is using sex in an exploitative fashion or forcing sex on another person. Having consented to sexual intercourse within the past doesn’t indicate current consent. sexual assault may involve both verbal and physical behavior. this might include, but isn’t limited to:

    • Using intimidation, coercion, shame, or exploitation or not taking the willingness of the victim to have sex into account. This may involve letting the victim have sex with others, having unwanted sexual encounters, or engaging in prostitution involuntarily.
    • Exploiting a victim who, because of being unconscious, intoxicated, drugged, impaired, too young, too old, or dependent on or terrified of the perpetrator, is unable to make an informed decision about participation in sexual activity.
    • Laughing or making fun of the sexuality or anatomy of another, making derogatory remarks, threatening, or calling names in relation to the sexual preferences/behavior of the victim.
    • Contacting the victim in some non-consensual way, like unwanted penetration (oral, anal, or vaginal) or accessing any part of the victim’s body (stroking, hugging, chewing, sucking, or using objects).
    • Exhibiting extreme envy that results in false allegations of infidelity and behavioral regulation to restrict the interaction of the victim with the outside world.
    • Having affairs with other individuals and using the data to mock the victim.
    • Withholding sex from the victim as a method of influence.

Emotional abuse & intimidation: Emotional abuse is any conduct that exploits the weakness, insecurity, or character of Anther, according to the AMEND Workbook for Ending Violent Behavior. To the detriment of the person, such activities involve constant deterioration, coercion, exploitation, brainwashing, or control of others (AMEND 3). This can include but is not restricted to the following:

  • Insulting or criticizing in order to weaken the trust of the victim. It entails public embarrassment, as well as real or threatened dismissal.
  • Use statements or actions that contradict reality to generate doubt and insecurity in the victim, such as saying one thing and doing another, claiming untrue facts as evidence, and neglecting to follow through with specified intentions. This can include denying the violence that has taken place and/or convincing the victim that the abuse is made up. It may also involve insane behavior, such as hiding the keys of the victim and berating them for losing them.
  • Consistently disregarding the requests and desires of the victim, ignoring or neglecting them.
  • Using acts, comments or gestures with the intention of humiliating the victim’s self-esteem and self-worth.
  • Forming the survivor that she is incapable or mentally unstable.
  • Forcing drugs or alcohol to be consumed by the victim.
  • Not allowing the victim to exercise their religious values, isolating the victim from the culture of faith, or using religion as an excuse for violence.
  • Use some form of intimidation or exploitation that the victim is disempowered by.

Isolation: Isolation may be a sort of abuse often closely connected to controlling behaviors. it’s not an isolated behavior, but the result of the many sorts of abusive behaviors. By keeping the victim from seeing who they want to ascertain, doing what they need to try to, setting and meeting goals, and controlling how the victim thinks and feels, the abuser is isolating the victim from the resources (personal and public) which can help the victim leave the connection. By keeping the victim socially isolated, the batterer is keeping the victim from contact with the planet which could not reinforce the abuser’s perceptions and beliefs. Isolation often begins as an expression of his love for the victim with statements like “if you actually loved me, you’d want to spend time with me, not your family”. because it progresses, the isolation expands, limiting or excluding the victim’s contact with anyone but the batterer. Eventually, the victim is left totally alone and without the interior and external resources to vary their life.
Some victims isolate themselves from existing resources and support systems due to the shame of bruises or other injuries, the abuser’s behavior publicly, or the abuser’s treatment of friends or family. Self-isolation can also develop from fear of public humiliation or from fear of harm to herself or others. The victim can also feel guilty for the abuser’s behavior, the condition of the connection, or a myriad of other reasons, counting on the messages received from the abuser.

Verbal Abuse:
Coercion, Threats, & Blame: Verbal abuse is any abusive language want to denigrate, embarrass or threaten the victim. this might include but isn’t limited to:

  • Threatening to harm or kill the victim or their children, family, pets, property, or reputation.
  • Name calling (‘ugly’, ‘bitch’, ‘whore’, or ‘stupid’)
  • Telling victims, they’re unattractive or undesirable.
  • Yelling, screaming, rampaging, terrorizing or refusing to speak

Using Male Privilege: As long as we as a culture accept the principle and privilege of male dominance, men will still be abusive. As long as we as a culture accept and tolerate violence against women, men will still be abusive.

According to Barbara Hart in Safety for Women: Monitoring Batterers’ Programs:
All men enjoy the violence of batterers. there’s no man who has not enjoyed the male privilege resulting from male domination reinforced by the utilization of physical violence . . . All women suffer as a consequence of men’s violence. Battering by individual men keeps all women in line. While not every woman has experienced violence, there’s no woman during this society who has not feared it, restricting her activities and her freedom to avoid it. Women are always watchful knowing that they’ll be the arbitrary victims of male violence. Only the elimination of sexism, the top of cultural supports for violence, and therefore the adoption of a system of beliefs and values embracing equality and mutuality in intimate relationships will end men’s violence against women.
Domestic violence is about power and control. A feminist analysis of woman battering rejects theories that attribute the causes of violence to family dysfunction, inadequate communications skills, women’s provocation, stress, chemical dependency, lack of spiritual relationship to a deity, economic hardship, class practices, racial/ethnic tolerance, or other factors. These issues could also be related to the battering of girls, but they are doing not cause it. Removing these factors won’t end men’s violence against women.

Batterers behave abusively to regulate their partner’s behavior, thereby achieving and maintaining power over their partners and getting their own needs and desires met quickly and completely. There also are many secondary benefits of violence to the batterer. A batterer may prefer to be violent because he finds it fun to terrorize his partner, because there’s a release of tension within the act of assault, because it demonstrates manhood, or because violence is erotic for him. Violence may be a learned behavior and batterers prefer to use violence. The victim isn’t a part of the matter. The victim may accept responsibility for causing the batterer to lose their temper, but the reality is, the abuser must be held in charge of his behavior.

Four widespread cultural conditions allow and encourage men to abuse women. These are:

  • Objectification of girls and therefore the belief that ladies exist for the ‘satisfaction of men’s personal, sexual, emotional and physical needs.
  • An entitlement to male authority with a right and obligation to regulate, coerce, and/or punish her independence.
  • That the utilization of physical force is suitable, appropriate, and effective.
  • Societal support for his dominance, controlling and assaultive behavior. By failing to intervene aggressively against the abuse, the culture condones the violence.

Economic Abuse: Financial abuse may be thanks to controlling the victim through manipulation of economic resources.
This may include, but isn’t limited to:

  • Controlling the family income and either not allowing the victim access to money or rigidly limiting their access to family funds. this might also include keeping financial secrets or hidden accounts, putting the victim on an allowance or allowing the victim no say in how money is spent, or making the victim turn their paycheck over to the abuser. Causing the victim to lose employment or preventing them from taking employment. The abuser can make the victim lose their job by making them late for work, refusing to supply transportation to figure, or by calling/harassing/calling the victim at work.
  • Spending money for necessities (food, rent, utilities) on nonessential items (drugs, alcohol, hobbies.)

 

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