Domestic violence: causes, effects, and intervention strategies

Domestic Violence

Why do abused women tend to stay with their abusers? What are the realities for those abused women -- and how do the realities impact the treatment of battered women? This paper delves into those questions and issues.

Choice and Empowerment for Battered Women who Stay

An article in the peer-reviewed journal Social Work points out that while there have been plenty of articles and a great deal of information in recent years -- so that the public is more aware of the problem of battered women than in the past -- that additional knowledge has "proved useful" in dramatizing the problem but in addition it has "created new myths and injustices" (Peled, et al., 2000). One of the realities that result from the additional publicity about battered women is that women who stay in relationships with their batterers are seen as a "deviant group" -- which is unfortunate and does not help the problem (Peled, 9).

Another reality that is well-known by the public -- and contributes to the belief that the battered woman who stays is deviant -- is that some battered women leave and then return to their abuser; and that some battered women actually marry their abusers. In fact up to 60% of women who are abused go back to their abusers "…after discharge from a shelter" (Peled, 9). A woman who finds safety and comfort in a woman's shelter, and is given educational opportunities to better understand what has happened to her while she is in the shelter, and yet returns to the hellish beatings she ran away from, is seen as "…incompetent, weak, and lacking coping skills…contributing to their powerlessness," Peled explains (9).

And so the logical question -- notwithstanding the public's perceptions, which are not always based on facts -- why do women stay. What are her realities that lead her to continue accepting this abuse? For one thing, leaving the abuser may be "…more dangerous than staying for both the woman and her children"; to wit, it may "expose them to severe injury and even murder" (Peled, 11). Secondly, the battered woman may be suffering from "traumatic attachment," Peled writes (11). That is, the woman may suffer from "…depression, low self-esteem, fear, loneliness, guilt and shame," and when those problems are "…combined with violence, isolation, exhaustion, unpredictability," she may become "traumatically attached to her abuser" (Peled, 11). Thirdly, there may be "patriarchal" issues involved; that is, the male figure brings in the money, so, even though he's violent, he is head of household and hence, he rules.

How do these realities affect the treatment of battered women?

For one thing, according to a peer-reviewed piece in the BYU Journal of Public Law, if the question relates to treating battered women, many victims of domestic violence "…are often reluctant to testify against their abusers, making conviction difficult" (McCormick, 1999). And battered women don't leave or receive treatment for their psychological problems because they "…fear…an increased level of violence," and this is a moral and social shame because children who witness their mother being beaten suffer greatly (McCormick, 428). In fact children who are subjected to scenes where their mother was beaten "…have lower verbal, cognitive and motor skills," and moreover they are known to have "…sleep disorders, headaches, stomachaches, diarrhea, ulcers, asthma, enuresis, depression, truancy and learning problems" (McCormick, 428). Hence, the realities not only hurt the woman being brutally beaten, they hurt her children, who one day may need treatment as well due to the fact that an estimated 30% of children who witness domestic violence "…will eventually become perpetrators of violence" (McCormick, 428).