Victim Of Domestic Violence example essay topic

637 words
Domestic violence is physical or emotional acts between husbands and wives or between other individuals in intimate relationships. Domestic violence may include verbal abuse, denial of access to resources or money, restraint of normal activities or freedom (including isolation from friends and family), sexual coercion or assault, threats to kill or to harm, and physical intimidation or attacks. Domestic violence can result in death of a partner. Domestic violence against men is now ridiculed and ignored in the same way that domestic violence against women was ignored about 40 years ago. There are as many violent women as men, but there's a lot of money in hating men. Most of the shelters are funded through the government or donations, however, a small portion (if any) of that money rarely find its way to the battered men's shelter.

Why? Because the activists against domestic violence towards women are too busy funding their shelters, their conferences and their statements against men. My brother is a victim of domestic violence, however, when the police arrive to his house, (a call initiated by him) he is unfairly labeled as the sole perpetrator initiating the violence. It is my opinion that society has been warped by the misuse of statistics, advertisements of domestic violence, and their own ignorance. Violence in the home is usually initiated by the woman, not by the man. Crime statistics do in fact indicate that women are more likely to suffer serious injuries in domestic violence than men are.

But aren't such statistics misleading? Surveys show that abused women are nine times more likely to report abuse then men, but when men are injured by their wives or significant others and do not seek help from law enforcements or doctors, then how can their statistics be correct? Surveys also show that men who murder wives are treated leniently by the "male" criminal justice system. In fact, exactly the opposite is true -- men convicted of murdering a spouse are sentenced to three times as many years in jail as convicted women. In addition, women are 10 times more likely to get probation for their crime as men. During the mid 1990's a female name Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husbands penis while he was sleeping and was convicted with only a slap on the wrist.

I have no doubt that a role reversal in this scene would have been treated differently. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), more than 500 men were killed by their wives and girlfriends in 1996, representing about 5 percent of all male homicide victims in the United States. In this section of my paper, I will cover information concerning why men don't report assaults and why they remain anonymous. In this section, I will cover different types of violence women use compared to men and why the law seems to lean on the female side. Finally, I will cover why people see the roles of perpetrator and victims in cases of spousal violence as being assigned by gender, the woman being the victim and the man being the perpetrator. Domestic violence by and against both men and women is a serious problem in America, but it is a problem for which both men and women share equal responsibility.

Over the past 40 years, activists have justly called abusive men to account for their despicable actions. It's now time to do the same for abusive women. I have covered topics concerning the meaning of domestic violence, government funding used primarily for women shelters vice male shelters, societies concept of domestic violence against men, misleading statistics, and three topics I will cover in my final research paper.