Partner Abuse and Violence Research Paper

10 million people every year; as many as one in four women and one in nine men are victims of violent or aggressive behavior within the home, typically involving the violent abuse of a spouse or partner. Better known as domestic violence. This problem is faced in the world today by men, women, and children of all ages, races, and ethnicity. Domestic violence comes in many different shapes and forms and it is all over the world without us even knowing it. Physical, mental, and verbal. 

This worldwide problem has been taken under the table when we talk about the facts and effects of spreading awareness nowadays. Yes, there will always be something that is more important that will need awareness at the time but usually, those things get fixed in no time. Domestic abuse has dated back to 1500-1800. “Early settlers in America based their laws on an Old-English common-law that explicitly permits wife-beating for correctional purposes. The states tried to break away from that law by saying that the husband is only allowed to whip his wife with a switch no bigger than his thumb. (The early 1500s)” (1). The government tried to find a loophole through this but it never really worked. All they could do was widdle it down to such a drastic level of abuse that was accepted and slowly lowering it down to said switch the size of a thumb, and then now all abuse is frowned upon in society but still, it’s at such horrid levels that it still needs to be brought attention too. The law throughout the states have always been ones to follow the leader but the sad truth is that in 1975 the law of “ Brazil passes a penal code that prohibits husbands from selling, renting, or gambling away their wives. (1975)”(2). Yes, there had to be a law in place for men to not sell their wives. The times back there were scary at just how natural and dare we say normal these things were to them but nowadays if that was happening in plain sight nobody would know what to begging to say. Now, don’t think that this is only about just talking about men with domestic abuse but anyone can do it. Women, Men, and even children.

Women are mostly affected by abuse, not them mostly causing it. Or that’s what society thinks nowadays. On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men. And statistics show Approximately 1 in 10 men in the U.S. experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime and reported some form of IPV-related impact. (3)  Now the reason that we don’t hear about men being affected as much by abuse then we do hear about it from the women’s standpoint is Men assaulted by their partners are often and most likely ignored by the authorities and they see the person that was attacking them walk free while men have way fewer places to go to seek guidance for their abusive situations. The charity's analysis of statistics on domestic violence shows the number of men attacked by wives or girlfriends is much higher than thought. Its report, Domestic Violence: The Male Perspective, states: "Domestic violence is often seen as a female victim/male perpetrator problem, but the evidence demonstrates that this is a false picture."(4) Men who are abused by their partners are more likely to commit an act of self-harm or suicide. Sadly, there is help yes for those affected by this situation but men do get the dual end of it all by not having as many resources to their aid. This needs to be fixed in today’s society. Anyone and everyone needs to be able to have full access to guidance and clarification of what these signs are and where to get help at. 

Help hotlines and locations that are present for those in need are not as accessible as they should be. What will astound people is there are locations all over Kentucky and other states where victims of domestic abuse and other forms of neglect (5) where the victum may call a number to therefor get lodging away from attacker and no ask or free of charge in that case to stay on days at end. There are also help hotlines for individuals to call inorder to get proper, immediate help for their situation. 1-(800)- 799-SAFE is the given National Domestic Abuse Hotline that is given and put out for ones that are in fact going threw active or reporting domestic abuse. Many victums however in these situations have been in a positiion as to where they may not be able to communicate with verbal words, these orginazations have created chat hotlines {6).