Domestic abuse is a problem that spans all socioeconomic and racial lines across all cultures. It is a problem that affects more women than men and can be defined as violence from shoving, verbal abuse or attacks with knives and guns resulting in hospitalization from broken bones and battered soft tissue.
There are also many myths that surround domestic abuse that inhibits the proper statistics and therefore good intervention for the women, and men, who suffer at the hands of their abusers. Some of these myths include:
- According to the FBI, a woman is beaten every (fill in the blank) seconds
- There are four million women beaten and abused every year
- Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between 15 and 44
- Women who kill their batterers receive longer prison sentences than men who kill their partners.
Many of these myths are based on studies that haven’t been performed or statistics compiled by agencies who say they have no such data. This is the case with the FBI who hasn’t compiled such data. And since the definition of violence can be so broad defining how many women are abused each year is next to impossible.
