Domestic Violence in America Essay -- Violence Against Women Essays

municipal crime in the United States is a large-scale and complex social and health problem. The home is the most violent setting in America today (Lay, 1994). Sadly enough, the majority of people who are murdered are not likely killed by a stranger during a hold-up or similar crime but are killed by someone they know. Not surprisingly, the Center for Disease Control and prevention has identified interpersonal violence as a major public health problem (Velson-Friedrich, 1994). Current estimates suggest that three to four million women are the victims of physical abuse by their sexual partners (Harris & Cook, 1994). According to the FBI, some form of domestic violence occurs in half of the homes in the United States at least once a year (Dickstein, 1988). In reality one forbidden of every six marriages the wife is physically abused. Every fifteen seconds a women is battered in the United States. Daily, four American women lose their lives to their husbands or boyfri turn backs, eq ualing more than one-third of all female homicide victims (WAC, 1994). These numbers report that too much violence is directed toward women. Historically, domestic violence has been a downplayed and, oftentimes, culturally condoned, American tradition. In the colonial period, laws derived from English common-law permitted a man to beat his wife when she acted in a manner that he believed to be inappropriate. For example, the so-called Rule of Thumb law, which permitted a husband to beat his wife with a stick that could be no larger than the circumference of his thumb, was in strength until the end of the nineteenth century (Dickstein, 1988). The issue of domestic violence, especially wife abuse, first gained national attention in 1974 with the publishing of Scream Quietly or the Neighbors Will Hear by Erin Pizzey, the founder of Chiswicks Womens Aid, a shelter in England for battered women. Pizzeys work helped to stimulate feminist match and outrage over wife beating, verbal abuse , financial restrictions and social isolation of women by their husbands (Utech, 1994). Shortly thereafter, the womens liberation movement, through the National Organization for Women (NOW), advocated for the end of violence against women and sought improved social services for battered wives. NOW also was actively engaged in promoting shelter homes and lobbying congressional leaders for polity that would... ...t? Because they dont have the protection they need. The criminal justice system needs to start a victim relocation program for domestic abuse victims. This would ensure their safety and allow them enough courage to leave a horrible situation. In a nation that detests racism and protests animal cruelty thence why are women and children still subject to torture and violence in their own homes at the hands of their husbands and fathers? In a politically correct land too many of us still view women and children as inferior, as property. The media portrays women as sex symbols and often with a very noticeable lack of intelligence. ofttimes doctors turn their backs on damage left as the result of abuse because of the fear of embarrassing their patients (WAC, 1994). It is time to declare war on domestic violence. Domestic violence bequeath always be a part of our culture. Women are still not considered equal and historically it was acceptable to beat your wife if she was out of line. With todays broken marriages and extensive abuse of alcohol and drugs, the matter will only get worse. If strong initiatives are not instilled now, there will be many unnecessary deaths due to the rise in abuse.