Shame isn t the only thing that keeps battered women from reporting assaults to police. I imagine an unshaven guy in a gravy-stained sleeveless undershirt with a beer in his hand. This caricature is not just inaccurate, it is part of the problem. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence , a woman in America is battered every 15 seconds. More than 50 percent of all women will experience physical violence in an intimate relationship, and for more than 20 percent of those women, the problem will be regular and ongoing.
Domestic violence touches every segment of American society.
The results of a study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that domestic violence is statistically consistent across all racial and ethnic boundaries. Families who live on welfare have a higher incidence of domestic violence, but not by much. Alcohol can play a role in domestic violence, but it is more often an excuse for, rather than the cause of, the violence. According to statistics on the number of women abused, a lot of the smug, self-satisfied Preps I sat with at lunch either lived in a household where a woman was battered or have grown up to batter a spouse or girlfriend themselves. A student of mine wrote a poem about being abused and it just froze me.