Some facts about domestic violence Domestic violence is a serious crime which often results in serious injury and even death. One-fifth of reported domestic violence assaults involved the use of a weapon. Women are significantly more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. Domestic violence happens regardless of socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, age, education, employment status, physical ableness, marital status, or childhood history. Batterers use emotional, psychological, economic and physical abuse as a way of controlling their intimate partners.
Many people find it difficult to understand why men batter.
But battering has much more to do with a man's attitudes and beliefs about how men and women should relate in intimate relationships than it has to do with the common excuses given by batterers. In general, batterers believe that they have a right to enforce their will on their female partners. It is this belief, coupled with society's tolerance of domestic violence, that is at the root of domestic violence. The abuse of children is generally less severe than the abuse of the female partner, but as the violence against the partner gets worse, the child abuse also gets worse. There is also a high correlation between men who abuse their female partners and those who sexually abuse female children.