Women Living Dangerously

Women Living Dangerously

Women entering a realtionship have a nearly one in four chance of being a victim!

The statistics in Australia are horrendous:

23% of women who had ever been married or in a de-facto relationship, experienced violence by a partner at some time during the relationship.

42% of women who had been in a previous relationship reported violence by a previous partner.

Half of women experiencing violence by their current partner experienced more than one incident of violence

Injuries sustained in the last incident were mainly bruises, cuts, and scratches, but also included stab or gunshot wounds, and other injuries.

12% of women, who reported violence by their current partner at some stage during the relationship, said they were currently living in fear.

Women who experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner were significantly more likely to experience emotional abuse (manipulation, isolation or intimidation) than those who had not experienced violence

35% of women experienced violence from their partner during periods of separation.

 Younger women were more at risk than older women, with 7.3% of women aged 18-24 years having experienced one or more incidents of violence from a current partner in the previous 12 month period as compared to 1.2% of women aged 55 and over.

 

Women are the Victims                    Research indicates that women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence and men more likely to be perpetrators.  Men also perpetrate around 75% of Australian domestic homicides.  In the remaining 25% of domestic homicides committed by women, a significant proportion of women who kill their partners do so after a protracted history of severe and ongoing domestic violence previously perpetrated by the deceased partner.  This has given rise to the recent acceptance of ‘Battered Woman Syndrome’ to support certain defences at law

Men, it would seem, kill for other reasons.  The National Homicide Monitoring Program report for 2004–05 found that the majority (44%) of female victim homicides were killed as a result of ‘a domestic altercation’ (which includes arguments that arise based on jealousy, separation or termination of a relationship, and other domestic arguments that may relate to infidelity, children and custody issues, alcohol fuelled domestic altercations and other issues between intimate or past-intimate partners)

It is hard to come to nterms with raw statistics like this and gives us pause to question and to act...

 If for whatever reason a male does not recognise your choice or does not respect you and tries to control you by vice, force, manipulation or other, then he is to be condemned by all. Men behaving badly are not an option for you and should not be for any woman. But strangely some women and society’s seem to put up with men behaving badly.

 

Part of research for the new book I am working on: Daughters Seven Things I Need to Tell You...