Domestic Violence

When women experience domestic violence they often feel responsible for what is happening to them, this is not helped by society and by health professionals who often act as though the victim is to blame for what has happened to them.

As recently as 1992 American psychologists were still of the opinion that women who were abused had a pathological need to be battered. This attitude is also evident in the UK where many GPs will provide tranquilisers and anti-depressants to women who are experiencing abuse rather than help her deal with the abuse itself.

Society is also responsible for blaming the victim and the attitude of many church goers is that a woman who is battered has done something to deserve it. In the late eighteenth century it was legal for a man to beat his wife providing that the stick he used was no thicker than his thumb, which is where the rule of thumb comes from - in view of this perhaps it should come as no surprise when a victim is blamed for an abuser’s actions.

I think that my main point regarding this proposed change in the law is that each case needs to be judged on its merits and that perhaps the charge of murder should remain ,but there should be more attention given to the past history of a relationship and a detailed assessment of the man or woman who has killed an abusive partner. Women do need protection, but the best way would be to make domestic violence an automatic crime that is prosecuted by the state. It should also mean an automatic jail sentence as it does in Canada.

Surely if any change in the law is to be made it should be with the aim of preventing both further abuse and a possible consequential murder - rather than altering the charge.

If you have read anything about domestic violence then you’ll probably have recognized that women are not permanent victims with a pathological need to be hit, women who have been in an abusive relationship learn about survival, and about retaining a sense of self. In order to deal with what has happened to them many survivors turn to writing about their experiences - sometimes in a poetic form.

Just Another Domestic

Not another knuckle punching its way into my head,

Intruding on my consciousness.

Another bang on the wall,

“Keep it quiet. People need their sleep”

People need themselves,

But others take it away with a right or left hook.

A bunched up fist, stamping out identity

In another domestic