What is Family Violence?
Many women are physically and emotionally abused by their husbands and partners every year. Battered women come from all walks of life and from every ethnic, socio-economic, and cultural group. Family violence is a crime with serious consequences to the victims, to their families, and to those who know them in the workplace and greater community. Battered women are victims of the violence; they do not "provoke" it, and they do not "deserve" it.
Broken bones and black eyes are images most people have of family violence. While these severe physical indicators are definite signs of abuse, family violence can also be much less noticeable but just as insidious. Family violence is the systematic attempt to control, manipulate and/or demean a spouse or intimate partner using physical, emotional or sexual tactics, or other abusive behaviors.
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse is any use of size, strength, or presence to hurt or control another person. Physical abuse includes burning, shooting, stabbing, restraining, punching or slapping, attacking with an object, choking, biting, kicking, pushing or pulling.
Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is any use of words, voice, action or lack of action that controls, hurts or demeans an intimate partner. While many couples may say things that they regret, emotionally abusive relationships are defined as having repeated hurtful exchanges without regard for the partner's feelings.
Some emotionally abusive relationships do not involve physical abuse; however, all physically abusive relationships contain emotional abuse. In fact, many physically abusive relationships begin as emotional abuse. Emotional abuse includes insulting, name-calling, yelling, frequent criticizing, ignoring, humiliating, threatening, or making accusations of unfaithfulness.
Sexual Abuse
This type of abuse is used to control, manipulate, humiliate or demean an intimate partner. Sex in abusive relationships is often used as a means to exert power over the female partner and to further shame and humiliate her. Sexual abuse includes unwanted touching, forced sex with partner (rape), hurtful sex, rape with an object, forced sex with someone other than the partner, forced sex with an animal, unwanted sadistic sexual acts, or withholding sex as a punishment.
Abusive Behaviors
One of the primary motivators for using abusive behaviors is to maintain power and control in the relationship. Although overt physical violence certainly serves to get batterers what they want, there are several other abusive behaviors that batterers often use. T hese behaviors serve to shame, humiliate and instill fear in women so that they become less able to act on their own behalf. Some examples are:
Ø Economic Abuse: forbidding her to work, trying to get her fired, or taking her money so she must depend on her abuser for money.
Ø Using her Children: telling her if she leaves him he will take the children to another city or province, that he will see that the children are
taken from her, or taking the children away for long periods of time without telling her where they are.
Ø Threats: making or carrying out threats to hurt her her relatives, friends or co-workers, or threatening to report her to the authorities for
child abuse.
Ø Excessive Dominance: shouting orders, constantly criticizing, or making all the family decisions.
Ø Intimidation: using looks, actions or gestures to instill fear, destroying/damaging property or harming pets.
Ø Isolation: controlling her actions, limits who she sees or talks to, and where she goes.