Battered Women – America’s secret shame

It’s easy to be smug in our own perceptions about our country and culture. We are, after all, America – that shining city on a hill, as Ronald Reagan called it. That beacon of life, liberty and justice for all. That bastion of freedom and equality in a world filled by extremism, socialism, and inequality.

But the reality is that America is still very much an unequal society. You don’t have to look any further than the statistics on battered women in this country to see that inequality.

According to many different battered women rescue projects, about 10% of American women have been battered by their partner. When it comes to verbal or emotional abuse, that percentage rockets skyward to nearly 40%.

A woman is physically battered by her husband once every ten seconds in this country. Once every ten seconds another women is added to the long list of battered women in America.

It goes further. First, in order to shoot down an alarmingly misogynistic trend in the media, women are not more frequently battering their male partners than at any other point in history. 95% of victims of spousal abuse are women and that’s something that hasn’t changed since records started being kept. Why certain media outlets – Fox News(The cartoon news) being first and foremost among them – want to pretend otherwise is beyond the comprehension of anyone with any decency. Though I could make a pretty scalding guess at their motives.

Ok, now that we’ve established that battered women still make up the lion’s share of abuse victims, it’s time to figure out who these abusers are.

And it’s clear that 95% of battered women are battered by their partners. This isn’t some case of total strangers beating up women; it’s a case of men who are married, or in an intimate relationship with a woman, beating that woman up.

Women battered by a spouse or significant other make up fully thirty percent of all emergency room visits by women of all ages. And what’s worse, many of these women have been there before: Violence against women is chronic. Once it starts, it’s almost a guarantee that it will happen again.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you’re making excuses for a husband or boyfriend who has hit you, just stop. You’re a battered woman, and you need to get out of that situation as soon as is possible. And let the authorities know. Don’t be a victim. You can escape from the battering and abuse.

Don’t bother with a restraining order as it’s just a piece of paper and will not protect you if he wants to beat you or harm you. Get away, go to a womans shelter or just leave and go to another town or state. Leave now or possibly become another dead battered woman statistic. Your abuser isn’t going to stop so it’s up to you to stop it, one way or another. Leave or die, it’s your choice and your life so don’t become another statistic.