There is a small baby crying in the background as the little girl is connected to 9-1-1. She can barely get the words out between her own sobs. "Please help us," she cries, "My daddy is beating up my mommy."

 

This was an actual 9-1-1 call played to my domestic violence class at the college this past week by Tara Gross from the Domestic Abuse/Sexual Assault Services located in McCook. Hearing the absolute terror and pain in that little girl's voice literally sickens your stomach and brings the whole issue of domestic violence to life and gives it a voice that statistics and words simply can't convey. It's too bad everyone in the country can't hear that call. Perhaps then we would become proactive rather than reactive when it comes to violence within the family. But since there's no way to do that, words and statistics will have to suffice for now.

 

One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. On average, between three and four women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every single day. Domestic violence is the single most common source of injury to women--more common than auto accidents, muggings, and rapes by strangers combined--and the number one cause of emergency room visits by women. 44 percent of women murdered by their intimate partner had visited an ER within two years of their homicide. Adding to the problem is that fewer than 3 percent of the women that went to the ER with these injuries were asked about domestic violence by a nurse or physician. Contrary to what abusers think, almost all children being raised in domestic violence homes are aware that it's going on. Half of the men who abuse women also abuse children.

 

Many people believe that this is a problem that happens "somewhere else" but they're wrong. Domestic abuse occurs everywhere. In 2003-04, Nebraska's 22 Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault programs answered approximately 70,000 crisis line calls and provided additional services to 9,900 people. 1,667 arrests were made for offenses against family and children in Nebraska in 2004. 542 people from the seven county area served by the McCook office accessed services in 2005, 1,924 crisis line calls were received with 360 coming from Red Willow County alone.

 

Domestic Violence is defined as a pattern of abusive and intentional behaviors used to maintain power and control over a current or former intimate partner. More than 95 percent of all the domestic abuse and violence that occurs is male-perpetrated. It can be in the form of emotional abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse and/or physical abuse. Abusers themselves are controlling of their partners because they often have little control over their own lives. They berate and harm their partners because they have no respect for themselves. So, these socially and psychologically emasculated men act out their own insecurities by attacking their intimate partners. They attempt to control every aspect of their lives. They isolate them from other people. They put them down verbally by telling them they're stupid, or ugly, or no one else would have them or that every decision they make is wrong. Once the physical assaults begin, they hardly ever stop and, in fact, often escalate both in frequency and intensity. The house isn't clean enough or the meal isn't hot enough or I saw that guy looking at you or I saw you looking at that guy. Abusers use any reason, every reason, and sometimes no reason at all to assault their partners. Then they threaten to kill them, ruin them, or make sure they lose the children if they ever think about leaving the abuser.

 

The question I hear the most in class is why do women stay in these kinds of relationships? Why don't they leave the first time the man touches them in an angry way? The answers are complicated and complex. They include low self-esteem on the part of the woman, often as a result of listening to her husband's put-downs on a daily basis. The woman is also afraid that the husband will carry through on his threats if she does try to leave.

She has been put-down for so long that she often alibis for her husband's abuse by saying that is WAS her fault that he hit her again. And then there are the children. So many women stay because of the children, thinking it is better to keep the family together, even if the husband is abusive and violent. If they could remove themselves psychologically from their own situation and listen to the emergency phone call I and my class listened to, it would surely have a chilling effect on their analysis of keeping the family together. And these situations are repeated literally thousands of times daily across the country.

 

Finally, there's a concept in the literature called the "cycle of violence." It's a three-step process that begins with the "tension-building phase" that eventually results in a "battering incident" followed by the "honeymoon phase." In other words, something happens that upsets the husband. This upset often feeds on itself until he strikes out physically at his wife; slapping her, hitting her, dragging her across the floor, throwing her up against the wall, pushing her bed against the wall while she's still on it, yelling, screaming, breaking things, and threatening even worse things. When the incident is over, he often apologizes, promises not to do it again and he doesn't, until the next time. And there's always a next time.

 

There is no change that can be imposed on these men externally. There is nothing anyone can do to change their behavior until THEY want to change their behavior. The biggest roadblock to alleviating this domestic abuse crisis is that most of the men DON'T want to change. Whatever they're doing appears to be working for them. The wife tries extra hard to please him and takes great care not to do anything to set him off, she doesn't call the cops, she doesn't threaten divorce, and most importantly, she doesn't leave. He gets whatever he wants whenever he wants it and he knows it's because of the control he exerts over her. All of us are most likely to repeat behaviors that serve our own interests. Wife beaters do too.

 

Because the abuser has successfully denigrated the woman's self-esteem and self-respect to where it's practically non-existent, even to the point that the woman often believes it IS her fault any time she gets beaten, domestic abuse seems to be an unsolvable problem.

 

Like any other kind of problem, it can only be solved through awareness and action. The more women learn about domestic abuse, the greater awareness they gain that they are not alone in their suffering and their misery, the more they realize that his abusive behavior is his fault and not hers, the more proactive and in charge of their own lives they can become.

 

The more you know, the more you can do.