What Is Domestic Violence?

Definition of Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a disruptive confrontation between two or more persons in which direct or indirect force is used to cause injury, instill fear, and/or destroy property.

Domestic violence has existed in many families for an incredibly long time. This pattern is resistant to change, tenacious, and a well-kept family secret. In fact, many families invest an enormous amount of time and energy into keeping this secret.

Physical Abuse (direct force):

• Inflicting pain on someone by slapping, socking (using fists), kicking, and/or choking
• Using an object or weapon and/or destroying property to instill fear

Emotional Abuse (indirect force):

• Threatening to be violent but not actually being violent
• Threatening to use weapons (guns, knives, etc)
• Being verbally abusive
• Belittling or demeaning other people, telling them that they are incompetent, ugly, stupid, and/or that no one else would ever want them
• Using profanity and criticizing

Sexual Abuse

• Raping (a violent sexual act)
• Forcing a person to have sex without his/her consent
• Threatening with a weapon or physical abuse if the individual does not consent.
• Depriving the individual of sex or sexual pleasure if s/he is not good, does not fulfill her/his role, withholding sex as a punishment

Power and Control Wheel

View the Power and Control Wheel. If you can identify with any of these tactics, you may be in an abusive relationship.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Wheel

View the LGBT Power and Control Wheel. If you can identify with any of these tactics, you may be in an abusive relationship.

Power and Control Tactics Used against Immigrant Women

The following describes some of the ways in which perpetrators abuse immigrant women, although the experiences of individual victims varies from case to case.

Emotional Abuse

• Lying about her immigration status
• Telling her family lies about her
• Calling her racist names
• Belittling and embarrassing her in front of family and friends
• Causing her to lose face
• Telling her that she has abandoned her culture and become "white" or "American"
• Preventing her from visiting sick or dying relatives
• Lying about his ability to have the immigration status of his lawful permanent resident abuse victim's changed

Economic Abuse

• Forcing her to work "illegally" when she does not have a work permit
• Threatening to report her to INS if she works "under the table"
• Not letting her get job training or schooling
• Taking the money her family back home was depending on her sending to them
• Forcing her to sign papers in English that she does not understand (court papers, IRS forms, immigrant papers, etc)
• Harassing her at the only job she can work at legally in the US so that she loses her job and is forced to work "illegally"

Sexual Abuse

• Calling her a prostitute or a "mail order bride"
• Accusing her of trying to attract other men when she puts on make-up to go to work
• Accusing her of sleeping with other men
• Alleging that she has a history of prostitution on legal papers
• Telling her that "as a matter of law" in the US, she must continue to have sex with him whenever he wants until they are divorced

Using Coercion and Threats

• Threatening to report her to the INS and get her deported
• Threatening that he will not file immigration papers to legalize her immigration status
• Threatening to withdraw the petition he filed to legalize her immigration status
• Telling her that he will harm someone in her family
• Telling her that he will have someone harm her family members
• Threatening to harm or harass her employer or co-workers

Using Children

• Threatening to remove her children from the US
• Threatening to report her children to the INS
• Taking the money she was to send to support her children in her home country
• Telling her he will have her deported and he will keep the children with him in the US
• Convincing her that if she seeks help from the courts or the police the US legal system will give him custody of the children (In many countries, men are given legal control over the children and he convinces her that the same thing will occur here)

Using Citizenship or Residency Privilege

• Failing to file papers to legalize her immigration status
• Withdrawing or threatening to withdraw immigration papers filed for her residency
• Controlling her ability to work
• Using the fact of her undocumented immigration status to keep her from reporting abuse or leaving with the children
• Telling her that the police will arrest her for being undocumented if she calls the police for help because of the abuse

Intimidation

• Hiding or destroying important papers (i.e., her passport, her children's passports, ID cards, health care cards, etc)
• Destroying the only property that she brought with her from her home country
• Destroying photographs of her family members
• Threatening persons who serve as a source of support for her
• Threatening to do or say something that will shame her family or cause them to lose face
• Threatening to divulge family secrets

Isolation

• Isolating her from friends or family
• Isolating her from persons who speak her language
• Not allowing her to learn English or not allowing her to communicate in a language in which she is fluent
• Being the only person through whom she can communicate in English
• Reading her mail and not allowing her to use the telephone
• Strictly timing all her grocery trips and other travel times
• Not allowing her to continue to meet with social workers and other support persons
• Cutting off her subscriptions to or destroying newspapers and other support magazines
• Not allowing her to meet with people who speak the language or who are from her community, culture, or country

Minimizing, Denying, Blaming 

• Convincing her that his violent actions are not criminal unless they occur in public
• Telling her that he is allowed to physically punish her because he is the "man"
• Blaming her for the breakup of the family, if she leaves him because of the violence
• Telling her that she is responsible for the violence because she did not do as he wished

Indicators of Domestic Violence

In general, people who are abused physically are often isolated. Their partners tend to control their lives to a great extent and verbally degrade them. Some examples of domestic violence include:

• The victim mentions not being able to use the telephone.
• The victim is forbidden from seeing friends unless the perpetrator is along.
• The perpetrator has exclusive control over all money and household financial matters.
• The victim is not involved in the decision making process at home.
• The perpetrator will not let the victim to learn to drive, go to school, or get a job.
• The victim is limited in her freedom as a child would be. For example, the perpetrator might say "Go to the store, get milk, and come straight home. It should only take you 15 minutes."
• Victims express low self worth, speaking very poorly of themselves. They are unable to make eye contact, always looking away or at the ground when talking.
• Many times, victims may complain of non-specific aches and pains that are constant and recurring. These can be stress-related health problems.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered (LGBT) Information

Ten Myths about Domestic Violence in the LGBT Community

Myth #1: Domestic violence does not exist in the LGBT community.

Fact: Domestic violence is not just a "straight" problem. Between 25% and 33% of relationships between LGBT partners include abuse, a rate equal to that of heterosexual relationships.

Myth #2: Domestic violence occurs only among LGBT people who hang out at bars, are poor, or are people of color.

Fact: Domestic violence does not discriminate. Victims and their abusers come from all walks of life, all ethnic groups, all socioeconomic groups, and all educational levels.

Myth #3: Lesbians do not engage in violent abuse against their partners because women are not violent.

Fact: Abuse happens even between lesbians who don't "believe in" violence.

Myth #4: Women in relationships together always have equal power.

Fact: Lesbian relationships are not always equal. Lesbians can be, and sometimes are, violent toward their partners.

Myth #5: A batterer must be physically bigger than the person being beaten.

Fact: Violence and abuse comes in all shapes and sizes.

Myth #6: LGBT domestic violence is "sexual behavior", a form of S/M which both partners enjoy.

Fact: Domestic violence is abuse, manipulation, and control that is unwanted by the victim.

Myth #7: LGBT violence is an "equal fight" since partners are of the same sex.

Fact: LGBT domestic violence is about power and control by one partner over the other.

Myth #8: Violence is just part of how some same-sex relationships work.

Fact: Domestic violence is not a "relationship problem"; it occurs because one person commits abusive, violent, criminal acts.

Myth #9: It is not "domestic violence" when gay men fight. It is just "boys being boys".

Fact: Male violence is not just another form of physical contact sports between equals. It is non-consensual aggression of one man on another.

Myth #10: Domestic violence victims deserve what they get because they provoke the violence.

Fact: The victim is not to blame for the violence. No one deserves to be verbally assaulted, beaten, or raped.

Trauma Information

Domestic violence and abuse is a traumatic experience to have survived. Both women and children are affected and will deal with their injury in different ways. View the Trauma Manual to learn about this issue.

Safety Planning

Safety during an Explosive Incident

1. If an argument seems unavoidable, try to have it in a room or area that has access to an exit and not in the bathroom, kitchen, or anywhere near weapons.
2. Practice how to get out of your home safely. Identify which doors, windows, elevator, or stairwell would be best.
3. Have a packed bag ready, and keep it in an undisclosed but accessible place in order to leave quickly.
4. Identify a neighbor you can tell about the violence and ask that they call police if they hear a disturbance coming from your home.
5. Devise a code word to use with your children, family, friends, and neighbors when you need the police.
6. Decide and plan for where you will go if you have to leave home.
7. Use your own instincts and judgment.
8. Remember that no one deserves to be hit or threatened.

Safety when Preparing to Leave

1. Open a savings account in your own name to start to establish or increase your independence.
2. Leave money, an extra set of keys, copies of important documents, and extra clothes with someone you trust so you can leave quickly.
3. Determine where you can stay.
4. Determine who could lend you money if necessary.
5. Keep the shelter phone numbers close at hand and keep some change or a calling card on you at all times for emergency phone calls.
6. Review your safety plan as often as possible in order to plan the safest way to leave your batterer.

Safety in Your Home

1. Change the locks on your doors as soon as possible. Buy additional locks and safety devices to secure your windows.
2. Discuss a safety plan with your children for when you are not with them.
3. Inform your children's school, day care, etc. about who has permission to pick up your children.
4. Inform neighbors and landlord that your partner no longer lives with you and that they should call the police if they see him near your home.

Safety with a Protective Order

1. Keep your protective order on you at all times. (When you change your purse, the protective order should be the first thing that goes in).
2. Call the police if your partner breaks the protective order.
3. Think of alternate ways to keep safe if the police do not respond immediately.
4. Inform family, friends, and neighbors that you have a protective order in effect.

Safety on the Job and in Public

1. Decide whom at work you will inform of your situation.
2. Arrange to have someone screen your calls if possible, or use caller ID or an answering machine.
3. Devise a safety plan for when you leave work. Have someone escort you to your car or bus. Use a variety of routes to go home if possible. Think about what you would do if something happened while going home (i.e., in your car or on the bus).

Your Safety and Emotional Health

1. If you have to communicate with your partner, determine the safest way to do so.
2. Decide who you can call or talk to freely and openly to give you the support you need.
3. Give yourself the opportunity to get good information about domestic violence.

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