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Home >DV Info >Myths and Facts

Myth: Women Don't Tell the Truth About Domestic Violence

Fact

Women experiencing domestic violence are more likely to deal with the issues themselves or talk to family and friends rather than seek outside support due to barriers such as fear, isolation, lack of support and shame. This is supported by findings in the report "Against the Odds: How Women Survive Domestic Violence" (Keys Young 1998) which found that:

• Less than 20% of women interviewed had contact with domestic violence crisis services while they were in the abusive relationship.
• About 25% of women had contact with the police while they were in the abusive relationship.

Women are also more likely to minimise their experience of domestic violence as opposed to exaggerating it as is a common community perception.

Myth: Domestic Violence Only Occurs Within Poor or Working Class Families

Fact

Numerous studies show that domestic violence occurs across all socio-economic and cultural groups. (Straus, Gelles & Steinmetz 1980; NSW Task Force 1981; Qld Dometic Violence Task Force 1988).

Families from middle socio-economic backgrounds with access to more resources may be better able to hide the abuse.

Myth: Violent Men Cannot Control Their Anger

Fact

Violent men often believe this is true. The large majority of men who use violence against their partners are able to control their anger and use of abuse around others, i.e. work colleagues, friends and neighbours. They are also able to control the ways in which they abuse their partners, including limiting the physical assault to certain parts of the body where the bruising and injuries don’t show. Domestic violence is not an argument that gets ‘out of hand’ and is frequently the premeditated use of violence.

Myth: Domestic Violence is Caused by the Abuse of Alcohol

Fact

Even though alcohol is involved in about 50% of cases, these same offenders also beat their spouses when sober. (QLD Domestic Violence Task Force 1988). Alcohol has been shown to be a risk factor that does not cause domestic violence but can contribute to greater frequency and severity of abuse.

Myth: If Women Don't Like it They Can Leave.  Leaving a Violent Partner Means the Abuse Will Stop

Fact

Women often believe it is impossible to escape the violence and abuse. They are often threatened with death if they leave. In some cases, violence, harassment and intimidation can escalate during separation and can result in serious injury and sometimes death.

They often believe they and their children will be destined to a life of poverty if they leave. Obtaining suitable accommodation for themselves and their children is often difficult, particularly in regional and remote areas.

Myth: Women Provoke Men to be Violent by Nagging and Other Annoying Behaviours

Fact

Most abused women try to do everything they can to please their partner and avoid further violent episodes. Victims of domestic violence are vulnerable to further episodes of abuse regardless of their behaviour.

Myth: They put up with it - it's their Culture

Fact

This argument is simply a variation on ‘learning to live with it’, and it is generally attributed to women from linguistically or culturally diverse backgrounds. The argument is that women from various ‘ethnic’ cultures are brought up within value systems which uphold keeping the family together and upholding family honour. The truth is that the socialization of women globally emphasizes these values. Women from diverse cultures find it more difficult to leave, more due to systemic and institutional barriers to obtaining assistance in Australia.

Myth: Domestic Violence is not a Widespread Problem

Fact

The private nature of domestic violence has resulted in it remaining a hidden problem. However, it is one which has damaging effects on many victims each year. Over 1 in 5 women presenting to the Accident and Emergency Department of the Royal Brisbane Hospital, had at some stage of their lives been subjected to domestic violence (Roberts, 1993). Over 1 million Australian women have experienced violence by an intimate partner (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996).

Myth: Violent Men are Mentally Ill or have Psychotic Personalities

Fact

Clinical studies of men who abuse their partners do not support this view. The vast majorities of violent men are not suffering from mental illness and could not be described as psychopaths. Most abusers would appear to be respectable men who are very much in control. They are represented in all occupations and social classes and the violence usually manifests only within their relationship with their female partner and children.

Myth: She Needs the Violence, Enjoys it or is Addicted to it

Fact

Beliefs about women’s masochism, submission and suffering as a way of life seek to lay the blame on the victim, rather than hold the perpetrator responsible. Arguments that present the combined effects of physical violence, mind games and isolation as the short comings of the victim herself have not adequately addressed the difference between the causes of violence against the effects of violence.