Myths & Stereotypes

• Battering mostly (or only) happens to minority or low-income women.

Women of every racial or cultural heritage, every income level, every level of educational attainment, are at risk for battering.  Domestic violence programs have provided services to women who were battered by partners employed as doctors, lawyers, judges, police officers, business executives, and clergy, as well as partners who were unemployed or underemployed.  Some statistics about domestic violence are based on numbers of calls to police or contacts with social service agencies.  Since many middle or upper income women can choose other options when seeking help (such as fleeing to a hotel or consulting private attorneys or therapists), they are often unrepresented in those statistics. 

• There is a distinct profile of a battered woman.

The profile many people have in mind is an unemployed, perhaps uneducated, married woman with several young children.  She is thought to be meek, submissive, passive and lacking in self-esteem.  None of these attributes, however, is universal.  Because battering happens to a large and diverse group of women, no one profile encompasses all battered women.  Unmarried women may be battered, women with no children may be battered, employed women may be battered.  Many women who are battered are assertive, outgoing and self-confident.  Far from being passive, battered women are often very active at seeking help.  And contrary to popular myth, the majority of  battered women fight back in various ways, at various times, to defend themselves or stop the violence. 

• Women get hit because they provoke their partners.

This misconception implies that 1) a woman, by her behavior, can compel others to use violence and 2) that hitting is an appropriate response to her behavior.  Many people hold a battered woman responsible for her abuser’s violence by asking what she did to cause him to hit her.  The use of violence is a chosen response, and the person who chooses to use violence is responsible.  “Provocation” is a justification of violence that suggests that women deserve to be abused because of something they said or did, or didn’t say or didn’t do.  No one deserves abuse.

• She must like it; if she didn’t, she’d leave.

This myth proposes that women who don’t leave abusive partners stay because they masochistically enjoy being hurt and abused.  There are several misconceptions in this myth. Women do not like the violence or abuse, but it is only one aspect of their relationships with their partners, partners who may also display periods of warmth, kindness and affection.  Women may in fact love and depend upon many other features of their partners or their relationships, and have hope that the violence can be stemmed, leaving intact the romantic relationship that preceded the onset of abuse.  Having affection for a partner who is periodically abusive is not the same as liking abuse. Another misconception is that leaving the relationship is easy, or that leaving will automatically end the violence and make her safe.  In fact, leaving can be extremely difficult to accomplish, and dangerous, as the risk of retaliation by the abuser is high.  Finally, this myth ignores the strong gender-role pressure in our society for a woman to “stand by her man”, live up to the obligations of a “good wife”, and sacrifice her needs for others.  

• Once a battered women, always a battered woman.

A common myth is that women who have been battered are most likely to enter into subsequent battering relationships.  Further, it is sometimes implied that battered women seek out abusive partners.  However, battered women frequently report that they were unaware of their partners’ potential for violence when the relationship began.  Many battered women go on to establish fulfilling nonviolent relationships once free from their abusers. Batterers, on the other hand, are prone to subsequent battering relationships, because without any intervention, they take the problem, their battering behavior, with them.