Domestic violence against women

Introduction

Domestic violence is a form of harassment between people who are in an intimate relationship. Domestic violence may take many forms including sexual harassment, physical or even emotional bullying (Malsch & Smeenk, 2017). Ideally, married women, singles, widows, or even young girls are vulnerable to domestic violence. In most cases, women are the victims of domestic violence as they are taken as the inferior gender by men. Domestic violence against women can be in form of physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, or economic abuse (WHO, 2017).

Most women who are subject to domestic violence keep it a secret as they find it embarrassing to report to relevant authorities like COVAW and American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence (Kalokhe & Dunkle, 2017). Therefore, women can stay in a violent relationship for ages without opening up, which makes it hard for anyone to help them. Apparently, women victims of domestic violence have less power in their relationships, and their husbands or fiancés are always in control of every situation. Most women, especially mothers are known to sacrifice their happiness for the sake of their children thereby choosing to stay in stressing relationships just to avoid a breakup for the sake of their children.

In most relationships, men are superior economically in that they are stable financially hence they tend to command the proceeds of the house (Saffari & Yekaninejad, 2017). It makes women subjective to men demands as they mostly depend on them for financial provisions. The dependence on men makes men regard women as possessions they can mistreat. This factor leads to the development of male chauvinism which is the primary contributing factor to domestic violence against women.