While there are many reasons that someone might become the perpetrator of domestic violence, there are only a few overwhelming causes of being a victim of domestic violence. First and foremost, the number one predisposing factor to becoming a victim is being a woman. While it is not 100% men who commit domestic violence, overwhelmingly the majority of those who are offenders are men. Not all men are violent, and not all victims are women, but the majority of relationships, where one partner is violent against the other, are heterosexual.
When women experience domestic violence in their homes as children, they often grow up to become victims themselves. Adults often seek out similar relationships to those they learned to recognize as “normal” based on what they experienced when they were young. Adults who fight, verbally or physically, impart that concept of relationships on their children therefore when they grow up they repeat the same patterns of behaviors. Women, who saw their mother’s being domestically abused, will be predisposed to seeking out a husband who acts the same way.
Similarly, these women often have low self-esteem and confidence. They do not feel as though they deserve a better partner in their relationships. These psychological feelings have been implanted since their own childhoods. Their fathers treated them as if they were nothing. Their mothers also treated them as if they were nothing because they needed someone to have control over. Their first boyfriends didn’t respect them, and, therefore, all of this compounded to make the victim of domestic violence have poor feelings about themselves. Therefore, these negative feelings allow men to take advantage of them, and these women do not stand up for themselves .
- Harkness, G., & DeMarco, R. (2016). Community and Public Health Nursing(2nd ed.). Philidelphia, PA: Wolters Kluver.
