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Domestic Violence Theory

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Domestic violence is a recognized worldwide problem that drastically affects the well-being of both the victims and abusers. Coker (2016) defines domestic violence as the violent abuse by one person against another at home. This form of abuse can entail intensive abuse of a spouse or partner or violence meted against children or elderly. Domestic violence takes several forms that range from physical, verbal, reproductive, and religious to sexual abuse among others. Given that social workers interact with people of different walks of life while executing their duties, chances of meeting victims of domestic violence are high (S. & Ilango, 2013; Littman & Paluck, 2015). Due to the prevalence of cases of domestic violence in society, it is emphatically …show more content…
Walker argued that three distinctive aspects, which are normally repeated from time to time in an abusive relationship (Littman & Paluck, 2015), characterize domestic violence. The initial stage is the tension building stage. At this stage, the victim is frequently exposed to subtle violent abuses such as insults and threats. Later on, victims realize that verbal threats develop to physical abuses, but they (victim) normally resort to attempts in delaying eruption of physical violence. For example, a victim of domestic violence might attempt to comply with the will of the abuser by trying to mollify the batterer to avoid physical violence, but unfortunately, the inevitable happens. Acute battering is the second stage in the cycle of violence. Uncontrolled physical attacks are exhibited during this stage and victims, in most cases, sustain physical injuries like black eyes, broken jaws, miscarriages, and even loss of life. According to Walker, this kind of violence occurs abruptly. After acute-battering incident, the abuser normally behaves remorseful for his/her uncouth behavior. This paves way for the third stage is known as the loving and contrite or the ‘‘honeymoon’’ stage where the batterer apologizes and listens to the victim. The abuser buys gifts for the victim as a form of love and reassurance. Sometimes the victim is even made to believe that he/she is also responsible for the occurrence …show more content…
Unlike female victims of domestic violence who are encouraged to report to authorities, the male counterparts have been exposed to social stigmatization ("Domestic Violence against Men", 2016). This occurs due to lack of awareness of intimate partner violence (IPV) against men compared to IPV against women, which bars men from reporting their cases. It is argued that more cases of domestic violence against males exist than the actual number reported. Such beliefs have also been encouraged by female chauvinism where females have been perceived to be the only victims of domestic violence. In addition, the most undermining factor about domestic violence against males is more of the socio-cultural issue, where male victims fear being judged by male peers as weak and unfit in the society. It is described in "Domestic Violence against Men", (2016) that male victims sometimes fail to report to authorities or even share their ordeal experiences with anybody for fear of doubting their masculinity. Milner and Singleton (2008) state that men victims perceive themselves as inferior before their fellow men and would want to dissociate themselves from most social

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