Myth: Domestic violence only happens to poor women and minoritys.
Fact: Persons of any class, culture, religion, sexual orientation, marital status, age, and sex can be victims or perpetrators of domestic violence.Researchers and service providers have found, however, that economic and social factors can have a significant impact on how people respond to violent incidents and what kind of help they seek.
Myth: Domestic violence is often triggered by stress, for example, the loss of a job or some financial or marital problem.
Fact: Daily life is full of frustration associated with money and work, our families and other personal relationships. Everyone experiences stress, and everyone responds to it differently.
Myth: Domestic Violence is usally just a "one time, isolated event".
Fact: Battering is a pattern of coercion and control that one person exerts over another. Battering is not just one physical attack. It includes the repeated use of a number of tactics, including intimidation, threats, economic deprivation, isolation and psychological and sexual abuse. Physical violence is just one of these tactics. The various forms of abuse utilized by batterers help to maintain power and control over their spouses and partners.
Myth: Alcohol causes domestic violence.
Fact: Although there is a high correlation between alcohol, or other substance abuse, and battering, it is not a causal relationship. Batterers use drinking as one of many excuses for their violence and as a way to place the responsibility for their violence elsewhere. Stopping the abusers' drinking will not stop the violence. Both battering and substance abuse need to be addressed separately, as overlapping yet independent problems.
Myth: Most batterers simply lose control during violent incidents and do not know what they're doing.
Fact: If batterers were truly out of control, as many claim to be during violent incidents, there would be many more domestic violence homicides. In fact, many batterers do "control" their violence, abusing their victims in less visible places on their bodies, such as under the hairline or on the torso. Furthermore, researchers have found that domestic violence often occurs in cycles, and every episode is preceded by a predictable, repeated pattern of behavior and decisions made by the batterer.
Myth: Men are victims of domestic violence as often as women, even if they aren't reported.
Fact: The bottom line is that domestic violence is a crime -- regardless of the gender of the abuser or the victim and regardless of whether it is a heterosexual or same-sex relationship. Data from the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that 85% of victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are women. Acknowledging this indisputable fact does not negate our concern for the men who comprise the remaining 15% of IPV victims.
Myth: When a couple is having a domestic violence problem, it is just that they have a bad relationship. Often, it's poor communication that is the problem.
Fact: Bad relationships do not result in or cause domestic violence. The idea that bad relationships cause violence in the home is one of the most common, and dangerous, misconceptions about domestic violence.
