The Hidden Side Of Domestic Violence

Cultural stigmas attached to males prevent society from recognizing domestic violence cases the gender suffers from.

Kathleen Holgerson, the director of the Women's Center, said that the cultural stigmas attached to men often keep male victims from reporting their domestic violence cases.

Men are stereotypically "tough" and thus many men feel it is considered a weakness on their part to allow their partner to subject them to such abuse.

Ironically, the same stigmas that prevent male victims from reporting their cases seem to justify abuse committed by male perpetrators; the idea that men should be tough seems to reinforce the idea that the men should be tough in the relationships, Holgerson said.

Almost one-quarter of relationships were violent and in non-reciprocally violent relationships, women were perpetrators in over 70% of the cases, according to a study done by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The organization's Web site says that 1.5 million women and more than 800,000 men in the United States are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner each year.

Domestic violence is an issue that affects many college students. According to the Women's Center's Web site, one out of every five college students have reported at least one instance of abuse in their relationship. These cases involve all forms of abuse: sexual, emotional, verbal and physical.

Holgerson defined abuse as "a way of controlling behavior in a relationship."

"Often, abusive relationships don't start off as physically abusive relationships," she said. "They can start off with emotional abuse and you tend to see an escalation of violence."

At UConn, 21 cases of domestic violence were reported this year, according to Major Ronald Blicher, an executive officer at the UConn Police Department. The victims were students, faculty and some members of the community.

Many of the cases involve simple physical violence, but the perpetrator is not always the only person arrested.

"If an incident is categorized as a domestic violence incident, there are times when both parties involved, or more than two, are arrested," he said.

The Women's Center has planned many events and activities for October as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The ClothesLine Project, an annual event of the Center's, took place last week. Victims of domestic violence decorated t-shirts that were displayed on Fairfield Way as part of their healing process.

Another event that the center has planned is the Red Flag Campaign, which is a campus-wide public awareness campaign. Men Against Violence Against Women, a peer education group at the center, is planning on holding a screening of the movie "DreamWorlds 3" this week.

Also, the center, along with the Puerto Rican Latin American Cultural center (PRLACC ) and the Human Rights Institute, is co-sponsoring a talk by Josie Ashton, who is recognized for her community activism.

Contact Michelle Firestone at Michelle.Firestone@UConn.edu.