I don't believe that we can work with and understand victims of domestic violence unless we understand some of the stereotypes that we carry with us. What do we believe about domestic violence? And what is true? Miss number one the battered woman syndrome affects only a small percentage of the population battering is the single major cause of injury to women. More frequent than auto accidents muggings and rapes combined. Three to four million American women are battered each year in Minnesota. 63,000 women will be battered each year. 22 to 35% of emergency department visits are related to battering. But an even more important statistic is 25 to 45% of battered women are pregnant. When they are abused. And I believe that this really is an indication of what life holds in store. for that unborn child Miss number to domestic violence occurs only in lower socioeconomic group Center for minority women the program that I found it and now run is director is located in the Suburban communities of Edina Bloomington Richfield Eden Prairie as well as South Minneapolis. It's located at the Fairview Hospital System. It's one of the few hospital-based programs in the country. We are working with between 55 and 70 new clients each month. And this is in the suburban community where we don't expect that it's going to happen. But what I'm here to tell you is violence occurs and families from all social economic educational racial and religious backgrounds. I think if we believe it happens in other communities that if put some distance between us and those other neighborhoods. And it's easier for us than to say it's them not us and perhaps if it happens to someone else we don't have to deal with it, but we have to deal with it because it's happening to everyone of us. It is simply a better kept secret in the suburbs. The number of reasons he has a very different public and private image. If I live in a home where there is grass between my home and my neighbor's sound is not transmitted as readily and in the summer, I turned on my central air conditioning. So sound is not transmitted as readily I hesitate to call the police. Not only because there might be a change in lifestyle and there might be a change in in how my children are living but because I don't think the police are going to do anything about it. And sometimes I'm right. Miss number three, the problem is really spouse abuse couples who assault each other domestic abuse is not about an occasional argument with your spouse. I don't know anyone of us in the room who doesn't have an occasional argument with her spouse. Abuse is about an imbalance of power whether it happens between husband and wife boyfriend and girlfriend parents and child. Clergy person and the person that that clergy is helping therapist and client. Someone has most of the power and control and someone has most of the fear and is really quite vulnerable. Now I will have to say that we are we as women are perfectly capable of assaulting our partners. I want to differentiate for you the difference between an assault and battery. And a salt means I throw a frying pan. I slap my husband I hit my husband and I can do that sometimes in self-defense and sometimes in defense of my children and sometimes I just feel like hitting him. Battering is a syndrome. It is a system of power and control. Utilizing physical emotional psychological means sexual main economic means of controlling another person domestic abuse is really just an aspect of a relationship. It is rarely Mutual. It is often dangerous and it is very pervasive in that relationship. I'm encouraging you to take this issue. Seriously the next time you see the newspaper talk about someone who was killed or injured in a domestic assault look for the terminology. You may likely see it described as domestic disturbance. Or domestic dispute and I'm here to tell you that people don't get injured or killed in a dispute. They get injured or killed in an assault and we knew need to use that kind of criminology or we are discounting the severity of these assaults. You know what? It's not just physical abuse, whether it's it's a wife a woman or whether it's a child. I want you to think about emotional abuse. Most of the women that we have worked with have said that the emotional abuse is worse. Because it is attacked in attack on her self-worth what happens if she die slowly inside we work with women who after 20 years of this kind of a relationship have no sense of who they are. Miss number for is an interesting miss its alcohol and drugs cause abusive Behavior if I'm sober I won't hit her anymore. In actual fact if I'm sober I'm going to be in touch with my feelings for the first time in a long time and I might actually be more physically and emotionally abusive. Chemical dependency is a disease and it is an addiction abuse is a learned behavior. It can be unlearned but they are two separate issues. If they are present in the same individual the chemical issue must be dealt with initially. It must be dealt with first, but that will not make the abuser less abusive. He will still be controlling and way still be physically abusive. He needs in it a treatment program that will deal specifically with how he handles his anger and how he handles his needs for control. Diffusers just out of control. I want you to think about What happens if he was really out of control? He might be hitting his boss. Everyone's under a lot of stress. I bet we can go around this room, and I don't know anyone who isn't under a lot of stress. if I was really a out of control and my boss said something to me that I really didn't care to hear and it was pretty critical. I might haul off and hit my boss and I want you to think about the consequences for hitting my boss. What are the consequences for hitting your wife? or your child I believe you saved this opportunity to hear till he has the safest opportunity with the fewest consequences and we have seen this in the emergency department at the hospital. Initially when he hits her it is in safe places that don't show it might be between the shoulders in the hips the women tells us that as the relationship goes on. He is less careful about where he assaults her and we see many more facial injuries. I also want you to think about who's the messenger. If I get into an argument with anyone of you today, and I say something critical you may not want to hear it, but it's not going to hurt you the way it's going to hurt you. if your husband or your wife or your parent Does something to you it carries a much greater impact if it's someone that we are connected with and that we care about. Miss number 6 battered women deserve to be beaten. They provoked the beatings by pushing their man beyond the breaking point. Think of the difference between a feeling and a behavior again, I can get into an argument with anyone of you and I can make you very very angry, you know, and that's all right. Feelings are appropriate and we need to learn to deal with our feelings, but I can't make you hit me. That's a decision making process. And you choose with your anger what to do and you often choose to hit me because your goal is to release some of that anger and to control me. I don't think anyone was born 8 lb 12 oz 22 in and abusive. I think if you just have simply learned their lessons well and you know, they don't like themselves very much when we work with someone who's abusive. The first thing we try to do is to let them know they don't deserve to feel so badly about who they are. Anyone who abuses their partner to get them to stay with them or abuses their child does not like themselves. So first I try to help him see some of the internal consequences of what they're doing. And then I say, you know, what you're doing is against the law you can't do this. And we try to offer them to things we offer them perhaps internal consequences dealing with the criminal justice system and definitely court-ordered counseling for abusive Behavior. This number seven is married to a couples counseling a good recommendation for abusive relationships. If you don't learn another thing today, please learn this abuse is not a communication issue. Abuse is a control issue. She is afraid of and controlled by her abuser and couples counseling as an initial therapy is not only an effective. But it's unsafe for her. Battered women must enjoy the violence. Otherwise, they would leave the abusive relationship. No one enjoys being hurt many times. We have found that women have tried to leave the relationship. And for one reason or another have gone back. And they are fully aware of what this man can do to them when they do go back but he's saying nice things to them and they desperately want the relationship to continue. They just don't want the abuse to continue. I'm actually amazed that as many women are able to leave an abusive relationship as do. One of the questions I've almost always asked is why do they stay? I would like to turn that question around and say instead of focusing on the Survivor of abuse. Why don't we focus on the person responsible for that behavior? Each of us is responsible for our own behavior. Why is he doing it and how are we raising our children today? Particularly our boys to believe that they have to control their partner to get them to stay with them. I want to read something to you in closing and it's entitled why battered wives don't leave home. Was written by a woman in 1983 who lived in New Jersey? you stay because Anywhere, you can go he can go when he finds you his rage will make former abuse seem mild. No matter where you go. I'll find you. If you leave you will never see the children again. He has told you that if you try to leave he will find your child at school and take it out on her or on your pet or on your parents. Your friends are becoming alienated and you have nowhere to go. If you do know people who may accept you you were flipped him on them and few people are altruistic enough to put up with that. I learned this the hard way when a police officer told me that my violent husband was my problem and that I had no right to inflict him on the police. He lies convincingly. So you run away in the police bring you home after he explains that you are crazy and must be returned to his custody. Professionals find it hard to believe that a quiet amiable and educated man would do such things especially since he never does it with witnesses around. You finally get him to go to counseling and the counselor tells you that you both must trust and communicate over your frantic surreptitious protest what you told the counselor in confidence is repeated to your husband who reacts with quiet intelligent concern the satisfied counselor, then tells him you had assumed he would react with anger and violence the counselor send you on your way with a promise to trust and communicate and as soon as your husband gets you alone. He beats the living tar out of you. You got into the fixed because you never expected a quiet amiable man to be abusive. The first time you did it his tears afterward made you saw your for him and for yourself. Somehow it seemed to be your fault because you didn't love or trust or support enough later when the counselor agrees. It kind of was your fault. All you know is you've tried everything and you can't get away. I was lucky there years and hundreds of miles between me and my ex-husband now, but I still remember the psychiatrist the doctors in the police officers who told me that I must enjoy or need such treatment or I would never have put up with it.