Health Risks to Battered Women

50% of abused women in one survey sustained physical injuries, and more than 50% of those injuries were to the face/head region (Nelson & Zimmerman 1996: 25). Statistically, the severity of injury was correlated with the batterer’s use of more than one type of abuse, suggesting that “early intervention by family, neighbors, police, the courts, or others is perhaps crucial to the avoidance of injuries for many women” (26). (n1)

However, physical injuries were not the only types of injuries caused by domestic violence. Walsh noted that “For many women, physical violence was not the hardest thing to cope with [emphasis hers],” citing, for example:

• “Shame, guilt and humiliation with respect to peers or concerns about shaming their parents and children;
• Fear and helplessness;
• Anger (coincided with a lower or more controlled level of violence);
• Anxiety and signs of mental disorders (feeling that you are going crazy);
• Friends and neighbours often speculate that a woman is being punished because she is not a good wife;
• Women felt trapped, with little or no hope of escaping." (Walsh 2007: 30)

***Notes

1) “It was statistically indicated that ‘while most batterers who use one form of abuse limit their actions to avoid injury, once a batterer crosses the line to a second form of abuse he may no longer control the nature of his attacks.’” (Nelson & Zimmerman 1996: 26)