Amanda Steel
Ms. Nousioupoulos
ENG 101
November 13, 2014
The Invisible Voices There are so many people in the world who are suffering from domestic violence, and what would be a better time to discuss this topic than during the Domestic Violence Awareness month. It is an issue that is dealt with by everyone but it doesn’t seem to be something that we will ever overcome or change completely. It is probably unrealistic to think that this problem is 100% fixable but it isn’t to think that we can make progress and help those suffering from this problem. Domestic violence needs to be talked about more around the world so we can spread the knowledge that we have about domestic abuse. It can help prevent the victims, the families and anyone else involved from leading the same path in life or having to go through unnecessary pain. We need to address this problem more head on so the things that need to be changed can be changed. A big problem we need to focus on is men who are victims to abuse, typically from their significant other. They go to the police for help and tend to not be taken as seriously as a woman would be, which results in embarrassment and being unencouraged. As much as it is hard to believe, men do get abused by women. There are a few good men out there that while getting beat up by their spouse or any woman, will not hit her back no matter how bad it gets. Therefore, resulting in him having to take one of the only options he can, which is to get help from the police, and possibly get a restraining order. The facts and statistics regarding domestic abuse are quite shocking and being someone who has personally dealt with domestic violence in more ways than one, I was still pretty shocked from what I read on the internet. But knowing any of those things will not make any difference if a person who needs help does not take the help available to them. If people are educated about domestic violence on a consistent basis, with a more serious approach, we could potentially change the lives of so many people. With all the different types of abuse that go on in the world, you could probably make a mile long list if you wrote them all down. The main categories of abuse that most people are aware of are physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse. Physical and sexual abuse are when someone physically forces bodily harm to another individual or forces someone to do something against their own freewill. A few examples of physical abuse are hitting, shoving, using a weapon on someone, threatening the safety of another person, stalking and even homicide. Sexual abuse is a well-known abuse, which is mostly carried out by a man hurting a woman. For example, rape or forcing oral sex on someone. Most women, and especially men, are afraid to speak up about a sexual abuse that happened to them, most likely because the abuser threatened to kill or hurt them or take a loved one’s life. A few examples of psychological and emotional abuse are belittling someone to feel like nothing, isolating them from their friends and family, threatening the ones they love and embarrassing them. In my opinion, emotional abuse is the one that is most used to hurt someone. It is the easiest and most people think they can get away with it because they are just words to them. But once you make someone feel unsafe with your words, those words are not just words anymore. It becomes very serious and the abuser can get in trouble whether they think they will or will not. Mostly everyone goes through at least one or more of these abuses every day. All of these are the domestic abuses that go on all around us, and most of us do not even realize that it is even going on and if they do know, they just look the other way.
Although we need to speak up and take action, it does not help when womeone does want to reach out for help, and an option like a restraining order is given to them. A restraining order is a temporary court order issued to prohibit an