Women’s experiences of Domestic Violence and Abuse

Overview

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We have produced this section on Women’s Experiences of Domestic Violence and Abuse as a resource for women who are in an abusive relationship or have been in the past. It will also be a resource for friends, family members and professionals who think someone may be in an abusive relationship and want to find out about how best to help. During 2015, our team of two researchers travelled around the UK, interviewing 39 women who had experienced domestic violence or abuse. They were aged between 20 and 62 years and were from a range of cultural background including some first- generation migrants.

The women had experienced between one and 33 years in an abusive relationship, 11 years on average. Half of them had experienced abuse from more than one person, either previous partners or a family member, sometimes in childhood. Most of the women were free of abuse at the time of their interview and they talked about how they got help and, over time, took back control of their lives from their abusive partners. For their own safety, three women decided not to include their interviews on the website, and many others preferred to remain anonymous, so some of their words are read by actors and some are in audio format.

Women’s accounts reveal that domestic abuse is not just about being ‘battered’ but is about being subjected to coercive and controlling behaviour, threats to harm the women or their families if they do not comply with their partner’s demands, as well as physical, financial, sexual and verbal abuse. All forms of abuse are described in detail by our participants and some people may find the content distressing.

Dame Jennifer Susan "Jenni" Murray, journalist and broadcaster, is best known for presenting BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. She is a supporter of Women’s Aid, and here she introduces this section of the website. Jenni makes reference to a radio ‘soap opera’ which included a female character experiencing domestic abuse.

Women's experiences of Domestic Violence and Abuse site introduction by Jenni Murray

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I’ve been involved with Women’s Aid now for a long time and of course Women’s Hour discusses domestic violence and abuse, far more than we would like to I’m afraid. We know what a terribly serious problem it is. We know that two women a week are killed by a violent partner and that often happens after she’s left to try and save herself and her children.

I think what people are not so aware of, although perhaps they are now that the Archers has done such a brilliant, brilliant story line on this, is that its not always being battered, having black eyes, being punched, although that does happen sometimes, but coercive control which was made illegal last year (December 2015) is what the Archers has demonstrated so well. And this is where the partner becomes completely controlling. And somehow manages to stop the woman having any confidence in herself at all. She doesn’t talk to her friends, she doesn’t go out with her friends, she doesn’t go out at all, sometimes because she not allowed to. She doesn’t have access to her own money. she completely loses any kind of sense of self as this person takes her over totally. And takes over her children and decides what’s going to happen to them and she has no influence in what’s going to happen. So that’s the other side of domestic violence and abuse. It is coercive control and it is illegal.

Now the difficulty is if someone is in this position or is being battered or being controlled its finding out how to tell someone that it is happening. Sometimes even having the confidence to understand that this is what’s going on and its right to go out and tell someone.

But I think what I want to get across is that if you have a friend who begins to change and isn’t the person that you knew before, or if you invite this couple to dinner and she’s got a particular dress on and he says “I don’t know why you came out in that thing, you look terrible” that may be an indication that something is going wrong.

There are lots of people that you can talk to about this kind of thing, you might have to go and see your GP, not necessarily a problem you have but maybe it’s your child, try and find an opportunity to talk to the GP about it. Find Women’s Aid. Women’s Aid will always help. Just find someone who can give you advice as to how you can leave, what sort of evidence would help the police to take a case and get out. Get out if you possibly, possibly can.

Jacqui, a survivor of domestic violence and abuse, gives us a clear picture of her marriage to an abusive husband. She describes how she got help to leave and how she now has a new life of her own.

Jacqui's story: an introduction to Domestic Violence and Abuse

Visit our resources page for information and contact details of support organisations.

This section is based on research by School for Social & Community Medicine at Bristol University and The University of Oxford.

Supported by:

This is a summary of independent research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) under its Research for Patient Benefit Programme (Grant Reference Number PB-PG-0712-28011). The views expressed are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.

Publication date: April 2017
Date of review: February 2020.

Next review due: February 2030