Glamour Relationship Abuse Survey: Nearly 60 Percent Of Young Women Have Experienced Abuse

Very little data exists on the extent of relationship violence among young women.

To fill that void, Glamour commissioned an exclusive Harris Interactive representative online survey of 2,542 women ages 18 to 35, developed with counsel from the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV), the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, Casa Esperanza and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

"The results show how meaningful it is to have the support of friends, family and coworkers for young women in abusive relationships," says Kenya Fairley, program manager for the NRCDV. "This is vital information."

Take a look at the findings:

Nearly 60 percent of all young women have experienced abuse:

29 percent of women surveyed said they'd been in an abusive relationship.

• 62 percent of those women have been hit, shoved, or slapped.
• 33 percent have been choked or strangled.
• 11 percent of those who say their partner is currently abusive predict he "will seriously hurt or kill me."

Another 30 percent of all women polled said they'd never been in an abusive relationship but then reported experiencing abusive behavior.

• 23 percent of those women said they'd suffered physical violence, such as being slapped or punched.
• 94 percent cited emotional abuse. "Emotional abuse almost always escalates to physical violence," says Diane Lass, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the Family Justice Center in San Diego.

Women often don't speak up about it:

• 24 percent of women in abusive relationships have not told anyone they're being harmed.
• Similarly, 37 percent of women who have known someone in such a relationship never said anything to that person -- or to the authorities.

Telling somebody can make a difference:

• 62 percent of women who reported that they had been in these relationships said that having the support of a friend, family member or coworker helped them "get through the relationship safely."
• 42 percent of women who were in an abusive relationship and told someone they were being hurt said doing so helped them get out.

Why they don't leave abusive relationships:

• Love was the top answer from women in our survey when asked why they had not left an abusive partner

How you can help?

Text TELLNOW to 85944 to make a $10 donation that will go toward keeping a domestic violence hotline open. The Avon Foundation will match every dollar you donate up to $200,000. Find out more about our texting campaign.

Comments

[Emilio Lizardo]

06:14 AM on 05/18/2011

There actually is a lot of data on this and most 'violence' is trivial and initiated by women. It's not that women are against violence, they're just sore losers.

There's no breathless crisis here. Just a lot of emoting for funding.

[librainstars]

06:07 PM on 05/09/2011

Abuse is abuse. No matter if men hit woman or woman hit men.
Ive played this vid before. Its about kids being abused.
Its a true story.....watch there is a young man who was abused in it if you watch carefully
Yes they focas on the girl in the class. BUt the boy too
important thing tell someone. no matter who you are
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpE73PvU9bk

[copelli21]

04:10 PM on 05/09/2011

I hate to make this a racial thing, but I am going to anyway.

Relationship abuse is a TOP killer of young, black women.

This isn't new information. And as much as any attention is good attention, I find the "shock and awe" to be a tad disingenuous.

The reality: close to five in every 1,000 black women aged 12 and up are victims of domestic violence, according to the U.S. DoJ.

It’s understanding that among those abused aged 15 to 34, MURDER by a husband or boyfriend remains a leading cause of death.

If your name isn't Rihanna, Chris Brown or if you're not a nice middle-class white girl...then your story has not (and will not) be told, much less get any national press coverage, especially if you're a black woman.

Here's some special sauce to this issue: A lot of these young women will NOT call the police on their abusers. Maybe if the relationship between law enforcement and many black communities were "better", but this is a population where "snitching" is discouraged and they simply don't trust the police.

It's all a recipe for a tragedy that has occurred silently for years. Abuse is abuse...no matter who it's done to or who's doing the abusing and it needs to stop.

But the scars of abused are not only owned by young white women, just like the face of the abuser is not always male.

[gazul]

03:40 PM on 05/07/2011

It is not possible for the women or men of today to feel less than abused because many come from a broken home, showing only One prospective or from a two parent home where respect and honor to the male or female is not understood. Indeed, most women enter into intimate relationships without having any previous experience interacting with males, much less have sex or make love. For women their genitalia is connected to their Heart, through their Emotions. The important thing is for women to use their Mind more on the foundation of valid reason and purpose, instead of only the Emotions in the initial stages of a relationship. Everything sounds like abuse when a woman is emotionally Biased and mentally inept to impart logic so as to negotiate day to day challenges.

The Mind is rarely used in todays world, WHY? Because most people feel that logic can be applied by emotions alone. Never. Most people prefer to have someone's Mind governing them, and telling them what to do, when to do it and so forth, instead of applying their own Mind. This is the disease in Our debased society. The responsibility is upon all of us who realize this to do what is within our individual Power to reclaim our women, our sons and our daughters. It begins at birth and those attitudes and qualities if not developed would promote a personality Unfit to meet the needs of basic relationships and beyond. Let Love & Peace Prevail.

[Gianna Werner]

04:05 PM on 05/07/2011

You know what would have led me to stay in an abusive relationship? If my parents hadn't had the strength, courage, and sense to say ENOUGH and split up. Children learn from example. If a homelife is bad, and parents fight or do not show love, then children do not learn to show or receive love. If a parent or both parents decide that its enough, and find happy, healthy relationships in the future, then children learn to do the same.

I was born into a broken home, and my parents divorced to fix it.

[VirgoLinnea]

10:42 AM on 05/09/2011

This, definitely. Children of parents who won't split up and whose parents continue the cycle of abuse learn that it is perfectly okay to "settle for less" so to speak. And parents who do stay in a relationship like that tend to be individuals who settle for less in all realms of life to begin with, which children definitely see, and the children are likely to grow up with a sense of helplessness and lack of ambition to seek anything better.

[gazul]

04:22 PM on 05/08/2011

Very Well said. I guess also that at some time in an adult's life they must claim appropriate standards to live by in their relationship with self and others. Frustration when experienced reflects the belief that there aren't other options available, which is never true. There is always a way out. It takes two to tango, so if one person is acting irrationally, the other always have a choice to do whatever is necessary to better their life. Choices are always available.

[Cathy Wagner]

01:31 PM on 05/07/2011

Why don't hey leave? FEAR

[librainstars]

06:02 PM on 05/09/2011

F&F

[KRAZYHORZE]

11:43 AM on 05/07/2011

Elephant in the room: Woman's attraction to abusive man. Every man knows of countless woman who choose the abusive guy over the nice guy.

[Cathy Wagner]

01:33 PM on 05/07/2011

Read between the lines, apparently there are many, many abusive men and most don't start off that way. Once you're in, it is very hard to leave.

[Richcrafter]

01:51 AM on 05/07/2011

Because a shocking number of men abuse.

[NewYorker1978]

10:22 PM on 05/06/2011

If you do any research, you'll find that the percentage of domestic abuse cases where males are victims is much higher than most people might think. It is an antiquated view to think that women are victimized at vastly higher rates than men. Women are victimized more often, but the numbers are moving towards an even split. Very rarely will you see articles written about male victims and that perpetuates the myth that men are rarely victimized. Because of the paucity of articles discussing male victims, you can only bring this up when discussing articles about female victims. In turn, some people get annoyed reading comments about male victims when reading articles that only talk about female victims. At this point, this issue is too often framed in an us-against-them which gets in the way of figuring out solutions to address all relationship violence.

[VirgoLinnea]

10:46 AM on 05/09/2011

I have zero issue with the problem of male domestic violence victims being brought up, but it seems to only occur in reply to articles stating statistics of women who are abused in relationships, as if somehow the lower but still likely high number of men being abused is MORE important than the extremely high and disturbing statistics for female victims, and as if the statistics for female victims should be discounted and diminished in light of the statistics for men. This behavior is rather insulting - BOTH issues should be discussed, but this survey absolutely was about FEMALE victims - I don't know why to some men it is still so horrible for women to be discussed separately even with this problem. EVERY time I see articles about females being victims of DV, some men come along crying for attention and discount anyone's ability to discuss the fact that the stats for female victims is still disgustingly high without men being mentioned. If you want articles about DV where men are the victims, discounting information about women being victims is not the place to do it.

[NewYorker1978]

01:07 PM on 05/09/2011

As I mentioned in my initial post, there are virtually no articles written on male victims other than those found at sites specifically devoted to men. In fact, this gives the impression that female victims are far more important than male victims. When is the last time a popular blog like HP had an article devoted to male victims, where that issue could be discussed separately? What men are relegated to doing is posting on articles such as these because articles on male victims are few and far between. If you can't bring up male victims in an article about female victims you are, in essence, saying that men should keep quiet about this issue. The reason you see men writing about male victims is due to the shameful lack of articles devoted to male victims.

The issue of domestic violence is treated in an overly simplistic us against them way. Men are abusers and women are victims. This fits snuggly into certain political ideologies, specifically multiculturalism. This explains why male victims of domestic violence get scant attention. Considering the fact that, conservatively, between 30-35% victims of domestic violence are men makes this even more shameful.

[LanceSmith]

04:08 PM on 05/11/2011

Perhaps men are crying for attention specifically because there are no articles written on the subject of male DV victims (yet the research shows that they are certainly out there in HUGE numbers). Perhaps we will stop banging the drum when people start to listen.

As for the survey being only FEMALE victims, that's kinda the problem, no? Where are these surveys considering only MALE victims? Or better yet, why discriminate at all.

[KRAZYHORZE]

07:41 PM on 05/06/2011

Shocking number of men have experience relationship abuse. Stop playing victim, anyone and eveyone is a victim of something...

[Cathy Wagner]

01:36 PM on 05/07/2011

Nice attitude. Stop whining and just live with it.

Men should speak up, too. The only way to end this is for healthy people to reject unhealthy people, but first they need to be educated.

[LanceSmith]

04:09 PM on 05/11/2011

So you are telling him to stop whining in one sentence while saying that men should speak up in the other....which is it?

[rsttho557949]

02:12 PM on 05/06/2011

In my opinion, the primary reason why there is no much "realtionship" abuse is because there is too much "sexual" abuse-pre marital sex- that is occuring nowadays. Women get bonded to men physically and spritually when he enters her. If the realtionship was built from the get go on sex and "feelings" and not true freindhship- before intimacy, the realtionship is built on a founddation of compromises. So when the woman enters the realtionship based on compromise, she will not be respected in the realtionship because no standards were established. After a man has had his way sexually with a woman- and if friendship has not been established, he take more and more liberties with her.

This report is not surprising since so many people have sex and opposed to making love. The very act of "making love" implies a level of respect that doesn't exist when people have "sex". his is one reason, why God intended intimacy to only occur in the confines of a traditional marriage between a normal man and a normal woman. If a woman doesn't wish to be abused in a realtionship, she should make sure that she won't tolerate disrespect-at any time- in the realtionship. Oh, its not love that keeps a woman in a abusive realtionship...its called masochism and its often confused with "love".

[Gianna Werner]

04:01 PM on 05/07/2011

That is an absolutely sexist, and illogical point of view.

Women are not controlled by emotions linked to sex. Many women sleep with someone before they get married, and not all of them enter in abusive relationships, and not every relationship a woman has that she has sex before marriage will be abusive.

I have seriously dated probably 5 people since I started college, and I was in only one abusive relationship. He manipulated me, belittled me and made me feel like no one else would want me, and that I was lucky to have him, until I wised up. Abuse is NOT the fault of the victim, and a woman can have sex within 30 seconds of meeting a man or after 30 years of dating a man and not be in an abusive relationship.

There are men who will abuse and there are those who won't. When I left the man who abused me, I met other women he had been with who had all been abused as well. I am married to a wonderful man who has never laid a hand on me, and never disrespected me, or ever made me feel terrible like that other guy did. I slept with my husband on our first date, and lived with him for two years before getting married.

Women are in control of their emotions just as men, and it is shameful to blame the victim for their abuse in the manner that you have.

[Peter van Dyk]

11:30 AM on 05/06/2011

So what to do? Seems like it is quite well established that there is a lot of violence-abuse in intimate relationships, that is no longer 'news', what is the solution? The impact seems so damaging that perhaps we need to focus-spend more $$$ & time creating solutions & opportunities where men & women could learn to be more peaceful when they love each other. Does any one have 'men' shelters where men could go to be safe, instead of being hit or hitting? Seems like this issue always comes up after some violence & not before. Anyway just wish it would stop, & we could see a shift in this, thnks.

[Guest211]

02:28 PM on 05/05/2011

There is an ongoing study at ASU which is providing some interesting results / conclusions.

http://www.statepress.com/2010/05/29/domestic-violence-study-reveals-gender-stereotypes/

[Jack Daniels Esq]

05:07 AM on 05/05/2011

As a youngster, we never, ever heard about abusive behavior - it simply was not tolerated and my dad didnt abuse my mom - later there a little bit of fun, consensual spanking - but that was it. I did have one really brutal relationship with a French gal - she dug her claws in all over - but I took her to LAX - I ended it right there before it spiraled out of control - and never heard from her again. She was simply a product of an abusive upbringing - both parents professionals and both drunks - one disbarred
I could see where that relationship could have escalated and I prolly would have landed up behind bars - as I was much bigger/stronger than her - but my sense of self-worth and intuition as well as the earlier childhood programming triggered alerts that all was not well - besides I hate waking up with body parts missing - so I decided to end it.
Perhaps the lasses in abusive relationships have come to accept a lower standard by which we are held accountable - or they simply accept abuse as the norm or has the law simply failed us - again .. as is the norm these days ? I do know that these situations can escalate within minutes to a point of no return - get out - now

[Daleri Rileda]

04:59 AM on 05/05/2011

This is a rather serious and shocking study. It is concerning.

It is hard to believe that the abuse is one sided. ("All is fair in love and war.")

Things can escalate.

People who are calm can turn aggressive depending on the nature of the relationship. It does not justify abuse but it can be a contributing factor.

We all have to give an account for the things that we all do.

[VirgoLinnea]

10:50 AM on 05/09/2011

Oh really? Because research of DV often shows that abusers tend to abuse ALL of their partners, not just certain ones. If it's two-sided, then there would be partners that wouldn't "instigate" (as you are implying) an abuser and their relationship wouldn't include abuse. Yet, this is not how things work. You are wrong.

[Daleri Rileda]

04:34 AM on 05/05/2011

That is because people keep saying there is no God to answer to.