and appalled that men hit and abuse women who are physically smaller when women regularly hit and abuse small children?”(Sherven 63). Sherven classifies that men and women should be treated equally when it comes to Domestic Violence.Some women take the position that “hope springs eternal” for people in love and they shouldn’t be held accountable for the abusive spousal choices they make. That is precisely the kind of romantic notion that men and women cling to and use to seduce them into staying in relationships in which there is abundant evidence that they should leave. Often friends and parents try to intervene but when “hope springs eternal” obvious dangers are overlooked, denied and women tell themselves something like, “If I just love him enough, he’ll change.” Battered men usually say exactly the same things. “What is needed in situations of verbal and physical abuse and danger is not romantic fantasy but a critical and self-protective assessment of the facts followed by a decision based on those facts”(Walker 17).Our culture refuses to hold women equally accountable as men for their participation in Domestic Violence. Women’s behavior whether perpetrator or victim, is understood and passed off as socialization or poor economic status. On the other hand men are held fully accountable for all of their behavior. “Despite the tough guy stereotype all boys are encouraged to embody and the abuse many bear as a normal and loving part of their upbringing”(Sherven 81). Some will argue that women fall into “spousal abuse syndrome,” in which female passivity is explained as the result of the male brainwashing the female into believing that she is the cause of his violence. The female is powerless to alter the situation, but the truth is that females receive some form of the following lessons: “you’re nothing without a man and...
