An Epidemic of Violence We Never Discuss - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/books/review/rachel-louise-snyder-no-visible-bruises.html
By Rachel Louise Snyder
In the year and a half since the #MeToo movement erupted, women have recounted stories of sexual assault — and men have been called out for their behavior — from Hollywood studios to restaurant kitchens to top media outlets. Yet one of the oldest and most common places for such egregious behavior has been largely left out of the conversation: our own homes.
When it involves celebrities, domestic violence tends to be relegated to the realm of personal issues, like an addiction problem or a divorce. For the more ordinary among us, it rarely gets any media attention at all; even domestic murders — which are often the tragic culmination of years of physical and psychological abuse — seldom get more than a passing mention in the local news. Meanwhile, many of the mass shootings we see have origins in domestic violence. We ignore this phenomenon at our peril.
As Rachel Louise Snyder argues in her powerful new book, domestic violence has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Fifty women a month are shot and killed by their partners. Domestic violence is the third leading cause of homelessness. And 80 percent of hostage situations involve an abusive partner. Nor is it only a question of physical harm: In some 20 percent of abusive relationships a perpetrator has total control of his victim’s life. (Countries including Britain and France have laws to protect against this kind of abuse, but the United States does not.)
