Violence against women in the United States is the use of domestic abuse, murder, sex-trafficking, rape and assault against women in the United States. It has been recognized as a public health concern. Family and domestic violence is a common problem in the United States, affecting an estimated 10 million people every year. Culture in the United States has led towards the trivialization of violence towards women, with media in the United States possibly contributing to making women-directed violence appear unimportant to the public.
History The history of laws and cultural taboos have a current effect on how new sexual assault laws are drafted, how the laws are applied by law enforcement, and how police decide whether to arrest a suspected perpetrator. The history of sexual assault prosecutions influences whether or not current cases are taken to court. Judges and juries make decisions to convict based upon their past knowledge on the topic of sexual assault.
Media Media that sexually objectify women by portraying them in ways that emphasize physical beauty and sexual readiness as well as reduce them to decorative and sexual objects have been identified by scholars as a powerful cultural risk factor encouraging sexual harassment and sexual violence.the imagery of women being sexually victimized in advertisements, pornography, films and music videos has been shown to increase support for violence toward women.
In a study published in 2008, it was found that in nearly 2,000 print advertisements of 58 magazines popular in the United States, 50% of ads depicted women as sex objects, appearing as a victim in about 10% of advertisements. The main magazines featuring sexual objectification of women were of the fashion and adolescent topics. These advertisements often portrayed women in various positions and expressions that were derived from pornography. The study also stated that women in the United States feel that rape is "trivialized in American culture" and concluded that "media imagery that presents women as both sex object and as victims" has possibly contributed to this trivialization.
A 2016 study regarding the objectification of women in the media found that men's magazines, reality television and pornography brought upon more thoughts of objectification, which in turn led to more support of violence toward women. In the study's results, it is stated "the relationship between objectifying media exposure and attitudes supportive of violence against women was fully mediated by notions of women as sex objects". Similarly, a 2024 study analyzing American true crime podcasts has shown that narrative conventions within the genre continue to dehumanize murdered women, just as what traditional news media did, by focusing on their bodies and suffering rather than representing their personhood and life experiences.
Effects Violence against women can lead to immediate physical injuries and longer-term mental and physical health conditions. In addition to negatively impacting mental and physical health, violence against women can interfere with life at work, home, and school. In some cases, violence results in death.
Children exposed to violence are also at risk for developing mental and physical health problems. Depending on their age, children may react differently to exposure.
Domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness among women. According to research, about 80% of homeless women have experienced domestic violence before. Women and families are the fastest-growing of homeless population groups in the United States.
Types of violence
Domestic violence
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Justice, about 1 in every 4 women suffer from at least one physical assault experience from a partner during adulthood.The Violence Against Women Act of 2005, Summary of Provisions. National Network to End Domestic Violence. Retrieved 2011-11-20. A 2007 report found that in about 64% of female homicides were perpetrated by a partner or family member. Intimate partner abuse may also include other types behavior considered abusive. These are instances in which one partner seeks to control finances, force isolation from friends and family and dominate the relationship.
Women who have been identified as being at a higher risk for domestic and sexual abuse are older women, those living in rural communities, disabled women and immigrants. Addressing and preventing such violence may be difficult because some women do not have nearby access to victim services. A woman may also have language barriers, economic and psychological dependence on the perpetrator.
In some instances of violence, a woman and her children may not be able to procure housing apart from the perpetrator. Between 22 and 57% and of these women become homeless. Due to housing regulations that practice a 'no tolerance' policy requiring eviction of all household members when even one person is convicted of any crime, battered women can then be homeless as a result. This practice essentially creates a disincentive for reporting violence in the home. Some women who have experienced violence in the home risk the loss of their jobs related to their need for medical treatment, counselling, finding new housing and legal protection.
Rape
The percentage of women who have been raped in the United States is between 15% and 20%, with various studies disagreeing with each other. (National Violence Against Women survey in 1995, 17.6% rate;Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey. (PDF) . Retrieved on 2011-10-01. a 2007 Department of Justice study on rape found 18% rate). About 500 women were raped per day in the United States in 2008. About 21.8% of rapes of female victims in the United States are gang rapes.Horvath, Miranda et al. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape. Routledge 2013, page 15.
A March 2013 report from the United States Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 1995 to 2010, the estimated annual rate of female rape or sexual assault had declined by 58%, from 5.0 victimizations per 1,000 females age 12 or older to 2.1 per 1,000. JournalistsResource.org, retrieved March 24, 2012 However, a study in 2013 regarding rape in the United States found that cases remain underreported.National Research Council. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2013. Law enforcement in the United States also manipulates rape statistics to "create the illusion of success in fighting violent crime" according to a 2014 study.Yung, C. R. (2014). How to Lie with Rape Statistics: America's Hidden Rape Crisis. Iowa Law Review, 99(1197). When investigated, defendants are rarely convicted.
Sexual assault
Sexual assault differs significantly from other crimes of assault. For sexual assault, the severity of the crime has been determined by establishing the victim's moral character, behavior, signs of resistance and verbal expressions of non-consensual participation. The crime of battery, another type of assault, is determined by the perpetrators actions and intent. The victim's response to this type of assault does not determine whether a crime has taken place or not. The victim does not have to demonstrate that they resisted, gave consent or have a history of being punched. In addition, the question of assault occurring after consent is given complicates the understanding of violence and injury - even if sex is consensual. Changes in the laws regarding some sexual acts may "lead to the glorification of sexual violence".
Objectification A 2015 study by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln found that college women in the United States who were victims of sexual violence or partner violence began to self-objectificate themselves and felt body shame. Native American women have been objectified in popular culture under the stereotype of the "sexy Squaw" as seen by sexy Halloween costumes and other avenues such as fashion shows which use the aesthetic of a sexually promiscuous Indigenous woman. Furthermore, Native American women were highly objectified by colonists and often raped as a method of control while establishing the New World. Under European law, Native American women became the property of their colonist husbands leading to the literal possession and subsequent objectification of Indigenous women.
State violence
Forced pregnancy and sterilization
Forced sterilization is recognized as a type of gender-based violence. In the United States, Native American, Mexican American, African American and Puerto Rican-American women were coerced into sterilization programs, with Native Americans and African Americans especially being targeted. Many of these projects were a result of racism and eugenics in the United States. In total, 31 of 50 states had official eugenics programs with tens of thousands of women being sterilized.
President Lyndon B. Johnson's War of Poverty, upheld by the logic that the world would not have the resources necessary to care for the entire global population as argued by Dr. Barbara Gurr, a professor at University of Connecticut, led to the creation of the Office of Economic Opportunity that dealt with education, training, and contraception for the poor. The Family Planning Act of 1970 passed almost unanimously, inspired by eugenicist thinking, and the sterilization of women increased by 350% with almost 1 million women sterilized each year from 1970 to 1975.
Since the days of European colonization, Europeans who arrived sought to control Native American populations in order to acquire more capital and resources from the newly discovered land. This resulted in policies of genocide and removal targeting Native American women and girls in order to procure land for settlements. Records have shown that Native American girls as young as eleven years-old had hysterectomy operations performed. Native American women have been a minority group that is easier to target for sterilization due to high levels of bureaucratic secrecy and the unique circumstances of colonization and sexual violence that has kept their plight invisible to mainstream feminist movements.
Native American women could not unseal court records that documented the sterilization practices of the Indian Health Service (IHS) at the request of the United States government. A General Accounting Office (GAO) study conducted between 1973 and 1976 found IHS facilities sterilized 3,406 Native American women in Albuquerque, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, and Aberdeen, South Dakota. Most of these women were between 15 and 44 years old. This was a large number of Native American women who were sterilized, equivalent to 452,000 non-Native American women. Many of these sterilization procedures violated the US District Court's definition of informed consent: "voluntary, knowing assent from the individual on whom any sterilization is to be performed." There was often a lack of translators to explain the severity of the procedure to Native American women and doctors withheld information about the irreversibility of the sterilization or other forms of birth control.
Physicians at the IHS were prescribing Depo-Provera, a long-term chemical contraceptive, to Native American women 20 years before it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1992. This contraception has long-term side effects such as depression, osteoporosis, sterility, and cervical cancer. Many Native American women were not made aware of these side effects. Sterilization is often the default solution for contraception for Native American women, who are often coerced into such procedures by government officials. In 2004, about 1/3 of Native American women were undergoing tubal ligation, a rate that is 123% greater than for white women.