Who kills women with guns?

[chervilant]

133. While I choose not to use gender specific terminology,

when I lecture regarding relationship violence, I do stress to my audience that the vast majority of relationship violence is perpetrated by MEN against WOMEN. This is an irrefutable fact. Furthermore, a primary reason for this gender specificity is the socio-cultural construct we call 'patriarchy,' which has negative consequences for both genders, and ALL sexual orientations.

I find it interesting that the discussion always seems to center on "victims" of relationship violence. We would benefit greatly as a species if we would eliminate patriarchy and focus on helping batterers understand why they batter. Instead of asking survivors "why don't you just leave," we should ask batterers, "why do you batter?"

We need to help our children learn effective communication strategies, and conflict resolution skills. Moreover, we need to hold bullies and batterers accountable for their actions AND for seeking help to extinguish their need to use violence and aggression when they're angry or feel threatened.