The world we live in has become full of several disgusting crimes. Here, I am going to discuss about one such “punishable” crime that is becoming prominent with every day that passes which is domestic and familial abuse and violence that can be seen primarily happening against women across the globe.
Whenever I turn on the news or open a newspaper to read, there’s at least one headline that screams “Victim of Domestic Violence” in bold, and mostly, the victim is a female. But not many people are talking about it even though it is a big issue. They feel like it’s a “private matter” for them to meddle in. It is indeed said, “until you are at the receiving end of the punch, it has never got anything to do with you.“
Domestic violence is a form of physical, verbal, or sexual abuse committed against someone within their domestic circle. This might include one’s partner, a family member, a family friend, or anyone in the same close vicinity. It would be wrong to say that women are the only sufferers of domestic abuse, but it isn’t wrong to think that women are at its worst.
Since society is busy ignoring the matter and, worse, blaming the victims themselves, someone has to raise their voice and take the initiative to educate people about this form of crime. I am willing to be that voice, and I’ll take the initiative of helping people to get educated about the topic by recommending you some books that you should read.
12 Books That Raises Voice Against Domestic Violence
Victim or not, here are a few books that you must read to completely understand domestic violence’s various forms and aspects.
1. Why Does He Do That?
Full Title: Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Author: Lundy Bancroft
Genre: Self-help book
Publishing Date: 2002
Description:
It happens to several women that their husbands abuse them, but they don’t know or deny it because the husband says he loves her. The author, a counselor specializing in working with abusive men, helps women recognize and break free from their abusive relationships in this book. The central claim is that if he loved you, he wouldn’t be treating you like that.
2. Playing Dead
Full Title: Playing Dead: A Memoir of Terror and Survival
Author: Monique Faison Ross
Genre: Biography
Publishing Date: 2016
Description:
Who says love cannot turn into something dreadful? This book is an example of it. This is a memoir of a domestic abuse survivor who was married to her childhood sweetheart, Chris.
They married each other right after discovering she was pregnant with his child. After marriage his verbal abuses increased and eventually led to physical assaults. Even though she ran away with their child, he found a way to approach her. Finally, she had to play dead to save her life.
3. Don’t Hit my Mommy!
Full Title: Don’t Hit My Mommy!: A Manual for Child-parent Psychotherapy with Young Witnesses of Family Violence
Author: Alicia F. Lieberman, Chandra Ghosh Ippen, and Patricia Van Horn
Genre: Psychological
Publishing Date: 2005
Description:
There’s a reason why it is said that parents shouldn’t fight in front of children. Their minds aren’t developed enough to intake for their fickle minds. It affects their mental health in ways one cannot even imagine.
This book offers guidelines to deal with cognitive and behavioral changes of kids who’ve grown up witnessing violent experiences in a relationship, especially of their parents, along with its consequences.
4. Coercive Control
Full Title: Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life
Author: Evan Stark
Genre: Feminism
Publishing Date: 2007
Description:
The struggles faced by women especially the physical and sexual violence is a well-known take. Still, this book is the first to show that most women seek help because they see their rights being jeopardized, not because they have been injured physically but emotionally.
This book addresses the three most perplexing challenges, and they are: why such abusive relationships last, why victimized women develop such a profile that’s not seen among any other group of victims, and why the system has failed so miserably to provide them with justice?
5. Overcoming the Stigma of Intimate Partner Abuse
Full Title: Overcoming the Stigma of Intimate Partner Abuse
Author: Allison Crowe and Christine E. Murray
Genre: Self-help book
Publishing Date: 2016
Description:
When it comes to domestic violence, society has several stigmas, one of which is related to intimate partner abuse. This book actively challenges such stereotypes through the stories of triumphed survivors and presents a new perspective for understanding abusive relationships.
This book serves as a medium to provide a fulfilling plan to survivors, professionals, and society to end such stigmas, raise awareness, and prevent such violent acts.
6. When I Hit You
Full Title: When I Hit You, Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
Author: Meena Kandasamy
Genre: Feminism
Publishing Date: 2017
Description:
This book follows the story of an unknown narrator who owned a dream of being a writer, once fell in love with a university professor, and moved to a rain-washed coastal town with him.
Soon she discovered that his love for her was merely a sense of possession for him. He tried to reduce her to what he thought of as an ideal woman by bullying her resisting it, resulting in her being abused and raped. This book chronicles the abusive marriage of the narrator.
7. Into the Darkest Corner
Full Title: Into the Darkest Corner
Author: Elizabeth Haynes
Genre: Psychological Fiction
Publishing Date: 2011
Description:
Though it is a fictional tale, it represents the darkness of abuse and violence that exists in the real world. Catherine, who has been single for quite a long, crosses paths with Lee, seemingly perfect in every aspect, even getting her friends under his spell.
What starts as flattery and infatuation turns into something dark, and Catherine finally sees it. When she tried to talk, no one believed her as she planned an escape and succeeded. Four years since the incident, her past seems to be coming for her again.
8. Behind Closed Doors
Full Title: Behind Closed Doors
Author: B.A. Paris
Genre: Psychological Fiction
Publishing Date: 2016
Description:
This book follows the lives of a newlywed couple, Jack and Grace. They both seem to be perfect, individually and together. Their house is hopelessly comfortable, and the dinner parties they throw are graceful and charming.
While everything seems to be excellent with them when taken a closer look, one might question a few things like why Grace never picks up calls or meets for coffee even though she isn’t working. Why are there metal shutters on windows, or why is she so slim even though she can make those lavish meals.
One might wonder what might happen behind those closed doors once the party is over. This book, though fictional, represents how even the perfect-looking couples might not be so perfect, and one of them might be a victim of something heinous.
9. Domestic and Family Violence
Full Title: Domestic and Family Violence: A Critical Introduction to Knowledge and Practice
Author: Andrew Frost and Silke Meyer
Genre: Self-help book
Publishing Date: 2019
Description:
This book’s sole purpose is to provide us all with knowledge about domestic and family violence, which have become public issues on a global scale and are followed by several consequences.
This book introduces the readers (us) to the nature of such violent acts and is a foundation of practice. This book is specially designed to appeal to sociology, social work, and criminology students.
10. No Visible Bruises
Full Title: No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
Author: Rachel Louise Snyder
Genre: Biography
Publishing Date: 2019
Description:
Everyone has heard and read about the cruelty victims of domestic violence have to go through. Everyone knows, but no one does anything, and the same was the case with the author, a journalist with years of experience reporting international conflicts.
She also used to agree with the common assumptions and stereotypes of the society against the victims, all of which changed when she talked with some of the victims, about whom she mentions in this book of hers.
11. How to Leave Your Psychopath
Full Title: How to Leave Your Psychopath: The Essential Handbook for Escaping Toxic Relationships
Author: Maddy Anholt
Genre: Self-help book
Publishing Date: 2022
Description:
This book presents before us an account of and from a woman who has been a victim of coercive control and relationship abuse until she finally decided to open her eyes and see what she can do to protect herself.
Through the account of a real-life experience, this serves as a self-help book, covering all the types of toxic relationship behaviors and how one can escape them.
12. No Matter Our Wreckage
Full Title: No Matter Our Wreckage: A memoir about grooming, betrayal, trauma, and love
Author: Gemma Carey
Genre: Biography
Publishing Date: 2020
Description:
This book seems like a fictional story, but it’s not. It gives me goosebumps to think that something like this could happen in real life as well. In this book, the author describes how she was assaulted by a man twice her age. What hurts her even more, is that her mother knew about it for twelve years but did nothing to stop it.
Her mother betrayed her, and the fact that her mother never intervened makes her a criminal of the abuse as well. Through this book, the author sets her heart free to flow out and let the world know what she has gone through.
Final Words
As we saw above, the problem of domestic violence and abuse is way worse than what we have in our minds. It breaks a person completely. What’s worse is that people don’t want to talk about it. Here, I did my best to educate people about the topic and I would like you all to take it from here and educate people further in your own way.
Do check out other recommendations below about other society problems:
