I see in your profile that you're a psychologist. I'm wondering if you treat the victims of abuse, the abusers, or both. Either way, that has to be difficult. I appreciate what you do as a psychologist. Treating the sources of domestic violence at the level of the individual is crucial.

As a social theorist, I tend to focus more on the structural conditions that inform individual behavior. Some social attitudes perpetuate domestic violence, which is in many ways an extension of the social violence (metaphorical and literal) to which women as a group have historically been subjected.

You suggest as much when you mention traditional values and cultural influences. But I think those influences are broader and more insidious than you suggest. Domestic violence occurs even in the Western World where women are supposedly men's "equal." I think that stems from a deeply ingrained attitude men AND women have about women.

By way of example, a family member was complaining recently about two politicians, and he criticized the man by name but referred to the woman simply as "that bitch!" I suggested to him that if he wanted to try being less sexist he could start by recognizing what he had just done was sexist--according the man an identity but reducing the woman to a negative stereotype.

I'm guilty of the same thing. I was crossing a street in NY many years ago when a man in front of us struck a woman in the face and walked away mumbling. My first reaction was to wonder what she had done to incite him. It was only later, as we helped her to the sidewalk, that we realized he was a stranger with emotional problems and she an innocent pedestrian who simply got in his way.

Trust me, I have encountered both men and women that I have wanted to throttle. Most of us are well adjusted enough to avoid acting on those impulses. But I would like to reach a point in myself and in our society where our first impulse is not blaming the victim. Know what I mean?