Every Teen Counts
February 1998


Teen Dating Violence

Until fairly recently, many of us held stereotyped judgments about women who nagged their husbands, or were passively provocative until their husbands reached the point of hitting. They were seen as being weak and even liking the violence. We didn’t think it happened very often, nor did we think that it was very serious. If a woman could just learn to better respond to her husband’s needs, it wouldn’t happen at all.

Since the mid-1970’s, the domestic violence movement has had a tremendous influence on public awareness. We now know that violence occurs in millions of homes in the United States, and that thirty percent of female homicide victims are killed by their husbands or boyfriends. We now have an image of the battered woman, White or Black or Latino or Asian, with blackened eyes, frightened children clinging to her skirt, trapped in a life of repeated vicious violence by fear, by financial dependence, by faithfulness to the permanence of marriage.

In the 1980’s, as a part of their public education efforts, domestic violence programs all over the country addressed high school students. The presenters talked about domestic violence, hoping that young people would avoid violent marriages in the future and hoping that young people would speak out about their experiences as children of batterers and battered women. But we began to hear stories from teens in those high school classes that suddenly fit with other information we had about teens. The women who sought refuge in shelters often told stories of being battered by husbands who were once high school sweethearts. We hadn’t put the face of a seventeen-year-old in the picture of these women’s experiences of violence. It had not been in our picture of domestic violence that the blackened eyes could belong to a thirteen-year-old. It did not fit our understanding about what keeps women in battering relationships.

Teens are having fun, experimenting with new experiences, dating and breaking up and dating someone else. Could they be as tied to violent relationships as married women can be? We also talked to high school students about acquaintance rape, about the encounter with the popular guy on a first date who forced a girl to have sex. But we had not noticed the blackened eyes on the face of the fifteen-year-old who was raped over and over again for months or years after the first date. So, as we talked with young women in high schools and colleges, we were confronted with another unspeakable, hidden problem—again, as we had been when we confronted childhood sexual abuse and marital rape. We heard many stories of mind-twisting emotional abuse; stories of sexual coercion and sexual torture; stories of explosive jealousy and restrictive control by boyfriends that made the newly gained freedom of adolescence impossible; stories of severe injuries, murder.

The fact is that an estimated 28% of young people experience violence in a dating relationship, about the same rate as adult domestic violence. It happens in all communities, regardless of ethnicity or class, whether urban, suburban or rural. Its victims are as young as girls can be when they start dating. Lesbian and gay teens experience violence in intimate relationships at about the same rate as heterosexual teens do. It is not a new problem, but until recently, an unrecognized one.

Reprinted with permission from LACAAW IN TOUCH WITH TEENS, a relationship violence prevention curriculum

Safety Planning for Teens in Abusive Dating Relationships

The following are tips you might think about to increase your safety:

General Safety

  • Stay in touch with your friends; and, make it a point to spend time with people other than your partner.
  • Stay involved in activities that you enjoy. Don’t stop doing things that you enjoy or that make you feel good about yourself.
  • Make new friends. Increase your support network.
  • Take a self-defense class.
  • Consider looking into resources at your school or in the community. Think about joining a support group or calling a crisis line.

Safety at School

  • Try not to be alone. Let your friends know what is happening and have them walk to classes and spend time during lunch with you.
  • Tell teachers, counselors, coaches, or security guards about what is happening. Have them help you be safe.
  • Change your routine. Don’t always come to school the same way, or arrive at the same time. Always ride to school with someone. If you take the bus, try to have someone with you.
  • Consider rearranging your class schedule.
  • Always keep change with you so you can make phone calls.
  • Consider applying for an order of protection.

Safety at Home

  • Try not to be alone at home.
  • Consider telling your parents or other family members about what is happening. They can help you screen telephone calls or visitors.
  • Make a list of phone numbers. Included on this list should be emergency numbers like 911, as well as supportive friends who you can call when you are upset. Put the numbers of crisis lines on the list.
  • If you are alone at home, make sure the doors are locked and the windows are secure.

Safety with Your Partner

  • Try not to be alone with your partner, or to be alone in an isolated or deserted location. Go out to public places.
  • Try to double date or to go out with a group of people.
  • Let other people know what your plans are and where you’ll be.
  • Try not to be dependent on your partner for a ride.
  • Always keep change with you so you can make a phone call.
  • Trust your instincts. If you feel you are in danger, call the police. Get help immediately. Do not minimize your fears.

Safety When Breaking Up With your Partner

  • Break up with your partner in a public place.
  • Tell other people that you plan to break up with your partner. Let them know where you will be.
  • Arrange to call a friend or a counselor after you talk with your partner so that you can debrief about what happened.

-Love Shouldn’t Hurt School Project, King County Domestic Violence Public Education Campaign.

Dating Bill of Rights

I have the right:

  • To ask for a date.
  • To refuse a date.
  • To suggest activities.
  • To refuse any activity.
  • To have my own feelings and express them.
  • To have my values and rights respected.
  • To tell my partner when I need affection.
  • To refuse attention.
  • To have friends and space aside from my partner.

I have the responsibility:

  • To determine my limits and values.
  • To respect the limits of others.
  • To communicate clearly and honestly.
  • To not violate the limits of others.
  • To ask for help when I need it.
  • To be considerate.

From Texas Council of Family Violence:Dating Violence Anti-victimization Program

Dating Violence

Dating Violence is:

  • A pattern of behavior used by an individual to maintain control over their dating partner.
  • This control may take the form of physical, sexual, or verbal abuse.
  • Dating violence is not about getting angry or having a disagreement — in an abusive dating relationship one partner is afraid of and intimidated by the other.

What is the legal definition of domestic violence or dating violence?

  • Physical harm, bodily injury or assault, infliction of fear of imminent physical harm or sexual assault.

How often does it happen?

  • 28% of teen relationships involve violence.
  • 24% of female homicide victims are between 15 and 24 years old.
  • 70% of severe injuries and deaths occur when the victim is trying to leave or has already left the relationship.
  • 38% of date rape victims are young women between the ages of 14 and 17.
  • 70% of pregnant teenagers are abused by their partner.

Who is involved?

  • Dating violence occurs between two people who are currently or formerly involved in a dating relationship.
  • The abuse can begin at a very young age, as young as 11 or 12 years old.
  • Friends of the couple are usually aware of the abuse and may be drawn into the situation.
  • There is not one type of person who gets involved in an abusive relationship; all young people can be at risk.

Where can it happen?

  • Dating violence can occur at school — in the hall, in the classroom, in the parking lot, on the bus, at after-school activities, at a student’s workplace, at a school dance, or at a student’s home.
  • In teenage dating relationships, the abuse is often public with peers witnessing the abuse; however, the abuse can also be done in private.

What does it look like?

  • Jealousy and possessiveness.
  • Name-calling, put downs, humiliation, threats, stalking, rumors, or intimidation.
  • Pushing, shoving, slapping, hitting, throwing objects, or using weapons.
  • Unwanted sexual touch, forced sex, refusal to use birth control.

Myths about dating violence:

  • Abuse in teen relationships is not that common or serious. Surveys show that violence is experienced in 28% of teen relationships. It is not just an adult problem. We have to be more aware of teen’s experiences.
  • Girls like the abuse or else they wouldn’t put up with it. Girls stay in abusive relationships for many reasons. For adolescent girls there is a rigidity in conforming to female gender role expectations, specifically the expectation that her status depends on her attachment to a male.
  • Violence only happens between people who are poor or members of a minority. Abusive relationships occur among all classes, races, and cultural groups. An abusive relationship can happen to anyone.

10 Things to Do

  1. Since much of violence is learned, it can be unlearned.
  2. Violence is preventable; it is not inevitable.
  3. The seeds for adult interpersonal violence are planted while young.
  4. Sexism, racism and other socially sanctioned forms of violence affect interpersonal relationships.
  5. Teenage relationships must be taken seriously.
  6. Male teenagers must be educated about their aggressive impulses, but not by being seen as the "enemy."
  7. Empowerment lies in moving through victimization, not being stuck in it.
  8. Young people are capable of taking responsibility for creating violence-free relationships and environments.
  9. Media influences attitudes and behavior and contributes to the desensitization to violence.
  10. A violence-prevention training program/curriculum cannot end violence on its own. Communities and families have to work together, with support from our institutions, to provide a positive future for our young people.

Reprinted with permission from LACAAW IN TOUCH WITH TEENS, a relationship violence prevention curriculum

Resources. . .

  • For additional material or resources on teen dating violence, contact your local domestic violence programs. Look in your local phone book under the following headings:

    - Domestic Abuse Information & Treatment Centers
    - Social Service Organizations
    - Human Services
    - Shelters
    - Women’s Organizations
    - Family Services
  • Washington State PTA "There is Nothing Domestic About Domestic Violence" Resource Packet
  • "In Touch With Teens, A Relationship Violence Prevention Curriculum" - Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women (213) 462-1281
  • "Expect Respect, A Classroom Presentation Manual For Preventing Teenage Dating Violence & Promoting Healthy Relationships" - Austin Center for Battered Women (512) 385-5181
  • "Love Shouldn’t Hurt, A Program to Prevent Relationship Violence" - Love Shouldn’t Hurt, King County Domestic Violence Public Education Campaign (206) 461-4871
  • "What Parents Need to Know About Dating Violence" - by Barrie Levy and Patricia Occhiuzzo Giggans
  • "In Love & In Danger, A Teen’s Guide to Breaking Free of Abusive Relationships" - by Barrie Levy
  • "The Verbally Abusive Relationship, How to Recognize It and How to Respond" - by Patricia Evans
  • "Dating Violence True Stories of Hurt and Hope" - by John Hicks
  • Every Teen Counts Chairperson Rhonda McKim (425) 483-5781

 
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