Przemoc domowa wobec kobiet – weryfikacja mitów i ustalanie prawdy
Domestic violence against women – verification of the mythical and real opinions

Summary/Abstract: Contemporary the issue of violence against women has found its place in public discourse. It seems that the mythology of violence (the description of misconceptions about it) was a very important factor in the process of developing „social vigilance” against this phenomenon. Publicizing the problem of violence against women was a result of The Battered Women’s Movement. The need to struggle with the mythology of violence underlined the leading representative of this movement L.E.A. Walker: „It is important to refute all the myths surrounding battered women in order to understand fully why battering happens, how it affects people, and how it can be stopped”. The aim of the study is to examine the myths about domestic violence – those of the 1970s and 1980s, when The Battered Women’s Movement began to develop, and those of today. The verification of the opinions dealing with the phenomenon was based on scientific literature. Three categories of myths were analyzed: the nature, causes and consequences of violence. Modern literature suggest that there has been a dramatic change in public convictions about intimate partner violence – some opinions considered in the past as mythical has become the truth and vice versa. Social changes also led to the creation of new myths e.g. violence is typical for heterosexual relationships. Such processes carry a risk of flawed perception of violence by society. This is why preventive actions should not only indicate the presence of violence in our direct surroundings, but also update the general knowledge about it.

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