| It could be how it is represented in the media | | | | It could care less where you live, what exclusive |
| including news and television shows. Often you can | | | | clubs you do or do not belong to, where your kids |
| turn on the tv and see some talk show host | | | | go to school or the type of car you drive. |
| interviewing victims of domestic violence. If you are | | | | That's because domestic violence is not about |
| not paying strict attention you could get the notion | | | | society as a whole. Of course the environment you |
| that it is something only happens to certain kinds of | | | | grew up in can have an impact on your behavior but |
| people. | | | | all too frequently it becomes the primary measuring |
| Maybe it's a certain ethnic or income group. It could | | | | stick. |
| also be a group whose educational background is not | | | | Therefore it can come as a shock to some of us |
| as extensive as say for instance the talk show host | | | | when we find out couples that live in a poor |
| doing the interviewing. | | | | neighborhood with extremely limited educational |
| Statistics which can be an indicator or just a snapshot | | | | backgrounds have been happily married for countless |
| in time can also "confirm" that domestic violence is | | | | years and have never experienced one instance of |
| almost exclusive to one group or another. | | | | domestic violence. |
| Impressions are one thing; reality is another. Lynn | | | | Meanwhile married couples who are at the other end |
| Woolsey found that out. Ms Woolsey is a | | | | of the scale are domestic violence personified. |
| Congressional representative for California's sixth | | | | This is not to say that it cannot affect one group or |
| district: "I represent an affluent district, but when I | | | | another disproportionately. It is to say however in |
| worked to form my county's first battered-women's | | | | the final analysis domestic violence comes down to |
| shelter, some nights there were no beds left. | | | | the interaction of two individuals regardless of what |
| Violence against women crosses all economic lines." | | | | district they live in. |
| As well as color lines, ethnic lines and educational lines. | | | | |