ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9701020042
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: HOLIDAY
THE UNKNOWN stalker, the sociopathic stranger, the drug- or alcohol-crazed addict who crosses one's path by chance and commits a random act of violence. These are the characters who inhabit our nightmares in a nation fearful of violence.
But women, more often than not, know the people who will do them harm, are at least acquainted with them, sometimes love them. These are the people who inhabit their lives in a nation tolerant of violence - where victims too often protect their victimizers because they fail to recognize their own abuse as a crime until it escalates to life-threatening proportions.
The pattern, researchers are finding, starts at a dismayingly young age. High-school counselors who set out to teach teen-agers how to avoid becoming trapped by domestic violence find many girls already are in abusive dating situations. A Christian Science Monitor report cites recent research indicating one-third of teen-age relationships involve emotional, sexual or physical abuse, most often by boys.
Why does it occur, and why do girls put up with it? Peer pressure, mainly, and inexperience. Boys, rewarded for aggressiveness in sports and other pursuits, are regarded as "macho" by peers if they can control their girlfriends. Girls are under tremendous pressure from their peers to have a boyfriend and, lacking much dating experience, may mistake physically or emotionally controlling behavior as attentiveness, signs that a guy cares.
Girls as young as 9 through about age 14 often are encouraged, by friends or even parents, to drop their own interests, concentrate on their appearance and win the approval of boys.
Parents of teen-agers can help their kids avoid much misery, counselors say, by keeping communications open, paying attention to early relationships, setting limits and rules for dating, making sure girls as well as boys stay involved in skills-building activities, and discussing healthy gender roles.
Parents surely can do more than prisons, in the long run, to reduce violence in a nation where more than three-quarters of women who are victims of violent crimes know their assailants.
LENGTH: Short : 43 linesby CNB