Domestic Violence Domestic Violence Against Women is a global issue reaching across national boundaries as well as socio-economic, cultural, racial and class distinctions. It is a problem without frontiers. Not only is the problem widely dispersed geographically, but its incidence is also extensive, making it a typical and accepted behavior. Only recently, within the past twenty-five years, has the issue been "brought into the open as a field of concern and study" (Violence Against Women in the Family, page 38). Domestic violence is not an isolated, individual event but rather a pattern of repeated behaviors that the abuser uses to gain power and control over the victim. Unlike s