Inquiry

report
Due Tuesday 13th

The group presentation I presented was about domestic violence within families. I
presented it with three other students of my class, these were; Adriana Juanta, Thomas
Whealn and Renee Halliwell. We decided as a group to do domestic violence as our topic,
as it was something we all believed would be interesting to further all our knowledge on. I
truly thought it would be something worth doing a lot of research on, but I also felt as
learning so much about it could be a bit up fronting as obviously domestic violence is quite
a confronting topic.

Before starting my research on this topic, I only knew the basics as to what domestic
violence is. Quite frankly all I knew about domestic violence was that, either one member of
the relationship or friend was hurting the other person, with it being either very verbally
offensive or physically. Formerly before setting out who was going to be doing what
research, and what the main parts we should be researching were. Our group firstly did
some research on domestic violence as a whole, which then let us pick as a group what the
main points of domestic violence would be. We then all decided to narrow it down to 6 main
topics, these were, the definition of domestic violence, how the violence affected women,
men and children, mental illnesses developed due to domestic violence and some of the
services available to help those who have been disturbed by the violence. My main areas to
focus on and research were, the definition of domestic violence and women affected by
domestic violence. As there was a lot of interesting research I found with both the two
topics, I found it hard to pick some relevant topics to cover and present to the class. I also
had to think, what information would be suitable to share with the class, as domestic
violence information could be a bit of a touchy subject for some. I also had to consider what
YouTube clips to choose, which would help back up my information. This then became a
little challenging, as I had to take all the students wellbeing into consideration, as I didnt
want my part of the presentation to be too confronting or offend anyone.

Domestic violence, also called intimate partner violence happens in many forms including,
physical, emotional and economic violence and can affect people of any age. It does not
have to be within the home to be classified as domestic violence. It is a form of violence
that can occur within any relationship, friend or family. Domestic violence is all about power
and control, and there are many ways this control can be expressed (Reachout.com, 2016).
This is something I spoke about firstly with the presentation, so I could give the students
some insight on what domestic violence truly means. I found this information to be quite
interesting, as I didnt know there was that many aspects involved with domestic violence.
When speaking about the women involved with domestic violence, there was many
statistics I found which I thought to be quite fascinating and also fairly upsetting. For
instance, on average at least one woman a week is killed by a partner or former partner in
Australia (Australian institute of criminology, 2015). With that statistic being quite
distressing, it just shows how much domestic violence is happening throughout Australia in
women, and how upsetting that the statistic has to be so high. Another statistic that I found
to be quite disheartening is that, one in three Australian women has experienced physical
violence, since the age of 15 (Anrows, 2015). To me this statistics really shows how real
domestic violence is amongst women and sadly how young it starts.
When thinking about domestic violence I straightaway think it mostly just happens to
women. This is true, although men do get affected as well. While statistics have shown, that
women are at least three times more likely than men to experience violence from an
intimate partner (Australian bureau of statistics, 2013). Men are still being affected amongst
1 in 3 Australians (1IN3, 2013). From just these two statistics, it proves that sadly women
are largely more affected by it then males are. This relates to Germovs book, An
introduction to health sociology with how it speaks about men and women with violence.
While an injury can leave emotional scars, the psychological impact of being attacked by a
loved and trusted partner is particularly devastating and personally debilitating. Because
females are typically shorted and lighter then males, and are less likely to have learned
skills of self-defense, women are often poorly equipped to protect themselves if their
partner becomes violent (Germov, 2014). In the rare instance in which a female attacks a
man, other elements of shame and denial may enter the picture because of the implicit
insult to masculine power and strength (Germov, 2014). Displays of toughness and
aggression are often considered markets of masculinity (Plummer.1999). From the text it
clearly states that men find masculinity when fighting and that women cant stand a chance
against a strong man, with not knowing any self-defense. Maybe due to the fact that statists
are so high in women with domestic violence, maybe it wouldnt be a bad idea for women to
seek some places to learn some basic self-defense moves. Although it shouldnt have to
result to that, just knowing some basic moves could really help some Australian women.

By doing this project, it has really advanced my knowledge in the way it has taught me
more then I ever thought there was to domestic violence. It has also been a real eye opener
in the way it has explained and made me realize how serious domestic violence is,
throughout Australia. Also from learning about this topic, it can benefit me as a teacher, as I
believe I could try and stop even the earliest of signs between the children that could lead
to domestic violence. It has also made me realize how useful the Ottawa charter can come
into play with almost every topic. From learning about the Ottawa charter in Germovs book
it has made me realize how it can be, so beneficial for a lot of explanations for good health
education. For instance if I was using it to describe good health for a better place to stop
domestic violence, I would use two of the action areas from the chart. These would be,
creating supportive environments and strengthening community areas. I believe creating
supportive environments would be a good one, because you should promote people to be
more supportive to each other, in a way that just asking a simple questions like, are you ok?
Or how are you today, just to see if anything is wrong. And also, strengthening community
areas, as I believe if we had a better community, it would help everyone to get a long and
be there for each other, in tough times.

I believe our presentation we presented to the class went really well. As the topic was quite
a confronting one, we all did well to keep everyone involved and interested, but at the same
time not hurting any ones feelings. I trust that it went well, as we looked at all different sides
and types of domestic violence. Such as, we looked over how men, women and children
are affected by it. We did not be biases and we just spoke about what we thought would be
relevant to each of our slides. The positives of our group, was that we worked together
quite well, we arranged three different times to meet up and rehears, and we also stayed
communicated through Facebook. The only negative we had, was that we found it a bit
hard to get things moving, as we started pretty slow, because we didnt know who should
be doing what, or what would be the most beneficial aspects to cover.
Obviously domestic violence is not good at all, and shouldnt have to happen to so many
people like it does. From presenting our presentation I hope that it raised awareness and
can promote and show that is not a good way of health education at all and it shouldnt be
happening. From doing this presentation Im taking strong definitions on what domestic
violence truly is and how me as a teacher in the future, I can help identify early signs and
help those who have been through such trauma and keep myself aware that it could be
happening to my students. All together domestic violence is a terrible thing, but now Ive
had to chance to do a lot of research on it, I believe in myself as I become a teacher and an
mature adult, that I would love to try to bring peace to the world, and try to eliminate such
violence.

Word count: 1481

References

1IN3, (2013) Family violence- Australia says no, Retrieved

http://www.oneinthree.com.au

Anrows ( 22 october 2015) Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety,
Retrieved
http://anrows.org.au/publications/horizons-0/pss

Australian bureau of statistics, (2013) Personal Safety Australia, Retrieved

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4906.0

Australian institute of criminology, (2015) Homicide in Australia: 201011 to 201112:

National Homicide Monitoring Program report, Retrieved
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/mr/21-40/mr23.html

Broom, D. Friej, M. & Germov, J. (2014) 'Gendered Health' Chapter 7 in J. Germov (ed.)
Second Opinion 5th edition South Melbourne: Oxford University Press

Plummer, D. 1999, One of the boys: Musculinity, homophobia, and Modern Manhood,
Haworth Press, Binghamton

ReachOut.com, (2016) What is domestic violence, Retrieved http://au.reachout.com/what-

is-domestic-violence






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