Murder By Numbers

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

                                                                                                William Bruce Cameron

                                   “Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking”

Numbers.

We are a culture and a society built on numbers, statistics, and data.  That’s how we roll…..we cite numbers to support arguments.  Frame conversations around relevant ratios and make salient points supported by numbers.  Reference numbers when necessary or convenient, as long as they back up the facts we want them to support.  Kids grow up with an encyclopedic knowledge of batting averages, free throw percentages, and touchdown passes thrown by quarterbacks in high school, college, and the NFL (at least kids from my generation did).  Our government is based on numbers regarding population, Social Security numbers, GNP, CPI, etc.

It’s impossible to disregard numbers or their importance in every facet of our lives.

Here are a few more relevant numbers:

·         -Number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 – 2012: 6,488

·         -Number of American women murdered by current or former partners from 2001 - 2012: 11,766

·         -Average number of women killed every day by domestic violence in the US: 3

·         -Number of American women who experience (or will experience) physical intimate partner    violence in their lifetime: 38,028,000

·         -Number of women in physically abusive relationships who are raped or assaulted during the relationship: 40 – 45%

·        - Number of American women who were victims of domestic violence in 2013: 4,774,000

·        - Number of “legacy rapes” reported by law enforcement in 2013: 79,770

So here’s today’s question:

How many women need to experience physical intimate partner violence before we start to take domestic violence seriously?

I’m not sure what that number is, but we know for certain it’s not 38,028,000………. because if it was, somebody would have done something about it by now.