Murdered women in the US. The Huffington Post last October:

At least one third of all female homicide victims in the U.S. are killed by male intimate partners — husbands and ex-husbands, boyfriends and estranged lovers. While both men and women experience domestic violence, the graphics below should put to rest the myth that abuse occurs equally to both sexes.

The graphics illustrate that 85% of victims of domestic violence are women, and that women are far more likely than men to be killed by domestic partners.

Since the landmark Violence Against Women Act was passed in 1994, annual rates of domestic violence have plummeted by 64 percent. But still today, an average of three women are killed every day. More often than not, women are shot. Over half of all women killed by intimate partners between 2001 to 2012 were killed using a gun.

Three women every single day, just in the US.

From Kaofeng Lee at NNEDV, National Network to End Domestic Violence:

During a visit home a few years ago, an old friend of my mother’s dropped by. As we talked, the conversation turned to her poor health. “It’s the stress, you know,” she said. “Stress can take such a toll on your body. I never really recovered after my daughter passed away.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, dear, don’t you remember?” she said. “Her husband beat her to death with a hammer.”

In my shocked silence, she continued, “Oh, it was terrible. He hit her over and over again until she died. My oldest grandson had to leave the army to come home and take care of his younger siblings.”

One of the three for that day.

Today – October 1st – marks the first day of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This month is a time to mourn those who have lost their lives, celebrate those who have survived, and connect all of us so we can work together to end violence.

The unfortunate fact is that so many of us know someone who has been affected by domestic violence—a friend whose creepy boyfriend we never really liked, or a family member who, years later, reveals harrowing abuse no one ever knew about, or a family friend whose daughter’s tragic murder weighs heavily on her every day of her life.

Three per day.

From the Violence Policy Center in September 2014:

More than 1,700 women were murdered by men in the United States in 2012, and more than 90 percent were killed by someone they knew, according to the new Violence Policy Center (VPC) report When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2012 Homicide Data.

That’s about 4.7 per day.

The Violence Policy Center has published When Men Murder Women annually for 17 years. During that period, nationwide the rate of women murdered by men in single victim/single offender incidents has dropped 26 percent — from 1.57 per 100,000 in 1996 to 1.16 per 100,000 in 2012.

However, the rate of women killed by men in the United States remains unacceptably high. A 2002 study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that the United States accounted for 84 percent of all female firearm homicides among 25 high-income countries, while representing only 32 percent of the female population.

The key findings in this year’s release of When Men Murder Women include:

• Nationwide, 1,706 females were murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents in 2012, at a rate of 1.16 per 100,000.
• For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 93 percent of female victims nationwide were murdered by a male they knew. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 62 percent were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders.

It’s almost as if women are an oppressed class.