Sorry, I can't come into work. I caught a bad case of violence.

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/intimatepartnerviolence/index.html

Frankly, I'm down right intrigued by the fact that the center for disease control talks about violence at all let alone has it's own separate section for intimate partner violence. However, I think their defining intimate partner violence as disease is a step in the right direction to understanding it. During our class discussion it seemed that we kept getting hung up on the fact that people stay in relationships after an incident of intimate partner violence. To me, the problem is that we we're not viewing the situation from the right angle. If people in abusive relationships could help themselves, they would. I like viewing intimate partner violence as a disease because it redefines it as something that both contagious and that is not a choice. Several people during the discussion mentioned how they themselves had been a victim of intimate partner violence and the reason they could not get away from the relationship is that they were addicted to it. To me, this reinforces the idea that being in an abusive relationship runs much deeper than we typically assume. I also like the idea of intimate partner violence as something contagious. Often times we talk about being a bystander to injustice or oppression as opposed to openly disagreeing with the Discourse and how this reinforces the discourse. By being a passive bystander to IPV you're allowing it to spread among our collective ideas as a culture. People aren't going to change overnight and they certainly will not change on their own because they're pretty happy with how they act. However, if we person by person can start re-framing the discourse on IPV we can spread this new positive idea throughout our cultural conscious. While the spread of the idea does not mean people will adhere to it, it does mean that we tried. The world change often seems impossible to change, and frankly at times is. However, if we don't attempt to overcome the discourse it will never change on it's own.