Men who abuse think others do too.

A really interesting study is coming out of a joint effort from the Universities of Washington and Houston showing that men who engage in domestic violence think it’s okay because they believe it’s a common occurrence. On top of that, the more they overestimate that it’s common behavior, the more they engage in abusing their partner. Via Futurity:

“Men who engage in violent behavior justify it in their mind by thinking it is more common and saying, ‘Most guys slap their women around so it is okay to engage in it.’ Or it could be that misperceptions about violence cause the behavior.”
Neighbors says these men overestimated by two to three times the actual rates of seven behaviors ranging from throwing something at a partner to rape. Details of the study will be published in the journal Violence Against Women.
“Another way of looking at this would be wearing a red shirt. If you think everyone is wearing a red shirt then it is okay for you to wear one too. Or if you wear a red shirt you might overestimate the number of other people who are wearing red shirts,” he explains.
The work is the first to document overestimation of intimate partner violence by batterers and is consistent with findings about a variety of other harmful behaviors such as substance use, gambling, and eating disorders. This line of research looks at social norms, or what is considered to be appropriate and inappropriate behavior in society.

I think this is really what the crux of this problem is: social norms. I think this study could a serious piece of evidence correlating to how violence against women is normalized — through TV shows, movies, advertisements, and everything else around us — and the cues that potential abusers take from it.