Thursday, October 24, 2013

Domestic violence ap

There is an ap that is supposed to calculate and determine whether or not a person is in an abusive relationship. I decided to head on over and take a look at it, to see where we stand. I took the assessment. My answers are in red.

The first two questions are about the gender of you and your partner. If you answer that you are a male with a female partner, the ap kicks you out. Apparently, they don't care if men are victims of violence perpetrated by women. I answered that I am a female with a male partner.
Question three: "My partner and I fight a lot, and sometimes it gets physical." (Notice that it doesn't ask WHO starts the violence) No
Next Question: Do you feel owned and controlled by your boyfriend/ex-boyfriend? Yes
Question five: Does your boyfriend or ex-boyfriend make you feel unsafe? Yes

Question six: Has the physical violence increased in severity or frequency over the past year? No
Question seven: Does he own a gun? Yes
Question eight: During the past year, have you left him or broken up with him after living together, having sex, or being a couple (even if you got back together)?(subquestion: if you never lived together, check here) Yes, no
Question nine: Is he unemployed? no

Question ten: Has he ever used a weapon against you or threatened you with a lethal weapon? no

Question eleven: Does he threaten to kill you? no

Question twelve: Has he avoided being arrested for domestic violence? yes

Question thirteen: Do you have a child that is not his? no
Question fourteen: Has he ever forced you to have sex when you did not wish to do so? no
Question fifteen: Does he ever try to choke you? no

Question sixteen: Does he use illegal drugs? no

Question seventeen:Is he an alcoholic? no

Question eighteen: Does he control most or all of your daily activities? For instance: does he tell you who you can be friends with, when you can see your family, how much money you can spend, whether or not you can use birth control, or put a GPS tracker on your phone? no

Question ninteen: Is he violently and constantly jealous of you? no

Question twenty: Have you ever been beaten by him while you were pregnant? no

Question twenty one: Has he ever threatened or tried to commit suicide? no

Question twenty two: Does he threaten to harm your children? no

Question twenty three: Do you believe that he is capable of killing you? yes

Question twenty four: Does he follow or spy on you, leave threatening notes or messages, destroy your property, or call you when you don't want him to? no

Question twenty five: Have you ever threatened or tried to commit suicide? no

I scored a "14" which, according to the app, puts me in severe danger. Reading my responses above, the "risk factors" are: A woman who recently broke up with a man that has a job, owns a gun, and has recently broken up with his girlfriend. There have never been any physical altercations between the two, the woman has no children.
Being a man and owning a gun makes you a suspect for committing violence against women, according to One Love. I would have taken it again, but the app only lets you take the test once.

1 comment:

Sailorcurt said...

You can do it more than once...at least on Android. In the title bar at the top there is a left pointing arrow next to "My Relationship". Clicking that takes you back to the opening page. Click the top "My Relationaship" block again you'll get a pop up asking you if you want to see your results, start over or close. Click "Start Over" and you begin at the beginning again.

I tried it several times.

First, the only relationship type it will evaluate is Female with a male partner. Any other choices just causes it to exit.

Next, you only have to answer one of the three "screening" questions "Yes" to be evaluated as at risk...even if you answered "no" to "does your boyfriend make you feel unsafe", if you said that your partner makes you feel owned and controlled, that's enough for you to be considered at risk.

In the screening itself, if you answer every question "No", it doesn't give you a risk assessment of zero, it tells you it can't assess because you didn't answer all the questions. Basically, the app is designed to find risk and doesn't even know what to do if you don't answer at least one question "yes".

Next, I started going through it and answering just one question "yes" to compare the relative levels of each risk factor. I always selected "yes" to the middle screening question (the one about feeling owned and controlled) to start at the same baseline.

Then I'd leave every other question at "No" and select "Yes" only for the one question I wanted to see the risk level for. Here are my results:

Question answered "yes" to
Risk Level


"Is he unemployed?"
Risk Level: 4

"Does he threaten to kill you?"
Risk Level: 3

"has he ever used a weapon or threatened to use a deadly weapon against you"
Risk Level: 3

"is he an alcoholic or problem drinker?"
Risk Level: 1

"has he ever beaten you when you were pregnant?"
Risk Level: 2

"has he ever forced you to have sex when you didn't want to?"
Risk Level: 2

"does he own a gun?"
Risk Level: 5


According to this app developer, a woman is at a higher risk if her boyfriend simply OWNS a gun than if he's raped her, beaten her while pregnant, threatened to kill her or actually USED a weapon against her.

Go figure.