For real progress to be made against domestic violence, it is first necessary to do away with red herrings that have been put out on this matter.
One red herring has been the idea that the woman brings on the abuse through low self-esteem. While there are undoubtedly situations in which the man exploits the woman's low self-esteem, there are any number of others in which the abuse is an attempt to destroy whatever self-esteem the woman may possess in order that she acquiesce to a traditional role of scrubbing the floors and being the man's slave. Often the woman's self-esteem does get eroded in such situations; but that was not where the woman had started, and the blame for her winding up with bad self-esteem does not belong with her but with her abuser.
Another red herring is bad judgment. The real problem is that in many of these situations the man cons the woman; and she is no more to be seen as having bad judgment for choosing him than is someone who's been sold a defective product guilty of bad judgment for buying it. The woman gets conned. The man puts on a front to deceive the woman, then becomes who he actually is when he has the woman. The situation is that of deception; and it makes no more sense to honor relationships based on deception than it does to honor false advertising in business, nor to blame the woman who's been deceived by a conman than the person who buys a defective product from a false advertiser.
Another red herring is the stonewalling that frequently happens when someone seeks to address this or other social problems. People start claiming that seeing, or trying to do something, about social problems, is blaming or whining or lack of personal responsibility. This mentality has to go. There are all sorts of things that need to be done at the societal level, and one of them is eliminating deception and brutality against women. A man who gets involved in such a thing, being a man, is obviously not coming from the position of self-pity; he comes from the position of doing something that needs to be done. As for the women who are involved, they are seeking to improve the lot of their fellow women by confronting the worst wrong that faces the women at this time. And that is a completely legitimate purpose.
Then there's the claim that women to whom this happens are losers. Having known successful journalists, teachers, entrepreneurs, Wall Street traders, engineers, social workers and movie stars to whom this has happened, it is obvious that this does not only happens to losers. It happens to all sorts of women, including some highly successful ones. I've known a successful school administrator who dates a man for three years before marrying. The man was on his best behavior while dating; when married he turned into a brute. If this can happen to women with her levels of education and discernment, then it can happen to women anywhere. And the more other women realize this and do what needs to be done about the problem, the better will be the lot of women all around.
What does need to be done? Probably the best solution is this: Make false advertising as illegal in relationships as it is in business. The man must be made to present himself as he is. The gentlemanly behavior that the man has shown while dating must be demanded while in the marriage. Giving deceptive self-portrayals must be outlawed, and honesty in self-portrayal must be demanded. This, by itself, will do away with the bulk of domestic violence situations and solve the problem for real.