Amidst the overwhelming hype surrounding Homecoming week and the Veishea decision, this year’s Week Without Violence seems to be lost in the shuffle.

Week Without Violence, an event focusing on different aspects of violence in American society, presented a program on “Violence Against Women” Wednesday at noon in the Memorial Union.

Only about 20 people attended the program, which included a brief presentation by Julie Wooden, co-chair of Week Without Violence, and a presentation of “The Ticket Back,” a 45-minute video detailing a woman’s struggle to rebuild her life after an abusive relationship with her alcoholic husband.

Although Wooden said she was “fairly pleased” with the program’s turnout, she said the lack of participation by the community “reflects the general ambivalence surrounding [issues of violence], which is frustrating.”

Both Wooden and Jeanne Higgs, Week Without Violence co-chair, expressed frustration that only two of the people in the audience were male.

Wooden said in her program, almost all the murders associated with domestic violence are committed by men.

Several informational sheets were handed out during the program, including an “invitation to men.”

The invitation, presented by YWCA, acknowledged many men would “never beat [their] wife, [their] lover, or any woman.”

The invitation asked men to help in the crusade to stop violence against women.

Wooden said the key focus of this year’s Week Without Violence is “to raise awareness about all aspects of violence in society.”

Wooden said the most important lesson of the video is that the protagonist’s trouble with her ex-husband illustrates why most women have such trouble leaving their abusive husbands.

“The most asked question is ‘Why doesn’t she just leave?'” Wooden said.

Wooden said according to FBI statistics, a woman is 75 percent more at risk if she tries to leave her husband or partner than if she stays with him.

Wooden said a woman leaves her husband or partner an average of seven times before she actually leaves for good.

“The Ticket Back” is the story of Linda, a woman who was abused by her husband during their marriage.

The video portrays the battle Linda has after she finally leaves him and attempts to start her new life.

Her ex-husband, Bill, still constantly “shows up” at her apartment unexpectedly, trying to buy their two daughters’ love with gifts and candy, and even trying to get on the good side of Linda’s mother.

But Bill has trouble hiding his true nature.

During a particularly disturbing sequence in the video, he attempts to rape his ex-wife when she asks him to leave her new apartment.

He also violently beats and chokes her until the police finally come to help her, but the police are unsympathetic to her plight.

The policeman who interviews Linda coldly insists the department cannot do anything unless Linda presses charges.

It is Bill who finally uses the system, creating false charges against his ex-wife in an effort to gain custody of their two children.

Linda panics when she realizes the system is working against her and quickly leaves her new apartment with her daughters to escape prosecution.

However, Linda finally realizes that running away with her children is not going to help her, and the video concludes with Linda’s buying a “ticket back” home to fight her ex-husband’s false charges.

Many members of the audience said they felt the video very accurately portrayed the characters and the violence surrounding them.

Wooden said she thought real-life violence was much more serious than the violence portrayed in the video, but “[the video’s] violence was disturbing enough.”

Wooden also presented several statistics concerning violence against women in Iowa.

According to the data, 64 women were killed in Iowa last year during domestic violence disputes.

Also, 16 bystanders were killed during those murders.

Besides women, children are also frequent victims of domestic violence.

In Iowa, 10 children were killed last year because of domestic violence.

Nearly 95 children were involved in the relationships where the 64 women were murdered and nearly 40 of those children were present at the murders.

Also, eight men were killed in Iowa last year at a result of domestic violence.