My own experience - and obviously entirely personal to me - was that my Ex found my intelligence, my verbal dexterity, and my career (as a lawyer), plus the fact I expected that we share household chores, impossibly difficult to deal with, and resorted to physical and emotional abuse as a result.
His mother has a PT unskilled job, however she is a perfect housewife and spends at least 8 hours a day on housework. All his previous gfs had limited education and aspirations, and either did not work or were in min wage jobs. I was in every possible way outside of his realm of experience.
Ultimately the reason he abused me is because he is a twat. My profession, and what I did or didn't do at home has nothing to do with it. But I do think that he wouldn't have abused a more compliant woman - or if he did, that the abuse would've taken much longer to start.
Re more 'professional' women reporting it, when I tried, the response I got from the police was utterly dismissive, so whilst I may have been more empowered to report it by reason of my background, it didn't garner me any assistance.