[In response to Saskia @ 17:45]
Right, okay, but it's a misnomer, because there is no such thing as a relationship where the woman is a wilting flower and the man is a thug troll. People are not that one dimensional. You see it on here all the time, women concerned that their partner can't possibly be abusive because he is nice sometimes. So she is correct when she says that this image doesn't represent most (if any) abusive relationships, but it's not because the majority consist of equal violence/force from both sides, it's just because people in general are more nuanced than that.
What Erin Pizzey actually noticed when she stated that women who come from violent households attract violence and women "give as good as they get" (rarely true, because men have societal and cultural power and status over women as a class) is a class and culture pattern. This has very little to do with dynamics of relationship abuse, which transcend culture, class, race and sexuality. But it is absolutely true that there are pockets of culture within the UK (and elsewhere, presumably, but I have only personally witnessed it within the UK) where violence is abjectly and perfectly normal, seen as a natural communication method, a necessary tool, just an occupational hazard of being human, basically. Violence is an accepted and expected part of life, and of course, this transfers into romantic relationships. Where the relationship is healthy, respectful and communicative (which is less likely because when you have an expectation of violence, you're less likely to know about and/or instinctively use tools of non violent communication, but it is possible) this is of no consequence and the violence is either directed outside the relationship, cools off completely, or equally matched and considered a normal part of a relationship, rather than being experienced as abuse. But where there is an abusive context to the relationship, violence is the primary tool of abuse.
We have made a great and grave mistake in categorising physical abuse as a separate thing to so-called emotional abuse and control. ALL abuse is about control. Physical violence is just a tool. It's a more immediately life threatening tool, which is why they are differentiated, but it is NOT the root of abuse, that is backwards. Not all abusers will become violent. I believe that most agencies now understand this, but the general public understanding still assumes violence to be a separate thing, the stereotypes also do, and hence our own unconscious beliefs about what is "real" abuse do. Erin Pizzey also makes this mistake, albeit in 1982 when perhaps abuse dynamics were less understood (? I have no idea what general/feminist commentary was on this issue at the time, I wasn't born.) - she mistakes violence for abuse, where it is not necessarily. Violence can be abuse (in the sense of being a tool to gain control through fear) but it can also be panic, self defence, a coping mechanism, a "normal" form of communication, a sense of honour or pride, and many of these things are complex in and of themselves and can come from the abuser or victim.
There is no such thing as a little neat explanation of abuse, why it happens and how we can prevent it, there just isn't, I don't believe there ever will be. I believe that the type of victim who comes from the violence-expecting environment or culture is overrepresented partly because of this idea that it's only abuse if he hits you, partly because if you come from this type of environment and don't really overcome that (Which is bloody hard, BTW, because you have to unlearn basically everything that you have ever learned about human interaction and relationships, all of this we learn subconsciously, not consciously, it's not like you can go "Ah, I've been making toast wrong all these years, silly me!" and change it, because it's hundreds of thousands of tiny microcommunications, assumptions, body language, reactions, and god knows how many other things. You can't just reprogramme your brain to address an issue rationally when your entire life you've learned that this situation requires a fight-or-flight adrenaline response. Think about it this way: If somebody told you that you were invincible, you'd still have a really really hard time walking calmly across a busy motorway, because everything you have learned up until this point is screaming at you that it would be a terrible idea.) - sorry, longest parentheses ever! - if you don't overcome that, you're likely to feel extremely uncomfortable in a normal/healthy relationship and unconsciously seek out the familiar, which means a repetition of abusive behaviours even if "not as bad" as the last one. And then partly as well because if both you and your (male) partner grew up in a culture where violence was accepted it's unlikely that either of you learned tools for how to communicate non-violently, so a relationship is more likely to have abusive dynamics than emotionally healthy ones. (Sorry am repeating self slightly). I believe (though this is just a theory) that in violence-accepted cultures there is also a bias towards misogyny, and that combination of misogyny + reliance on violence is also toxic and likely to lead to abusive dynamics.
And then there is shame. Where violence-accepted culture occurs in lower socio-economic classes it is likely to be more open whereas when violence-accepted culture occurs in higher socio-economic classes, it is extremely likely to be hidden, behind closed doors, not for public knowledge. A doctor, teacher or lawyer risks far more by exposing a violent nature or gaining a criminal record than a casual worker, blue-collar worker or somebody who makes a living from criminal activity does. Women also know this and feel guilty (and perhaps ashamed themselves) so there is more incentive for victims either from cultures where violence is not accepted, or cultures where violence is hidden/private, to keep such things hidden, not to seek help, to deal with it themselves rather than involving anybody else lest their secret be discovered. Victims from higher socio-economic classes might be more able to escape from abuse themselves without needing refuges, either having family/friends with enough space to put them up, being able to fund legal advice, being able to rent somewhere independently, or stay in a hotel for example. So women from violence-accepting culture are overrepresented in the refuge situation, but that does not mean that we should deduce this is the main type of abuse victim or that this is any great illustration of abuse. We must always remember to look at the bigger picture.
Then lastly, I understand that people have taken their knowledge of EP as a person to colour their views of her "observations" but for me, Garlick is correct that she is pretty astute in these observations, it's just the analysis which is massively off. The text is slammed as being victim blaming, and perhaps it is, but I don't think that the observations themselves are - on the contrary they provide a useful insight into that question of why women go back or why women appear to choose violent partners over "nice guys". It's not their fault, they don't ACTUALLY want to be abused, beaten, whatever, it's just that the pattern of their life up to that point necessarily led them there. Certainly it's an extremely outdated and problematic text and there are far more up to date publications which explain it better. But I don't think we should discount the experiences of women such as Garlick who have genuinely lived through this kind of thing. Just because an abuser is overall in the wrong and a victim overall innocent does not mean that the abuser has never acted in kindness, and the victim has never acted in spite. And them having done so is not evidence that the relationship was equal in dynamic from both sides.
(Apologies, this was FAR longer than I intended! 
And nothing at all to do with Camilla Batmanghedjhligh.)