Actually upon digging a little deeper, I read her speech and I concede she meant what she said. I would even say she is right, after reading the rest of what she said.
And I am not the only one. In 2000 the United Nations Security Council said something very similar after a study they conducted.
http://www.cfr.org/women/un-security-council-resolution-1325-women-peace-security/p23041
Victim implies innocents, bystanders, those not fighting, those not making the decisions. When you look at the world as a whole, women are the primary victims. They have no control of the situation in many countries. They cannot fight, they cannot vote. They are left at home to deal with the outcomes while the men make the decisions and go to war. They are not the only victims, but they are the primary...
"The experience that you have gone through is in many ways comparable to what happens with domestic violence.
Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today's warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children. Women are again the victims in crime and domestic violence as well. Throughout our hemisphere we have an epidemic of violence against women, even though there is no longer any organized warfare that puts women in the direct line of combat. But domestic violence is now recognized as being the most pervasive human rights violation in the world. Here in El Salvador, according to the statistics gathered by your government, 1 in 6 women have been sexually assaulted and the number of domestic abuse complaints at just one agency topped 10,000 last year. Between 25 and 50 percent of women throughout Latin America have reportedly been victims of domestic violence.
The problem is all pervasive, but sometimes difficult to see. Every country on earth shares this dark secret. Too often, the women we see shopping at the markets, working at their jobs, caring for their children by day, go home at night and live in fear. Not fear of an invading army or a natural disaster or even a stranger in a dark alley, but fear of the very people — family members — who they are supposed to depend upon for help and comfort. This is the trust-destroying terror that attends every step of a victim of violence. For these women, their homes provide inadequate refuge, the law little protection, public opinion often less sympathy. That's why we have to say over and over again, as Elizabeth has done and as so many of you have echoed, that violence against women is not simply cultural or a custom. It is simply criminal, a crime. The devastating effects of domestic violence on women are just as dramatic as the effects of war on women. The physical injury, the mental illness, the terrible loss of confidence limits the capacities of women to fulfill their God-given potentials."
So I don't think it was a mistake. I think she was spot on.
