Hope Solo, the goalie for US women’s soccer national team, was arrested for domestic abuse this past June. Unlike Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice, though, she is still playing for the team, and has even been designated as team captain.
What does this mean? Everything that qualifies as domestic violence under the law is literally equivalent? My brother fucked me up pretty good once in a scrap over a Super Nintendo game; it never occurred to me that this was equally as terrible as knocking your wife out cold.
Sounds like more than a “Scrap over a Super Nintendo game” to me. Although maybe you guys beat the shit out of one another over video games, that wouldn’t make me think this is any ‘better’ just because you guys acted stupidly. Anyway, punching minors in the face during domestic arguments sounds bad enough to me to disqualify someone without litigating where it stands against knocking your wife out cold.
Serious question: what qualifies violence as “domestic”? If the kid she attacked hadn’t been related to her (e.g. nephew’s also 17-year-old buddy), would it still be “domestic violence”? And would it make a difference how serious the offense is?
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Serious question: what qualifies violence as “domestic”? If the kid she attacked hadn’t been related to her (e.g. nephew’s also 17-year-old buddy), would it still be “domestic violence”? And would it make a difference how serious the offense is?
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If no relation, then not domestic. It does not matter how serious. Domestic means more or less what it sounds like; in my state it includes spouses, former spouses, people who are relatives by blood or affinity, and current/former intimate partners. Nephew yes, friend no; ex-boyfriend yes, roommate no. An assault is still an assault either way, of course.
I mean, a torn shirt and blood on your ear is pretty much what happens when you get in a fight with your brother, yeah. It’s not a good thing to do. You’re an idiot if you do it. I don’t know where you got “beat the shit out of,” though. Beat the shit out of is like when you punch somebody’s lights out so they’re sprawled out on an elevator floor.
Hope Solo seems like she’s probably a pretty bad lady. But I don’t know what “domestic abuse is domestic abuse” is supposed to mean here if it isn’t supposed to mean that these two things should be viewed identically. This is one of those silly false equivalences that makes meaningful conversation about important stuff impossible. It’s very possible that Hope Solo should be in jail right now, not serving as captain of the women’s soccer team; what do I know about the situation? But it’s just not that reasonable to say that she shouldn’t be playing because she did the same thing Ray Rice did. It seems like an attempt to obliquely defend some kind of principle that, if it were dragged out into the light, I think would be indefensible.
If Ray Rice had torn his nephew’s shirt and caused a cut to form on his ear – if that was what we knew – this is not the conversation we would be having. And that is fucking important to keep in mind.
Solo was arrested, but hasn’t been convicted. In that sense, she’s in the exact same position as the San Francisco 49ers’ Ray McDonald who is playing after being arrested for domestic violence, but not yet convicted.
Ray Rice’s domestic violence has video evidence (that’s the only reason he’s not playing right now) and Adrian Peterson admitted to the hitting (he just thinks he did nothing wrong). Different situations.
The only reason Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson got fired/suspended was because their actions negatively affected the league. If nobody gives a shit about what Hope Solo did then the team has zero reason to punish her further. Lets not kid ourselves and pretend any of the leagues give one single fuck about what their players/owners do unless it negatively impacts the league itself. This is why years of Donald Sterling being a racist fuck had absolutely no punishment from the league but the moment the story gains some media traction he is immediately kicked out. It’s not a man/woman thing, it’s not a double standard, it is the same exact standard every league/company uses: once it affects US you are in trouble, until then we do not give a fuck. Hope Solo simply benefited from the fact that not enough people give enough of a shit about Hope Solo or female soccer to cause an uproar about whatever she did.
Sadly, this is exactly the reason. Few people in the US care about soccer, and fewer still about women’s soccer. So, Hope Solo is a non-story, even tho by all logic she should be treated exactly the same as Ray Rice.
Your average WNBA player could probably kill somebody, and you’d be able to count on your fingers how many people cared about whether or not she was thrown off the team.
I believe he was saying that she was the biggest thing in the WNBA when she was playing, there were many incidents of bizarre and dangerous behavior during that time, and no actions were taken by the league.
It was the opposite. Her husband - a guy who is out of the NFL in part because he has a truly stupendous rap sheet - was arrested for beating her. She was not arrested and they were married immediately thereafter. Some commentators have pointed out that it’s a little ironic to play the “Solo should be suspended just like Ray Rice!” card while failing to mention that she herself was apparently beaten up by an NFL player. That being said: sure, suspend her while this is being investigated and punish her if she broke the law. Assaulting people is bad regardless of their relationship to you. But it does feel like some people commenting on this story are desperately groping for a false equivalence.
Commentators including some of those linked to by the OP as examples of arguments about “how this is totally different because Solo is a woman, so there should be different standards.”
Did you or your brother get arrested? Hope Solo did.
It’s also worth remembering that she’s not representing Baltimore or Minnesota; she’s the captain of the national team, representing the entire country. To my eyes, that carries with it a higher standard.
Obviously her crime is much less severe than Ray Rice’s, but it is nonetheless domestic abuse. She shouldn’t be playing until after she receives her due process. She definitely shouldn’t be representing the country. And she absolutely, positively should not be the friggin’ captain of the national team.