It’s a standard batterer defense to use, or try to to provoke some trivial bit of physical contact as an excuse to beat the shit out of a woman.
He beat the shit out of her. He wasn’t defending himself. He wasn’t in danger. He wasn’t using force necessary to protect himself. He beat the shit out of her. It’s completely irrelevant what words or actions led up to it. He beat the shit out of a woman. He’s a scumbag batterer. The end.
It’s also irrelevant and meaningless that she may have stayed with him after prior abuse. That is absolutely standard behavior for DV victims, and it’s not a fucking reason to defend the batterer.
And I wish people would stop saying, “I’m not defnding it, but…”
Sir yes sir! Apologies for straying out of rigid lockstep with your feminist dogma. We must have momentarily forgotten that every woman on the face of the earth is a shining beacon of loving perfection.
This is a clear gender divide. Boys grow up knowing (or learning quickly) that you do not fuck with guys who could or would kick your ass. This means you show them respect when you interact with them. Girls never need to learn this because society dictates that nobody should ever hit them, and everybody deserves respect anyway. This is one way that men and women are clearly unequal, though it could just be a cultural thing. From a male’s perspective, nobody deserves respect; respect is earned by each individual.
So with this whole “feminist dogma” and “respect” stuff, are you implying that if someone pisses you off and you’re stronger with them, it’s okay to hit them?
No, according to everything I’ve read, he told her to get out of the car, but she didn’t. He then slammed her head on the window of the car, when she started screaming, he drove off and continued beating her all the way. He kept beating long after there would have been any pretense of ‘defending oneself’.
No one said that. This is a phony critique. Acknowledging that a woman has had the shit beaten out of her is in no way an expression of a belief that she is perfect, nor would imperfection justify beating the shit out of her.
Those were unrelated responses. As to the idea of hitting somebody who pisses you off, well, at worst I think it merits maybe a small fine or a little community service. A misdemeanor, I guess.
And you have it backwards, by the way. It’s my responsibility as the smaller guy not to piss off the bigger guy. (At 6’0" and 150lbs, I’m not beating up anybody.) I’m guessing this is an attitude women either don’t share or find repugnant. As a guy, I find it to be perfectly natural. See that big huge pissed off looking dude in the corner? Give him a wide berth and be respectful. That little obnoxious pissant in the corner? If the dirty look doesn’t quiet him down, well, some day he’ll learn the hard way. Maybe by me. Maybe the big guy in the corner, or maybe in a couple weeks somebody will learn him.
So, just to be clear, it’s the responsibility of a woman not to piss off a man, and if she does, she deserves to have the shit beaten out of her? Beating the shit out of a woman should only be a misdemeanor, in your opinion?
Well, that is the way things were at one point. And for some women, how it still is–they learn to keep their mouths shut rather than get hurt. Most of us find the idea of a small person being “respectful” because they’re scared of being smacked to be horrifying. And if expressing my opinion when a big lout thinks I should sit down and be quiet makes me “a little obnoxious pissant,” then I’m glad I don’t associate with people like you.
The problem with this is that it has nothing to do with Rihanna or Chris Brown, unless you want to make explicit why it does. In context it looks like you’re aligning yourself with the rest of the posters in this thread who think it is reasonable and pragmatic and not at all dangerous to probe into the facts of this case to find out just how abusive the victim was.
Was it Rihanna’s responsibility not to get her fucking daylights punched out of her repeatedly by her significant other, or was it his responsibility not to punch the fucking daylights out of her?
As far as the earning respect thing, I think it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that there’s a divide between “women shouldn’t be beaten” and “nobody gets respect for free.” I’ve spent a lot of time in a lot of violent environments, and I’ve been punched for such offenses as being my brother’s brother, so I don’t think it’s the case that I’ve managed to lead a sheltered girly life, but maybe I’m wrong about that; in any case, I don’t think the maxim that we ought not to batter the fuck out of people has anything to do with whether they’re showing enough deference. There are a lot of people I’m sure I don’t respect, but I don’t fee obliged or justified in physically assaulting them.
In fact, I’d say that when you shake it all out, that is the line of reasoning proffered by your typical batterer, and that your typical battering victim (and I meet a half dozen or so every Friday morning) is aware of this and terrorized by that knowledge.
editing to add:
Screw that. This place needs a lot more people with that “agenda.” It had everything to do with the OP content.
Plus, what can piss a person off is strange and arbitrary sometimes. Especially when one who is bigger and stronger gets used to deferential treatment. You can’t assume responsibility for someone else’s emotions. The idea that you need to do so or get your ass kicked is very strange to me.
Then again, I am a girl. Maybe I’ll ask my husband what he thinks.
Agreed. I don’t think Cat Fight has anything near an “agenda.” I do so often see quite the opposite here on the Dope–that is, the rush in almost every rape or abuse thread to try and make sure that people know that lots and lots of women lie about rape and provoke abuse, and won’t someone think of the hundreds of men being falsely accused of rape and assault?
I agree with the first part of your post; he did beat her up and he is a scumbag.
I do think it’s relevant what the words and / or actions that led up to it are. Not for the purpose of excusing it but to provide the full picture. I know that nuance is lost on you so we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I also don’t see how pointing out that a person who has every resource in the world to escape a bad situation but stays anyway is defending the batterer. He’s still a scumbag and she’s, well, let’s say she’s not got great decision making skills.
Your interpretation of the intent of my words is incorrect and won’t become any more correct no matter how many times you say it. Examining or even explaining (which no one has done) someone’s actions is not the same as condoning them.
But I don’t know if it comes down to decision making skills. A batterer essentially practices psychological warfare on a woman in order to groom her for beatings, similar to the way pedophiles groom their victims. It’s a gradual process. I have known women I think are smart and capable who have gone through it. One friend said that none of her boyfriends’ behaviors made much sense to her until she hit the coffee table. She still has a scar from that, and probably will for the rest of her life. She’s one of the lucky ones who got out. Many of them don’t.
People get a volatile relationship and systematic abuse confused, and I think they talk about one when they mean the other. It’s sad that the feminist back-lash has muddied the waters so.
Getting beaten and the subsequent inevitable realization that one can be killed at the hands of this other person do fascinating things to one’s ability to make decisions.
That’s definitely true. Except that in practice, it is very often – nearly always – the case that the first step to condoning this particular action, which is to say the violent beating to near-unconsciousness of a woman by a man with whom she is intimately related, is to examine the victim’s actions in exactly the way that some in this thread wish to do. It’s all well and good that it isn’t necessarily the only reason somebody might ask, but it would be silly not to acknowledge that the vast majority of the time, when someone asks a series of questions amounting to wondering what the victim of a domestic assault did to provoke/cause/anger/set off the abuser, they’re asking in an attempt to deflect responsibility for the assault onto the victim. Happens every time.
Now, of course it’s a natural thing to want to know why the assault happened, to understand the nature of the crime and to be able to assign responsibility properly, and there’s nothing wrong with asking that. But the question is “what happened?” or “Why did he?” not “What did you (or what did she) do to make him hit you?”
I don’t want to turn this into a thread about me, but I’ve been through it and the fascinating thing it did to my ability to make decisions was it made me decide that that wasn’t going to be happening to me again. I know everyone’s experiences are different; I feel deeply sad for women who *cannot *get away. I guess I just wanted to point out that some women do. Also, I *am *speaking specifically about this case, not domestic violence in general.
This is a very thoughtful, well reasoned point. I was mostly responding to Diogenes who seems to feel he knows my mind better than I do.
Sorry, I meant to address this in my last post. I am speaking specifically about Rihanna, who it would appear to me does indeed have more resources than most. I congratulate her for leaving the son of a bitch and hope she never has to go through such a thing again.