Not so amusing...domestic violence

Right now, the video of Ray Rice beating his wife in the elevator of a Jersey casino is the talk of the Facebook feeds.  This is just my observation and opinion, but men and women seem to react to it differently. Both are shocked.  But the men seem to focus on the lack of punishment meted out by the Ravens.  The women seem to focus on how could she let that happen and go back to him.  I'm not surprised by either view.

Domestic violence is a crime that our society is not always sure is a crime.  It's not a new crime, and the way it plays out in the media isn't new either.

I'm in my sixties.  I vividly remember a block party one summer when I was a kid (not my block, but where friends of our family lived).  At one point in the early evening, there was a loud ruckus from the corner rowhouse.  The men gathered together to go do their neighborly duty, stop the drunk husband from killing his wife.  The women gathered not so much to comfort her, but to make sure she was ok and make sure she didn't aggravate him again that night.  No one gave any thought to calling the police because nobody thought this was anymore than family business.  A crime to beat your wife?  No, just a family dispute.  Once the men had intervened, the event was over and the party continued. And life went on, pretty much unchanged.

In my working years, I knew too many women who had banged into open doors, had fender benders in a car that had no dents, tripped over toys that turned them black and blue from head to toe, wore sun glasses inside the workplace because their eyes were sensitive to light, or wore long sleeves and turtlenecks during hot weather because they were "cold."  No amount of makeup hid what those women were hiding;  their husbands, many of whom were "pillars" of the community, were beating the hell out of them.

If the police were called, they counseled the men like my father's generation did.  Then they moved on to "real" crimes.

I do not believe it is up to the Ravens to punish Ray Rice.  What he did is a crime, supposedly punishable by the law.  But he isn't in jail and he will play football again.  If he's good this season, mark my words, all will be forgiven and forgotten.

 In fact, as I read the shocking statements about this event on a friend's page, I am convinced he is already on the way to forgiveness:

 I would take a couple punches for half his salary...

At least Rice didn't kill anyone. Baby steps.

I am a GIRL/WOMAN and my father taught me , if you hit a man his reflexes are So fast, you ARE going to get hit back. If she HAD NOT hit him, I'm quite sure she would have not received what she put out! WOMEN WANT EQUAL RIGHTS, KEEP YOUR HAND TO YOURSELF!!!

I am not going to discuss why his wife didn't leave him.  There are too many complicated reasons why women don't leave. The fact remains, though,  none of those reasons are criminal.

These are just a few disturbing revelations about domestic violence:

---Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States, more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. ("Violence Against Women, A Majority Staff Report," Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 102nd Congress, October 1992, p.3.)
--- There are 1,500 shelters for battered women in the United States. There are 3,800 animal shelters. (Schneider, 1990).
--- One woman is beaten by her husband or partner every 15 seconds in the United States. (Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1991
--- A battering incident is rarely an isolated event.

I leave you with this thought:

Battering tends to increase and become more violent over time.

                               Time will tell, Ray Rice.  Time will tell.