Beat a Woman? Play On; Beat a Dog? You're Gone

[MaineDem]

I posted this in the editorial forum but I'm not sure how many read that. I thought of this when I first heard of Vick's plea bargain.

(WOMENSENEWS)--National Football League superstar Michael Vick is in trouble, serious trouble. Federal prosecutors charged the Atlanta Falcons' quarterback with animal abuse for his role as the alleged leader of a dog-fighting ring and, after denying it for months, Vick pleaded guilty on Monday. He faces stiff sentencing.

He's in big trouble with the NFL too, which has said he might never play professionally again. According to Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL's Player Association, "the practice of dog-fighting is offensive and completely unacceptable."

I just wish the NFL had the same outrage toward spousal abuse and other forms of domestic violence. But they don't. Not by a long shot.

Scores of NFL players as well as players from the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball have been convicted of domestic abuse, yet they play on with no fear of losing their careers. Most pay small fines, if that, and are back on the field immediately.

The message is clear. Beat a woman? Play on. Beat a dog? You're gone.

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=3285

[Cobalt Violet]

1. Sad but true. n/t

[BlueJazz]

2. I was thinking the same thing last week. I even discussed the.....

...Double Standard "Stuff" with a Customer of mine.
I wonder if the Media is (Partly) to blame for this crap...I mean, the Vic Thing was in the news for many days while I've seen spousal Abuse cases mentioned (maybe) one time.

Anyway...Women get Fucked again.. :(

[Mend]

3. the woman can walk, the woman can call the police....what is a

dog in a cage to do? I think there are levels of helplessness and hopelessness to take into consideration.

[noamnety]

6. "It's not so bad that I raped her ...

because afterwards, she could walk away"

"it's not so bad that I beat her up, because afterwards, she could have left"

I don't understand this logic, and frankly, it pisses me off. At the time of an assault, no a woman cannot just walk away. The fact that she can AFTER the assault is over does not make the assault itself more moral.

Blaming to the victim (she CHOSE to be raped/beat up a second or third time) does not make the first rape or beating more moral. The fact that the abuser did those things repeatedly (because he had the opportunity? like climbing Mount Everest because it is there?) does not make it more moral.

[Mend]

7. I am not blaming the victim...I am saying that adults have more abilities

than dogs to escape and call for help. We have to be most protective of our most helpless, in this society that would be children and animals. I never said the women were to blame.

[noamnety]

8. You are blaming the victim, whether you realize it or not.

If you are arguing that spousal abuse isn't so bad as child or animal abuse because the victim is responsible for being in that circumstance (they could have gotten away but CHOSE not to), you are transferring blame and responsibility from the abuser to the victim.

[Mend]

9. I never said spousal abuse isn't as bad as child or animal abuse. Please read

my posts. I said it is especially tough on children and animals who can't escape, call 911, etc. I simply can't understand why you keep saying I am attacking women. Are you equating a woman's ability with a baby or a dog? Women are much more competent than that.

[noamnety]

10. Competence isn't relevant to this discussion

Women who are victims of abuse are not "incompetent."

[Mend]

11. exactly my point....and my last post on this subject. Animals are

incompetent to get help for themselves. The end.

[noamnety]

12. Your implication is that the women who are abused

are not competent. Otherwise they wouldn't be there. That's my objection to that line of thought.

[iverglas]

15. aw, are you gone?

I was just wondering whether you might want to address the actual subject matter of this thread.

It wasn't about what protection dogs or women respectively deserve.

It was about why a man who beats a dog is disciplined by his employer and a man who beats a woman is not.

That has nothing to do with the relative competences of women and dogs.

It has to do with the employer's relative condemnation of abusing women and abusing dogs, such condemnation being a method by which the employer maintains the attractiveness of its product for advertisers and consumers in the face of conduct by its employees that advertisers and consumers might regard as reprehensible.

No chance you might have something to say about that?

[Captain Hilts]

21. Again, he is also charged with gambling and racketeering. Gambling is a big NO, in pro sports.

because it is seen as compromising the integrity of the competition.

I guess they leave society to make the judgement calls on how violence against women affects the game.

Yes, there are a lot of ironies there. I'm appalled at the players that are permitted to play after convictions for violent behavior against their wives: Warren Moon, and what about Ray Lewis being kind of an accessory to murder and he's playing. I hope the new commissioner takes a harder stand on these issues.

[Katherine Brengle]

23. You are saying that women are to blame.

Or at least, that the perpetrator is LESS culpable because his victim didn't get away.

That's fucked up.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. actually people who are routinely abused lose the ability to get up and leave.

maybe you should consider educating yourself on domestic violence.

[Virginia Dare]

4. Vick was doing more than just beating a dog...

however both acts are reprehensible. I agree, there needs to be a zero tolerance policy with regard to spousal abuse.

[JoDog]

5. My first editor

Told me this simple rule of thumb: whenever a story involves violence toward children or animals, people go nuts. I think the reason for such strong reactions has to do with the preceived helplessness of the victims in the public mind. The people doing the violence also tend to be in positions where they were supposed to be caring for the victim, someone the victim should have been able to trust. That kind of violation causes a strong emotional response in many people.

If you look back 100 years ago, the same reaction happened in stories about violence toward women and children. Again, these were the groups who had the least power in a society, and usually they were hurt by people in what were then paternal roles--i.e. fathers, brothers and husbands.

The other side of the coin is the lack of reaction if the victim is thought to be worthless and diposeable to begin with--like women in some developing countries and animals a century ago.

The change in attitude in the West may ironically be connected to the women's movement. We feminists have done a lot of work to get women recognized as smart, impowered and in control of their own lives. It's possible that those ideas have bled over into a preception that women are not helpless in the face of abuse--they can walk away, call the cops, etc. Meanwhile, children and animals have no such recourse. Of course, people who have been in abusive situations or known people who have realize it is not that simple. There are a host of psycological, emotional, and yes, financial reasons that women stay with men who beat them.

Personally, I think that football players found guilty of beating women should without a doubt be suspended or thrown out of the game entirely. It is inexcuseable behavior, and I hope the NFL wakes up to that soon.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Actually, there was a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

in England about 40 years before there was a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

In fact, the first successful criminal case against a child abuser was in 1884 and was brought by the SPCA, since no one else would take up the case.

[Orrex]

13. And proximity, it seems, breeds greater danger

If a wife-abuser decided to beat some random woman at the mall, he'd be arrested and charged with several kinds of assault.

But if he were to beat his wife just as badly?

Does domestic abuse have a higher threshold of culpability? Why on earth should it?

:puke:

[Captain Hilts]

16. Evidence from a six month federal investigation is more damning than potential 'he said-she said' ..

cases.

I agree with you, but there was overwhelming evidence here.

And, if you beat a dog, you'll beat a woman, a child, etc.

[iverglas]

17. note what you were replying to

Scores of NFL players as well as players from the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball have been convicted of domestic abuse, yet they play on with no fear of losing their careers.

Not "potential he-said she-said cases". Convictions, after trials or guilty pleas. Not apples and oranges. Rotten apples and surely just as rotten apples.

[Captain Hilts]

18. And Vick will most likely play again as well. 'Indefinite' suspension is just that. nt

[iverglas]

19. okey dokey

There actually was a very specific point made in the opening post, and I'm afraid you've just chosen to pretend it wasn't there, twice now.

It didn't have to do with he-said she-said, and it also didn't have to do with the length of any suspension imposed.

Someone who has been convicted of an offence involving abuse of animals has been suspended from his league. Others who have been convicted of offences involving violence against women have NOT been suspended from their leagues. Simple as that.

It is a remarkable contrast, and it is entirely reasonable to question the discrepancy.

I wonder whether, if violence against women were part a sport on which men placed bets, convictions might be dealt with more harshly by sports leagues ...

[Captain Hilts]

20. I said I agreed with your general point.

I've typed on DU until I'm purple in the face that sexism and violence against women are acceptable in our society in a way that racism, and violence against animals - as in this case - are not.

But this situation still needs to be played out.

Vick is being suspended for multiple crimes: violence against dogs, racketeering, gambling. Gambling is the best way to get yourself suspended in any athletic league. Should being convicted of violence to a woman get you bounced out of the league? YES.

But Vick has engaged in a crime that is seen as endangering the league - gambling.

As bad as violence toward women is, it doesn't endanger the league. That's not my take, that's theirs.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

24. I suspect it's for exactly the same reason that tobacco is legal and cannabis isn't.

There are a lot more wife-beaters than dog-fighters in professional sports, I suspect.

[Captain Hilts]

25. Again, he is being suspended more for the gambling and racketeering than the dog abuse.

Dog abuse would get him a suspension, but the gambling endangers the integrity of the league, and THAT's what he's been suspended for.

It's not dog abuse vs. abuse of women. It's about gambling and racketeering.

[LostinVA]

26. Also, they are now investigating possible murder ties with his kennel

Vick should be put away for life.

[DemBones DemBones]

27. Vick killed dogs very cruelly so it's not just beating dogs. You're 100% correct

that spousal abuse and other abuse of women should be prosecuted more strongly. One of the problems, of course, is women refusing to press charges against the men who beat them. How many times did Nicole take OJ back before her death? She called the police many times, as I recall, but never pressed charges.

[iverglas]

28. it's the wimminz fault!

And the dogs didn't rip Vick to shreds when they had the chance because ...

[ismnotwasm]

29. That is a peculiar attitude

And an very odd example. And how do you know she wasn't threatened? Scared for her life? Thought she's lose her kids? Half out of her mind with constant abuse?

[DemBones DemBones]

30. I'm not sure what you mean.

You wrote:

"how do you know she wasn't threatened? Scared for her life? Thought she's lose her kids? Half out of her mind with constant abuse?"

I didn't say I knew she wasn't threatened, I didn't use the word threatened at all. Nor did I address any of the other things you bring up, which very likely were all factors.

Here's what I said:

"Vick killed dogs very cruelly so it's not just beating dogs. You're 100% correct
that spousal abuse and other abuse of women should be prosecuted more strongly. One of the problems, of course, is women refusing to press charges against the men who beat them. How many times did Nicole take OJ back before her death? She called the police many times, as I recall, but never pressed charges."

My point was that women need help getting away from men who beat them. Her sister has said that Nicole said she knew OJ would kill her someday yet she stayed where he could find her. I'm not blaming her, I'm sure she was scared, confused, etc. I am only saying that women need support networks to get away from abusive men and they need to press charges against them. I don't know if it's possible to do both. Nicole's horrible murder came to mind because OJ cropped up in the news again right about the time the Vick case calmed down, and, like Vick's killing of dogs, her murder was cruelly done by OJ or whoever did it.

A better example would be comparing Vick to a man who has killed several women and gotten a lighter sentence than Vick, but I haven't heard of such a case lately. I can't think of one now. I suppose I could have said Charlie Manson, who had other people kill for him, but that didn't have any relationship to domestic abuse. OJ did, and was in the news.

Women are too often ashamed to tell anyone their husband/lover is abusing them. Girls need to be taught very young not to let boys hurt them, ever, and to get help if they do. My mother taught me that and I taught my daughter.