I find it so incredible offensive that today’s news that Tiger Woods may have been the victim of domestic violence has drawn out a host of “jokes”, as though the idea of a man being beaten or attacked by his wife or girlfriend is some how “funnier” than if he had hauled off and beaten her.
I think, instead, that if she DID attack him the fact that he left the house without retaliating should be commended instead of made the butt of jokes.
I remember years ago a talk show — I think it was the Phil Donahue Show– the topic was domestic abuse. There was sympathy and indignation about all the women’s stories about being abused. People were angry. A man got up and told how his wife had beaten him and he tried to get help from a shelter and from the police and no one would help him. The audience erupted in laughter…
Phil asked “Why are you laughing?”
One woman said “Well, really, he must have done something to deserve it…”
How many times has an abused woman heard that over the years?
No one deserves being beaten by a spouse.
In my case, the police rolled up while he was smashing my head against the pavement on a public street. Had I been a total stranger to him, or even a nodding acquaintance, they would have arrested him. We were living together so I was the one who ended up in the back of the cruiser being escorted to the police station to be picked up by family.
I waited for an hour at the police station with a woman who was wrapped only in a towel and who had a slash across her face.
Her boyfriend had locked her naked in the basement after slashing her face. It was three days before a passerby finally stopped and helped her (naked) out of the basement…. after she convinced him that there was not a good reason why she was locked naked in the basement.
The police could do nothing to help us beyond driving us to the station and allowing us to call relatives. We would have to go down to see a Justice of the Peace and swear out our own charges before the police could do anything.
I don’t know abut her. I just was thankful to be alive and was afraid of the consequences of charging him myself so did nothing. The police couldn’t protect me if he had come after me again.
Phil Donahue had an excellent opportunity to talk about men being abused and how, no matter who you are, abuse is abuse. He could have talked about how even then women had at least a FEW more opportunities than men did for protection. Instead, he let the matter drop.
If iot turns out that Tiger was beaten by his wife, I commend him for leaving instead of fighting back. I am thankful that she didn;t have a gun and that in fleeing he wasn’t killed hitting the hydrant.
Like any case of domestic abuse, the consequences could have been deadly.