The classes were inspired by research that shows one in four teenage girls are hurt by a partner, and a third of girls in relationships are victims of unwanted sexual activity. Despite these statistics, only half of girls receive any sort of education about domestic violence. To remedy this, beginning in 2011 schools will teach students about healthy relationships and the unacceptability of abuse. An unnamed contributor to the plan says that the classes would be separate from sex education:

It's nothing to do with teaching them how to put a condom on. It's about teaching boys not to be violent and girls that being a sex object isn't the only way to be validated.

Schools minister Vernon Coaker says the classes will be "age appropriate." Rather than being taught about romantic relationships, younger children might learn not to bully or call names. Christine Barter, a researcher in the area of teen violence, says what's especially scary is that teenage girls keep this violence to themselves. Classes starting at a young age might encourage them to seek help when they need it — and might teach them that violence is unacceptable and should be reported. But not all parents are behind the measure.

Margaret Morrissey, of the group Parents Outloud, says, "This political correctness is turning our children into confused mini-adults from the age of five to nine." Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, concurs:

Youngsters should naturally know not to do these sort of things and must be called to account if they do. But teachers have enough to do in teaching English, maths and science to a reasonable level without addressing issues that parents should be dealing with.

Teaching young girls to report abuse and rape — and teaching boys not to commit these acts — is hardly mere "political correctness." But Seaton's criticism echoes an age-old debate about education that goes beyond "English, maths and science" — what should schools teach, and what is the province of parents? In this case, it's unfortunately untrue that "youngsters naturally know" not to abuse each other. And since violence is still so widespread, it doesn't appear that parents "naturally know" how to deal with it either. Parent-child relationships are complicated by a lot of emotions and expectations — parents may feel, for instance, that their son would never hurt a girl, or that their daughter would never stay in an abusive relationship. Teachers may be able to take a more dispassionate approach, especially since they will undergo special training before teaching the new classes. Ideally, all parents would teach their kids never to commit domestic violence, and to speak out immediately if they suffer it. But teenagers aren't getting this message, and school may be a good place to fix that.

Classroom Drive To Curb Violence In Relationships [Guardian]
School Lessons To Tackle Domestic Violence Outlined [BBC News]
Lessons On Equality And Domestic Abuse For Children Of Five [Daily Mail]

Economists Gordon Dahl and David Card looked at twelve years of football upsets — losses by teams predicted to win by three or more points. They found that during the regular season, such losses were correlated with an 8% increase in male-initiated partner violence in the hours immediately after the game. Female-on-male violence and child abuse were both unaffected by football losses, but violence against friends and neighbors increased by about the same percentage partner violence did. So essentially, men who just watched their team lose are more likely to beat up lovers and friends.

Catherine Rampell points out on the New York Times Economix blog that other surprising factors contribute to domestic violence, including holidays — partner violence rises 22% on Thanksgiving. And Slate's Ray Fisman cautions that football may not actually cause abuse:

[W]hile a tough loss for the home team may touch off abuse, that doesn't mean football is the root cause of postgame violence. More likely, the loss merely serves to set off an attack that was already waiting to happen. In a world without football, acts of abuse might merely get postponed, only to be brought on later by some other source of anger. In the long term, rather than blaming football, we may be best off focusing on addressing the more fundamental problems underlying abusive relationships.

Mentally healthy people in stable relationships probably don't suddenly assault their spouses because the Steelers lost. But it's worth examining the possible external triggers for abuse — triggers that have nothing to do with a woman being "difficult" or "asking for it." It's also worth noting that for everything that's great about sports fandom — a shared narrative, a sense of camaraderie, just plain fun — athletic culture can sometimes have an element of violence. Anyone who went to a Big Ten school has probably seen a drunken postgame brawl between pissed-off fans, and while this doesn't mean we should condemn football, we might do well to be a little more aware of its after-effects. Part of this awareness might involve encouraging some moderation in tailgating — coverage of Card and Dahl's research doesn't mention it, but I have to wonder if the increased abuse doesn't have something to do with fans getting drunk at 11 a.m. And of course, men and women alike need to speak out against domestic violence — as a group of Australian men are doing tomorrow in honor of the UN Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. But perhaps in addition to all this, some sports fans need an extra reminder that, as Fisman says, "it's only a game."

Football Upsets Increase Domestic Violence, Study Finds [NYT Economix Blog]
Illegal Contact [Slate]
Males Asked To Speak Out Against Violence [News.com.au]

As in the first part, Sawyer is in full portentousness mode, and Rihanna herself seems to be struggling to keep her emotions in check. Though she doesn''t blame herself for the attack, she does seem to think that she and Brown were both contributors to a toxic relationship. She says, "the more in love we became, the more dangerous we became for each other — equally as dangerous, because it was a bit of an obsession, almost." She also casts herself as an equal partner in the argument that preceded the abuse, saying, "I couldn't take that he kept lying to me and he couldn't take that I wouldn't drop it." And when she describes the actual violence, she speaks almost as though Brown was possessed by some other entity. "He had no soul in his eyes," she says, and "he was clearly blacked-out."

It may be true that Brown entered some sort of blackout when he began attacking Rihanna, but thinking of it in this way also probably helps her to forgive him — something she seems to have done. When Sawyer asks if she hates him, she replied,

I don't hate him at all, I actually love and care about him and [...] I want him to do well, have a great career, have a great life, and grow up, and just take this as something you had to go through to grow up and learn.

It's a generous statement, coming from someone who was not only abused but then forced to deal publicly with the aftermath of that abuse. It's also a morally complicated one — because abuse is so often trivialized and abusers often excused, it's tempting to cast them as wholly evil people who cannot be redeemed. Rihanna is clearly unwilling to do this — she says Brown was once her "best friend," and clearly she still wants to see some good in him. In a way it's disturbing to see this, because Rihanna doesn't have any responsibility to forgive or think well of Brown. At the same time, it can be hard to hate someone you used to love, and Rihanna's expressing emotions that many other abuse victims have probably felt.

More upsetting is her assessment of the "danger" they posed one another. She may be right that the intensity of their relationship was bad for both of them, but an overly intense relationship doesn't cause abuse. And while she's kind to say that "this" — presumably, the attack and its aftermath — is something Brown "had to go through to grow up," beating someone isn't just a learning experience. It's a crime, and while it's possible that Brown will never hit another woman again, he still deserves more criticism for his act than Rihanna seems willing to give. Again, it's not her job to criticize him for our benefit. But if anything good comes from the public nature of Rihanna's pain, maybe it will be that viewers supply the judgment that Rihanna is unwilling to deliver, and recognize that neither "obsession" nor "black-out" is an excuse for violence.

This is the pop singer's first big TV interview since the domestic violence episode she very publicly suffered. Sawyer was sympathetic regarding Rihanna's initial decision to go back to Chris Brown, pointing out that it takes a woman an average of seven attempts to leave an abusive partner, to which Rihanna responded "eight or nine actually." One of the saddest parts of the interview was the singer's admission that she still feels ashamed of the violence she suffered. She says, "I fell in love with that person. That's embarrassing. That's embarrassing that that's the type of person that I fell in love with, so far in love, so unconditionally that I went back." And even though she adds that, "It's completely normal to go back. You start lying to yourself," she says she feels guilty about the message her return to Brown sent to her fans.

This is a difficult part of the interview to watch, because Rihanna seems to authentically reproach herself for somehow being a "bad" role model. She says, "I realize that my selfish decision for love could result in some young girl getting killed." It's a big burden to shoulder, especially for someone still recovering from a trauma, and especially for someone who is herself so young. Yet alongside all the people who blamed Rihanna for her own abuse (whom she addresses when she tells Sawyer, "I didn't cause this") were people who demanded that Rihanna stand up as an example of domestic violence victims everywhere and essentially show them what to do. It's a challenge she appears to have taken up, as when she tells young victims "eff love," but it may not be a particularly fair one.

Rihanna got some flack for her recent single "Russian Roulette," which some people feel glorifies violence, and it's clear that, at least for a while to come, she'll be viewed as a Singer Who Is Also an Abuse Victim. It's admirable that she's chosen to turn the violation of her privacy (she talks ruefully about how she felt when her infamous post-abuse photo was released) into an opportunity to help other women, but it doesn't seem entirely just that she's forced to be a role model — and it's especially unfair that she has to feel guilty about what is, as Sawyer points out, sadly normal conduct, just because it took place in the public eye. The job of preventing future domestic violence should fall to law enforcement, to social workers, to trained anti-domestic violence educators, and to parents, who need to raise children to know that abuse is never acceptable. It shouldn't fall to the victims themselves, no matter how famous they are. And while perhaps Rihanna can derive some peace from helping other women, she shouldn't have to struggle with guilt on top of everything else she's been through.

Rihanna Speaks Out In Exclusive Interview [ABC]

In the car on the way to film her segment for the show, Hailey opened up about how Jon is emotionally abusive.


It sounds like they have a codependent, miserable relationship.


Unfortunately, Hailey only believes that physical abuse is grounds for a breakup.

Ian Urbina writes a poignant story in today's Times about teen and child runaways, whose numbers are apparently swelling in the recession. Homelessness may rise 10 to 20 percent across the board this year, but last year the number of kids living on their own increased by 40 percent — and Mary Ferrell, director of a resource center for the homeless, says, "several times a month we're seeing kids being left by parents who say they can't afford them anymore." But that statement isn't the most heart-wrenching in the story. That would be this graf:

The runaways spend much of their time avoiding the authorities because they assume the officials are trying to send them home. But most often the police are not looking for them as missing-person cases at all, just responding to complaints about loitering or menacing. In fact, federal data indicate that usually no one is looking for the runaways, either because parents have not reported them missing or the police have mishandled the reports.

Or maybe this one:

Federal statistics indicate that in more than three-quarters of runaway cases, parents or caretakers have not reported the child missing, often because they are angry about a fight or would simply prefer to see a problem child leave the house. Experts say some parents fear that involving the police will get them or their children into trouble or put their custody at risk.

And in 16 percent of cases, the local police failed to enter the information into the federal database, as required under federal law, according to a review of federal data by The New York Times.

The reasons police give for not entering runaways in the database include software difficulties, time constraints, and a desire not to "make a city's situation appear to be more of a problem than it is" — though it's not clear how accurately reporting statistics would overstate the problem. Urbina also writes that police "do not take runaway reports as seriously as abductions, in part because runaways are often fleeing family problems." It's true that many of the kids he spoke with had left abusive homes, and that returning them to their parents doesn't seem to be the solution. However, there's a deeply sad contrast between abduction victims, whose stories often become big news, and runaways, the children no one wants to find.

It's not that we should be doing less to find abducted kids, or to prevent tragedies like the murder of Chicago eight-year-old Melissa Ackerman. Rather, we hould be expending as much energy on kids whose parents don't want or "can't afford" them as we do on kids whose parents desperately want them back. The fact that police don't take runaways seriously because these kids are "fleeing family problems" is especially chilling — do we really think the solution to abuse is to let kids live on the streets?

Image via NYT.

Recession Drives Surge In Youth Runaways [NYT]
Child Abduction Survivor Lives With Fear And Guilt [LAT]
'Jane Doe' Found In N.Y. Identified [CNN]

In the clip above, from last night's Larry King Live, Murphy describes her husband's controlling behavior, which escalated into battery and rape over the course of their nine-year marriage, and the disappointment she felt when her father failed to step in and defend her. She says when the police first came to her home and her husband refused to let them talk to her — he said, "no, that's my wife" — she realized the abuse was something "he felt like he was entitled to." For years, she adds, "I did just tuck it away and just buried it and went on with my life and I thought that, you know, I could leave it there and I wanted to leave it there." On her father's deathbed, they "came to terms," but she decided to go public, she says, only when "I saw Rihanna's face and seeing that just brought it all up."

Rihanna's case is different from Murphy's in one key respect: we don't know Murphy's abuser. In photos on Larry King, his face is blurred out, and she never identifies him by name. He did agree to speak to the show off the air, saying that he "never harmed her," and that her allegations might be motivated by "fame or sympathy." Since he isn't a US citizen, he adds, "If all of these allegations are true, she could have had me deported." However, on Ellen yesterday, Murphy explained that she was afraid to leave the marriage even during periods when her husband was abroad, and that she felt like "an electric fence" was keeping her in his power. She told Us Weekly that she finally decided to leave only when she found out he had proposed to another woman on a Middle East trip, and that "I faced him one more time to sign the papers, and then I never heard from him again."

Since Murphy's ex-husband isn't a public figure, we are unlikely to hear from him again either, and we certainly won't get the public apology-fest we got from Chris Brown. Murphy's story highlights a major distinction between public abuse cases in which the abuser is anonymous, and those where he's someone we know and, possibly, like. As soon as the story of Brown's assault on Rihanna broke, Brown's fans — including women and girls — were claiming Rihanna must've done something to deserve it. But nobody has any stake in the innocence of a nameless ex-husband, and YouTube commenters (not known for their good behavior or respect for women) are overwhelmingly supportive of Murphy. Commenting on the video of Murphy's Ellen appearance, one says, "More power to Mary and others who break the silence about this despicable treatment of women." Another: "It takes a lot of courage and strength to talk about something that affected your life for that many years. Thank you for uploading this." And a third, rather disturbingly: "was this guy african or arab? she said he'd go back on vacation to 'his country'. those cultures are very barbaric towards women especially their family and their wives must worse." The US Weekly commenters have a similar racist bent, and some criticize Murphy for not leaving sooner, but there's no "she asked for it" rhetoric in evidence.

Attitudes toward celebrity abuse may highlight one of the obstacles non-celebrity women (i.e. the rest of us) face in reporting domestic violence. When an abuser is someone we don't know, we tend to sympathize with the victim; when we do know the abuser — whether he's Chris Brown or a personal friend or loved one — we suddenly get more skeptical. Murphy tells Ellen that her husband was "very charming" and that "you would love him if you met him," and many abusers have a far different persona with friends than with their victims. Even Murphy's parents seem to have been taken in, at least enough that they told her, "you've got to make this marriage work, you are a married woman now." The fact that nobody believes a "nice guy" could be an abuser likely keeps many women silent — including "college-educated," successful women like Murphy.

Of course, not being a celebrity also means Murphy's ex-husband has less of a public platform from which to defend himself — and it's true that none of us were there to witness the abuse. But Murphy doesn't seem to have much to gain from lying (she's not, for the cynics out there, promoting a book). And while alleged abusers shouldn't be presumed guilty until proven innocent, Murphy's ex doesn't seem to be facing criminal charges, nor is his name being dragged through the mud. On balance, it's a good thing that viewers are rushing to support her — they may be more willing to hear women in their own lives who come to them with similar scenarios.

LKL: Mary Murphy [CNN]
'Dance' Judge Murphy Says She Was Abused Wife [CNN]
Abuse And Raping In Her Marriage || Mary Murphy [SYTYCD] On Ellen DeGeneres Show [YouTube]
Exclusive: SYTYCD's Mary Murphy Reveals Shocking Story Of Abuse [US Weekly]

I want to be clear about some things up front. While I am familiar with the plot and premise of the book, I have not read Sapphire's Push, the book the film is based on, and I have not yet seen Precious. By next week, I will have done both.

However, I have been following the coverage of the film since Sundance, ever since Postbourgie contributor SLB wrote a post called "Reveling in Bleakness" detailing her personal feelings about the novel. Following the conversation on Postbourgie, and our conversation on Racialicious, I realized that a lot of what has been written isn't so much about the issues discussed in the film, but our perceptions of race, class, pathology, and stereotypes.

Claudia, a commenter at PostBourgie, neatly summarized quite a few of the reactions:

Has anyone else here read Percival Everett's Erasure?

If not, I highly recommend it. My understanding is that some of the satire and criticism in Everett's book were inspired by Push. I am as undecided as many of the previous comments on the wisdom of bringing this work to the big screen. Generally, though, I tend to side with Everett's view in questioning who exactly benefits from such deeply painful cautionary tales of black life. We most definitely shouldn't shy away from black hardship and the real-life stories of suffering. But I wonder if novels like Push, that offer an almost hyper-real simulation of reality – what do they ultimately achieve?

Ironically, I remember back when folks had some of the same issues with the film version of The Color Purple, and I am a huge admirer of the book and the movie. So I probably need to think this through a little more (smile).

Lola, commenting at Racialicious, simply wrote:

I can't read things like this. They hurt to much, it is too personal.

The conversation, however, quickly took a familiar turn. How do we articulate our personal truth if our words and lives are filtered, pushed through a majority lens, and regurgitated as stereotypes?

cocomala:

yes, but why it then that our media is so obsessed with the negative portrayals of black women and men? why should this story get the greenlight?

where are the counterbalancing roles in movies starring black women who achieve success and satisfaction due to community/ parental guidance, love and care? where are any movies starring black women in positive roles this year? Okay, Cadillac Records, um Good Hair is coming out… oh, The Secret Life of Bees…anything else? …maybe The Family that Preys…

atlasien:

In a lot of movies, I think black women's suffering is pushed off to the sidelines or used just to underline the experience of a white heroine. So I can see how a movie where that suffering is made absolutely central and really extreme could possibly represent a welcome break from a stereotype… even if it's also incredibly depressing.

yesand...:

I don't know if I'm as worried about it being sanitized as I am about it black suffering being fetishized by a white audience, due to this "white guilt" that is (apparently) providing all the "hope" (money) to get these stories to the mainstream. [...]

For the black community, these kinds of narratives are for feeling a sense of collective struggle, a sense of identification in a world that seems hopeless. For (privileged) whites, it's about living the fantasy of a "just world" that is independent of their behavior, which alleviates their guilt and justifies passivity and the status quo. This is why I am not so happy about all of this paternalistic coziness with the "black" struggle all of a sudden. It reeks of fetish, it reeks of self-serving smugness. It doesn't really look like understanding to me.

Rchoudh:

While it's good to show both negative and positive descriptions of life within all communities, American films have a tendency to show both positive and negative descriptions of white American life. For every depressing story about white America you have in films like Revolutionary Road, you get many more fun-filled humorous stories in rom-coms like He's just not that into you and so forth. There's no such balance like this when it comes to stories depicting POC characters. While you have an overwhelming number of negative descriptions you have a dearth of positive descriptions where POC's play the main characters and where their positive stories become crossover successes with all audiences, whites included. I think that's why I'm reluctant to see yet another depressing movie starring POC's.

Browne:

Of course this is going to get funded. It's poverty, racially charged porn.

People watch these movies and it makes it seem that everyone who is poor has these insanely horrible lives and the poverty is owing only to these horrible parents and a horrible unsupportive community.

It's too damn easy.

I would like to see the character who plays Precious being cast as a normal teenager. That would be ground breaking, this is not groundbreaking from what I've seen. I know what's it is going to be and I don't look forward to it.

It's not about me wanting something to be positive, but I don't want my race to be used to make a point. While this is a movie about class, no one is going to see it that way it's going to be seen as a slice of black life and that's why I don' t like it.

Ultimately, there were some 130 comments debating the film.

I'll be curious to see what people say in the comments on the NY Times' website. Reading through the paper's new Sunday Magazine cover story, "The Audacity of Precious," my feeling of discomfort grew and grew. By the end of the six page feature, I started to feel that the writer, Lynn Hirschberg, was less interested in talking about a movie and more interested in observing the interesting "other." How did I know that this sentence...

He was dressed unremarkably in a loose, untucked shirt and slouchy khaki pants, but his hair, an electric corona of six-inch fusilli-like spirals, demanded notice.

...would lead to this one?

"I decided I should cut my hair," Daniels said, running his hand over his closely cropped head. The dreadlocks were gone. Daniels no longer looks like a wild child, but older, more sober.

Or phrases like:

Yet the movie is not neutral on the subject of race and the prejudices that swirl around it, even in the supposedly postracial age of Obama.

And:

Like the Jewish immigrants who created the movie business in Hollywood, Daniels has the will and the perspective of an outsider.

This one was particularly interesting, as Lee Daniel's isn't quite an outsider. He's been working in the business since 1983, and his former partner and father of his children is Billy Hopkins, an A-list casting director. Perhaps Daniels still feels like an outsider, but from reading the full piece, I feel like the writer was trying to play up as many differences as she could, providing a voyeuristic view of Daniels and the film's other main players.

Both Daniels and actress/comedian Mo'Nique say that part of them gravitated to the film because of their own histories with abuse by family members. (Also, despite prominently displaying the other lead actress, Gabourey Sidibe, on the cover, the article barely mentions her.) When the NYT's Hirshberg asks Mo'Nique to discuss the part, she responds:

In part, Mo'Nique was intrigued by the role of Mary Jones because, she says, she was abused by a brother when she was a young girl. The abuse supposedly began when Mo'Nique was 7 and continued for four years. "We wanted people to see the illness," Mo'Nique explained. "Lee said, be a monster. And my brother was that monster to me. When Lee said, ‘Action,' that's who I became."

However, there isn't much discussion about the issues of literacy, obesity, incest, HIV/AIDS or Down's Syndrome in the article. Abuse only merits three small paragraphs. While Precious puts forth an array of issues, these are not engaged with by the reviewers. Is it because of the heaviness of the subject matter? Perhaps. But I find it interesting that I have seen more discussion of Mariah Carey appearing without make-up than any discussion of the underlying issues in the film. However, in the NYT piece, the director, Lee Daniels, makes a lot of interesting admissions:

"As African-Americans, we are in an interesting place," Daniels said. "Obama's the president, and we want to aspire to that. But part of aspiring is disassociating from the face of Precious. To be honest, I was embarrassed to show this movie at Cannes. I didn't want to exploit black people. And I wasn't sure I wanted white French people to see our world." He paused. "But because of Obama, it's now O.K. to be black. I can share that voice. I don't have to lie. I'm proud of where I come from. And I wear it like a shield. ‘Precious' is part of that."

"I am so used to having two faces," he said, as if to explain his theatrical shifts in mood. "A face that I had for black America and a face for white America. When Obama became president, I lost both faces. Now I only have one face. But old habits die hard, and sometimes I can't remember who I'm supposed to be."

"I knew killers. My uncle, who took care of me, murdered people, and yet he took care of me too. People who have gone to jail for murder are also human. Black people are not all saints."

"My sister was an obese crack addict," Daniels said. "She had a chicken wing in one hand and a crack pipe in the other, and yet she had a line of white men waiting for her.

"Even the most evil person was somebody's baby at one time. And that's where life is lived. I've never been that comfortable with black and white."

To be honest, I'm not quite sure what to make of Lee Daniels, with the multiple references to Obama and the chicken/crack pipe comment. I started to get the impression from the article that he believes he is representing blackness - and from the readers comments at Racialicious and Postbourgie, this is the epitome of what many do not want the audience to walk away with. Also, Daniels comments seem to reveal a lot of personal shame and struggle wrapped up in race, so much so that discussions of class or cycles of poverty and abuse were completely overshadowed.

Is the goal here to tell a story? To illuminate systemic issues? Or to put forth a new view on blackness?

I am not sure, and I don't think I will ever be. Movies are subjective things, and are highly subject to the viewers interpretation. So even if Daniels' intended the movie to be a portrait of black like that isn't part of the "Huxtable/Cosby world," is that how the audience will interpret it?

Still, I look forward to seeing the film, and this statement, also from Daniels, explains why:

People read so much into ‘Precious.' But at the end, it's just this girl, and she's trying to live. I know this chick. You know her. But we just choose not to know her."

Precious [Official Site]
The Audacity Of Precious [NY Times]
Reveling In Bleakness. [Postbourgie]
Reveling In Bleakness [Racialicious]

As some have pointed out, the song itself kind of sucks. My main problem with it is that it's boring — I found it tedious to listen multiple times in order to decipher the lyrics. When I did — with help from Alyssa Rosenberg and Just Jared, I was a little disturbed.

The song basically describes a woman playing Russian roulette with a man who's apparently an old hand at the game and eggs her on. Rihanna sings,

And you can see my heart beating
You can see it through my chest
And I'm terrified but I'm not leaving
Know that I must pass this test
So just pull the trigger

Say a prayer to yourself
He says close your eyes
Sometimes it helps
And then I get a scary thought
That he's here means he's never lost

Another creepy couplet goes like this:

So many won't get the chance to say goodbye
But it's too late too pick up the value of my life

Rosenberg was just as creeped out as I was, if not more so. She writes, "the lyrics literally are about the singer undervaluing her own life, and treating the terror she's experiencing as a test she has to pass, presumably to win the love of the guy she's playing with." She adds,

I do understand that it's extremely difficult to leave an abusive relationship, and I respect that. But I thought it would have been terrific for someone to overcome such a relationship in public. Instead, Rihanna is using a song about embracing being terrorized as her comeback single.

I agree that this doesn't seem like the best choice for Rihanna's comeback. As Perez Hilton points out (I think that's the first time I've used that phrase), she didn't write or produce the single, but she did approve it, as she presumably approved the off-putting barbed-wire-wrapped image of her that accompanies it. And it's a little upsetting that, given her history, she'd decide to sing about a woman who risks death — with someone who, the song implies, has killed before and will again — in order to "pass a test."

On the other hand, "Russian Roulette" doesn't excuse violence so much as it portrays someone who feels she can't escape it. And, as Rosenberg points out, this feeling is a reality for many abuse victims. This doesn't makes it less creepy, and the song isn't one I'd want my kids singing in the car, if I had kids or a car. At the same time, lots of female artists sing about bad men, fucked-up situations, and doing things that put them in danger. Rihanna's very public assault shouldn't force her to choose only the most empowering topics, and it's not her responsibility as a pop star to discourage abuse. What I'm actually most worried about is her label's thinking on this song. If she truly had free choice that's one thing — but if anyone pushed a domestic violence victim to record a comeback song about gunplay, that's something to get angry about.

Image via Just Jared.

Rihanna Underwhelms With New "Comeback" Single! [Perez Hilton]
Is Rihanna's New Single A Defense Of Staying In A Violent Relationship? [Alyssa Rosenberg]
Rihanna - ‘Russian Roulette' Lyrics [Just Jared]

Sara Olkon of the LA Times tells the story of Kathy Cleaves-Milan, who called the police when her boyfriend threatened her and her daughter with a gun. Soon she'd been evicted from her Chicago apartment because a crime was committed there, even though she was the victim and not the perpetrator. She's now suing Aimco, the company that owned her complex, for discrimination. Aimco spokeswoman Cindy Duffy says, "As the safety of our residents is our top priority, we have a zero-tolerance policy for any criminal activity at our communities." She adds that "if there is an arrest or a violation, all of the occupants on that lease are subject to eviction," and that "the basis for that eviction was the fact the violence had occurred." But, somewhat inconsistently, she also claims that the reason Cleaves-Milan left was that she couldn't pay her rent without her boyfriend's help, an allegation Cleaves-Milan denies. Duffy said, "it certainly wasn't our attempt to penalize her in any way for her situation," but that's exactly what the company did.

According to Olkon, federal law protects public housing residents from being evicted because of violence, and some states have enacted laws to protect the housing of domestic abuse victims, but no across-the-board protection for these victims exists — yet another reason for them not to speak out. Complicating the abuse picture further is the status of people who know about it but don't speak up. Feministe pointed us to the story of Fannie Schwartz, an Amish woman charged with failing to report her husband Johnny's sexual abuse of two teenage girls. Coverage of the case is a little confusing — prosecutor Danette Padgett says that though Schwartz didn't go to the police, she "did, at different points in time, report it to the church and the church took care of that situation, in their opinion." But according to another statement in the case, she "said it wasn't bothering her like it should have been." If convicted, she could serve several years in prison.

Feministe links Schwartz's case to a recent Times article on sexual abuse within Orthodox Jewish communities. In that article, some members of these communities expressed the fear that trying to handle abuse accusations internally protected criminals and allowed them to hurt more victims. And the fact that Fannie Schwartz had to go to church elders "at different points in time" suggests that they weren't effective at stopping the abuse the first time. Clearly religious communities aren't always capable of protecting their own, and those who conceal an abuser's actions deserve to face consequences. But Jill of Feministe handily sums up the complexities of Schwartz's case:

[I]t's rare to see criminal charges brought against non-abusers who knew about the abuse and didn't interfere. Again, I don't think it's wrong to prosecute those who aid and abet abuse; I just wonder where we draw the line when it comes to knowing about and ignoring abuse, and how much we factor in obligation to the abused (i.e., in my opinion, it matters more if the person doing the ignoring had some degree of responsibility for the abused - a teacher, a doctor, a parent, etc), and the relative power of the abuser over the person who knew and did nothing.

The power of the abuser is an important concern here — someone who molests two teenage girls might well be capable of severely threatening his wife. And, says Sheriff Roye Cole, there are cultural issues at play in cases of abuse within the Amish community:

Do they even know they need to report it? Who's going to report it? And how do they report it? I don't think the Amish community's going to have a list of phone numbers so they know to call the hotline. They need to know how to help children when they need it.

This last line applies not just to the Amish, but to Orthodox Jewish communities as well, and really to anyone who's in a position to learn about child and domestic abuse. Both Schwartz's story and the Times piece reveal the need for better relationships between law enforcement and religious groups, and for these groups to create an atmosphere where it's easier for victims and those who know about abuse to come forward. As Cleaves-Milan's case makes clear, this remains difficult, whether you're a member of a religious minority or not. Many obstacles remain between reporting abuse and actually getting justice, and if our legal system is serious about reducing domestic violence and sexual assault, it needs to eliminate these obstacles.

Image via LA Times.

Domestic-Abuse Victim Says She Was Evicted For Reporting Crime [LA Times]
Amish Wife Is Accused Of Not Reporting Husband's Sexual Abuse Of Girls [KY3.com]
Amish Wife Accused Of Not Reporting Sex Abuse [Feministe]
Orthodox Jews Rely More On Sex Abuse Prosecution [NYT]

The Guardian's Julie Bindel (no stranger to Jezebel) writes that while British men who kill their wives often use the defense of "provocation" to reduce their sentences to manslaughter, women who kill abusive husbands or boyfriend are often convicted of murder. She contrasts the case of Sara Thornton, who killed her husband after he repeatedly beat her, with that of Joseph McGrail, who kicked his common-law wife to death. A judge in Thornton's case said she should have "walked out or gone upstairs" instead of killing her husband; she was sentenced to life in prison. The judge in McGrail case, meanwhile, expressed "every sympathy" for him, and said his wife "would have tried the patience of a saint." He got a two-year suspended sentence.

Bindel writes,

For men who kill their partners, the defence of provocation is tailor-made. Provocation will reduce a charge of murder to manslaughter if the defendant can show that things were said or done to provoke them, causing them to experience a sudden loss of control. In such cases they will often justify their actions by claiming that they "just snapped" or "saw red". Judges have been known to express sympathy for men who claim they were nagged or cheated on by female partners, but often appear to have little for women who kill after being raped by their partners or experiencing domestic violence. This tends to be because when women who are being regularly beaten by their partners kill, their dominant emotions are usually fear or despair - not exactly a sudden, explosive "loss of self-control".

Judges may be more sympathetic to male killers because they see their anger at more justified, or because violent outbursts are more accepted from men than for women. But Bindel implicitly buys into double standard by writing that women's "dominant emotions are usually fear or despair." Society may expect the dominant emotions of abused women to be fear or despair, but that's a stereotype — one that may cause judges and juries to treat women more harshly when they do turn angry or violent. Killing an abuser obviously isn't a good solution for anyone, but the idea that it's somehow more natural for men is deeply damaging.

The view that men are provoked and somehow forced to kill, while women should know better, jibes with recent research on perceptions of male and female responses. Women who get angry are seen as emotional, while men are assumed to be reacting to some outside stimulus. Bindel illustrates this upsetting dichotomy in her analysis of Thornton's case: "as the judge's comments made clear, little was known about what drives a battered woman to kill her abuser." Wouldn't that be abuse? If McGrail's wife's actions drove him to kill her, why couldn't the beatings Thornton received drive her? Again, murder is never justified, but why can the British courts explain it away for men but not for women?

The research on emotion implies that people see women as flighty and fragile, but the cases Bindel discusses bring up another stereotype: that women have a greater obligation to control their tempers than men do. Bindel mentions Alicia Crown, who killed her boyfriend in what she says was self-defense. Her lawyers argued that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from her boyfriend's abuse and from a difficult upbringing in Jamaica, but the jury rejected this defense, seeing her as "remarkably resilient." Domestic violence expert Marai Larasi comments, "In my experience black women are particularly susceptible to being viewed as 'strong', able to cope and somehow not vulnerable." In this case it wasn't Crown's fragility that got her in trouble, it was the assumption that she, a black woman, should be "strong enough" to take abuse and not fight back.

Kirsty Scamp was sentenced to 12 years in prison for killing her abusive boyfriend Jason Bull. Scamp worked in a home for adults with behavioral problems, and Bindel writes that "the judge commented to the jury that Scamp should have been able to tolerate Bull's erratic outbursts because of her experience at work." Again, the assumption is that women have the responsibility to "tolerate" abuse.

The cases of Thornton, McGrail, Crown, and Scamp show that the way we perceive men's and women's emotions can have a terrifying impact on people's lives. We see men's feelings as determined by outside factors — if someone "provokes" them, it's natural for them to respond with violence. Yet for some reason we don't think of women's anger as being triggered in this way. The assumption that women's emotions come from within — that women are simply "emotional" creatures — delegitimizes these emotions. When a woman gets angry, or when she turns violent, it's not because of something someone else did — it's because she didn't sufficiently control herself. This leads not only to unfair gender disparities in sentencing, but also to victim-blaming and indifference to domestic violence. Certainly murderers deserve justice, but so do abuse victims, and no one is going to get this justice until we stamp out the view that a man's anger is justified, while a woman's is somehow her own fault.

Driven To Kill [Guardian]

Earlier: Study: Women Are "Emotional," Men Are "Having A Bad Day"

[Manila, May 13. Image via Getty]

Local women who say they were used as sexual slaves by Japanese soldiers during World War II, commonly referred to as 'comfort women', hold a rally in front of the Malacanang Presidential Palace in Manila on May 13, 2009. Women's groups claimed the Philippine government continues to deny justice to female victims of foreign military sexual abuse, citing the abuses by Japanese soldiers in World War II and more recent cases of alleged rape involving visiting US soldiers, temportarily in the Philippines under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). AFP PHOTO / JAY DIRECTO (Photo credit should read JAY DIRECTO/AFP/Getty Images)