There was wide coverage last year on the Rihanna – Chris Brown domestic violence case. Of course some celebrities are always out of control but there was something special about this case. These were both top pop sensations with huge fan followings among teenage girls.
When news broke that Chris Brown had violently attacked Rihanna and injured her terribly, Chris Brown’s teenaged fans indignation was not directed at their idol. In survey after survey they were found to blame Rihanna for her audacity in accusing their favorite star of anything.
It was suggested by Oprah Winfrey that perhaps the Women’s Rights movement has a long way to go if teenagers could in this day and age speak about domestic violence in the same tone of ignorance that prevailed a hundred years ago; that perhaps young people need to be taught to ask, “What is domestic violence and how do I recognize it?”
Domestic violence is not a little harmless push or shove here and there that is built up into something huge. There are significant losses to the economy that arise from the amount of health care to treat the injuries resulting from domestic violence.
Significant numbers of workdays are lost recovering from injuries too. America was one of the first countries in the world to recognize and condemn domestic violence, going as far back as the 17th century in siding with women. The question, “What is domestic violence?” tends to get asked over and over again once every few years for fresh understanding in the context of the times.
The British movie Provoked, with Aishwarya Rai, shows how legal and social interpretations of domestic violence become more and more refined with time. In the movie, a vulnerable and uneducated Asian wife in Britain goes through years of terrible violence at the hands of her husband in the full view of her in-laws.
She snaps one day and sets her husband on fire while he sleeps in a drunken stupor. When she is tried and found guilty of murder. Women’s rights organizations around the nation rally around and change the laws: if a woman lives under sustained violence, and she kills her husband at a moment when she’s not in immediate danger, she can still be considered to have acted in self-defense, was how the change went. What is domestic violence is not an understanding that is set in stone, it evolves the way a society evolves.
Education and constant dialogue on the subject is crucial to an understanding of what domestic violence is. The question of why women continue to stay in violent situations with men is something that is a head scratcher even for experts on the subject. But these women are no fools as half of all men on death row today are there for killing their girlfriends or wives. There is a great deal of danger in leaving an abusive relationship and all women know it. The best the rest of society can do is to not judge them for what only they can know.