When "feminists" defend domestic violence

Whether or not the assault actually took place, the truly remarkable thing is that some voices in the feminist corner of the media have rushed either to defend it or to excuse it. The Daily Beast website ran a piece by culture correspondent Rebecca Dana under the title “The Year of Women Fighting Back,” asserting that if Elin Nordegren did attack her cheating husband with a golf club, she belongs in the company of other scorned or betrayed women who have stood up to their no-good men…

Of course differences in size and strength can be legitimately taken into consideration in cases of assault, regardless of gender or relationship. A small, slightly built person punching a taller, heavier, more muscular person is far less likely to do damage than the bigger person punching the smaller one. But the male advantage in size and strength can be neutralized by a woman’s use of weapons – such as golf clubs – and by the constraints inculcated in the vast majority of men against using force toward a woman, even in self-defense. To suggest that cultural complacency toward female-on-male violence should extend not only to slapping and shoving but to acts capable of causing serious injury is not only bizarre but offensive…

Imagine the response to someone who tried to argue for a more lenient attitude toward wife-beaters who use violence impulsively rather than for systematic control – or who suggested that, since most male violence in the home consists of shoving, grabbing, or slaps without injury, a husband who leaves his wife with a bruised and bloodied face should be left off the hook. That person would be promptly denounced as an apologist for abusers.