We are constantly bombarded of the voices and tales of women who suffer abuse. We are led to victimize our fellow man, and we have bought into the bullshit that women being the aggressors in domestic violence is rare. We have stood by and let the courts awarded custody more often than not to the mother, when she might be an evil bitch and the worst thing possible for the child. Yes, it happens even here in the Caribbean, and in Jamaica. This mindset is a direct evil of the second wave of feminism, the McKinnon era, where every man was a rapist waiting to spring, and women could no wrong.

Male Victims of Domestic Violence
I remember when I was little, my mother telling me about the neighbors, and how the husband would do the chores around the house, right down to washing his wifes panty, and when they had arguments she would beat him with a pot. I was warned from an early age not to put up with such shenanigans, but I understand that not everyone had the benefit of such childhood teachings, and also that the stigma of saying that your wife beats you would make a man afraid to ask for help.
Thankfully, the veil is being lifted. Statistics now show that men in their 20’s are more likely to be the VICTIMS of domestic violence than women in their 20’s. Thankfully, there are organizations dedicated to archiving equal rights for men and women, and not just catering to women. Thankfully, a new wave of feminism has come, where equal rights are being sought, where responsibility is places on women where deserved, and where scientific methods rather than “womans intuition” are used when making claims. (Yes, some older feminists bashed the scientific method as being “masculine” and wanted to use intuition to solve things. Which is why when you read papers from that time, small biased sample pools are taken, and the results generalized based on ‘intuition’ which led to incorrect conclusions.)
The second important part of this post, which speaks to the villanization of men, and victimization of women, is personal responsibility. In the Caribbean we don’t have the same mindset as the Americans that just because a woman is drunk, she is incapable of consenting to sex. However, there are many among us who would think otherwise. It always leads me to ask two questions. 1- So assuming the man was drinking as well, can he then claim rape against her? And if it’s mutual rape, is it rape? And 2- How can one tell when someone crosses the line between having a drink, and having too many drinks? There is a large gray area inbetween. Thankfully the Courts in the UK have more common sense than the Americans, and have upheld the rights of adults to make personal choices, and also of the impossibility of designing a scheme to determine how drunk a person was. There is also a clear double standard, since one cannot use being drunk as a defence to crashing your car into the light post, or getting behind the wheel of the car in the first place. Why should it be a defence regarding consent to sex? The obvious exception exists where a person is passed out in which case they literally could give no consent.

Personal Responsibility
Further in the realm of personal responsibility, are dress and actions. How you carry yourself and the things you do speak to the world around you. You do not live in a bubble. While you have the legal right to do as you please, you should use your common sense to know that regardless of whether or not you have a right to do something, it doesn’t meant you should do it. e.g. walking along a lonely road at night just because you feel like going for a walk. Most women can instantly see why that would be a problem, and would advise against it. Yet when that same logic is applied to wearing overly revealing clothing, or leading a man on, it suddenly doesn’t make any sense. You have sites like THIS ONE trying to say that women are never to blame for anything that happens to them. While I won’t blame you, it doesn’t invalidate the point that you were being stupid and inappropriate. Taking an idealistic stance won’t stop anyone from raping you, are you going to tell the rapist that it’s your right to walk through the back roads in lingerie, and that will stop anything? Are you going to tell the rapist that it’s your right to tease him, follow him to a room, then suddenly change your mind? While in both situations you have a right not to be violated, common sense dictates that rights can only be enforced after the fact, and will not protect you. The right to life never protected the 2000+ people that are killed in Jamaica every year. Yes the harsh reality of life is personal responsibility, and when it comes to personal responsibility, prevention if better than cure. If you took your precautions and something bad happens, then there can be no blame, and there can only be sympathy. But if you act like a duck, and quack like a duck, you must be an idiot.