Forgive the poetic licence used in titling this piece ‘Woman
No Cry, Man Out Cry’ but I wish to highlight once more the different attitudes
regarding men and women accused of Domestic Violence offences.
When a man, celebrity or otherwise, is reported as being a
Domestic Violence perpetrator there is often a huge public outcry and rightly
so. However when a female is the assailant, a different attitude
prevails. In fact, most approaches seem
to project the reports in a jovial fashion.
I find this totally shocking because if you are the victim of abuse, it
doesn’t matter who your abuser is, it is not humorous or amusing.
This week has since a few more examples in the national
media. One is an actress who is
serialising her autobiography through media outlets. This actress is probably better known for the
paparazzi coverage given to her many
high-profile romances than her body of work.
Her beau’s include Jason Statham,
Billy Zane, Thom Evans, David McIntosh and Danny Capriani.
Kelly Brook admits to hitting ex-boyfriends Jason Statham
and Danny Capriani. In her account, she
justifies her actions by saying that she attacked English Rugby player Danny
Capriani after discovering that he was cheating on her. The general attitude towards this is “good
for you girl, the cheat deserved it and had it coming. Now, imagine for a moment that the roles was
reversed. If Mr. Capriani had struck Ms.
Brook and then claimed that he only did it in response to discovering
infidelity, would that make it acceptable?
Of course not, violence is never
acceptable and shouldn’t be acceptable under any circumstances. So why does society seem to think that a
woman hitting a man is acceptable when a man striking a woman in similar
circumstances is clearly not??
Ms Brook also admits to hitting hard-man movie actor Jason
Statham. She justifies this behaviour by
claiming this was because he made flirty comments about another actress while
with her. Again, reverse the genders and
would such action be tolerated? I think
not.
Ms Brook actually offers an insight into her behaviour when
she writes:
“ My earliest memory is of my mother throwing an iron down
the stairwell at my dad after he came back late from the pub.”
So the lesson she learnt from her parents was If you think your partner steps out of line,
you punish them with violence.
There should never be any excuse for violence towards
another person irrespective of gender,
race, religion, sexuality.
Why is it then when women are the perpetrators, we don’t
treat it with the contempt it deserves, but society continues to find the idea
of a female attacking a man rather amusing?
