It says a lot about values in our society...

[partly]

Michael Vick is contemplating doing an announcement for PETA in order to appease the animal rights group. One of the conditions of Vick doing an advertisement for PETA would require the athlete to say that his involvement in animal abuse not only harmed his family, income and career but would also include the statement "and I'm going to go to jail, and you would, too."

Perhaps he should add: "So, instead, beat your girlfriends, date-rape your fans or kill your wives because you can buy your way out of jail time for those crimes."

I fear raising a daughter in a society where abuse of women draws less of an outrage than abuse of dogs.

Comments

[donnickcottage.livejournal.com]

I think it's only because it's unusual, and that makes it "sensational". I empathize with your argument, but I don't think there's a correlation. I'm big on wondering why women never notice the majority of violence in the world is against men, and demonstrate no feeling of injustice toward that cause. Similar reason I suppose only backward logic. Violence against men is no more uncommon than eating apples in the fall, so hardly anyone even notices, and I doubt they have since prehistoric times.

[partly.livejournal.com]

Good point; tunnel vision that comes from being a woman, I guess. Plus, it always irritates me that people can watch human suffering all day long with only a "Those things happen" and yet, when an animal is involved it brings outrage and indignation.

You're right about violence against men. If Vick would have beaten some guy half to death in a brawl, he might never have even been charged with more than a misdemeanor. I certainly doubt people would be vilifying him and I doubt he would even be off the team.

But you know, it's not only accepted as "natural" that men be the victim of crime, but that they are "naturally" inclined to be the perpetrators of it, too. It is something I have noticed (but never posted on) that when a woman is the instigator of domestic violence -- as in the murder/suicide of a mother and son up here recently -- the news talks of all the places she could have gone for help for whatever troubled her. When Brittany treats her children as toys and accessories, everyone assumes that she is "ill" because no woman could possibly be that callous. Yet when the same crime is committed by a man, everyone just shrugs and accepts it as "one of those things". It's an unfair -- and unrealistic -- distinction.

[donnickcottage.livejournal.com]

Yup, I agree. We've been conditioned to accept it from and toward men, as if we're all one person, and reject it from women, as if women aren't fallible creatures as well. All people have tunnel vision lass; that's much of the problem I think, People consider their own constituency first, and generally never move on from there because it's already too much to think about.