That is the UK version of the same scenario done last year here in the US. Complete with the same reactions. One unique US spin was the woman who — when interviewed later about why she didn’t intervene — responded “He did something to deserve it.”
You encounter right here (in a nutshell) the hypocrisy I so often refer to with “Oh no, we Ferengi aren’t against oppression. We just want to be the ones doing it.”
The current dogma about ‘violence’ in the US is untenable. Unfortunately, the narrative has resulted in legislation and careerism to not only support the dogma, but now people have a vested interest in perpetuating it. Throwing in another quote, this one from Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Flip that around and you have ‘when your salary depends on a particular doctrine, you’re going to promote that doctrine and protect your conclusions from being challenged by the facts.’
Here’s the current dogma: Violence is bad, men do violence, women and children are the victims of violence.
This doctrine is — believe it or not — extremist. It is also justifies the existence of noble crusaders whose job it is to protect women and children from violence. Does extreme abusive violence exist? Yes. Is it a behavior exclusive to only one section of society past a certain age? No. Are women just as capable of violence? Yes. Do women engage in violence less than men? Well…. that’s when things get a little tricky.
See I’ve always maintained that ‘violence never solved anything’ is an extremist and unsupportable contention. It is an absolute and over-generalization that arises from either a selective sample bias or deliberately lying for one’s ideals.
I give you all of this background to point out that either violence is wrong, no matter who is doing it OR we have to accept that sometimes violence is necessary/acceptable/ tolerable/the best answer and that we as a society seriously need to sit down and hash out what our standards are about it.
Otherwise you end up with the double standard that violence is wrong, but okay when women do it because…
Better known as the apologist two step. Or as is the case in our modern society, unjust and unequal enforcement of the law. See basically, with our system as it is, someone has to go to jail. Any and all violence is bad, mandatory arrest for ANY physical violence. Realistically, this rules out self-defense. But far more practical, if these laws were equally enforced our judicial system would collapse. There would simply be too many people in jail and prison — because EVERYBODY has to go to jail. As is, with someone has to go to jail, you cut the numbers down in half.
Now how do you justify selective enforcement? Call in the apologists! Call in the spindoctors! Call in the lobbyists! And most of all pump that narrative. An apologist — who tries to make the case that illegal assaults and domestic violence by women are okay because it’s less dangerous — is basically preaching sexism and that women are not accountable for their actions. More than that, they are finding justifications and rationalizations why violence is okay WHILE maintaining that violence is never okay.
See technically speaking who MIGHT cause more damage is irrelevant. If the act of physically assaulting someone is illegal, then it is illegal. If the conditions are such that the assault is likely to (not might, is likely to) cause serious damage, then the charge is increased. For example the difference between assault and aggravated assault/attempted murder. An assault isn’t not a crime because the person committing it is less likely to cause harm.
If somewhere along the line here you’re getting uncomfortable good. Because absolute and unquestionable standards are bad. It means either we engage in selective, specific group persecution (which runs up against other cherished ideals of equality and fairness) or we stop letting the extremists dictate the conversation and — as a society — decide what our standards for force use and intervention we can, and will, tolerate.