Posted by
KsReaganite on Monday, February 28, 2011 1:49:49 PM
The story about uber-manly Mel Gibson is, sadly, one of
several in a series of revelations about his erratic behavior.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/02/28/da-verge-charging-mel-gibson/
The greater point, however, is the fact that after all the
decades of trying to address the problem, we still find it socially tolerated,
if not accepted, that masculinity has an innate relationship with violence and
abuse. We are not talking about violence on behalf of the vulnerable or to save
a life or to defend one’s home. Domestic
violence is just about as unmanly and unmasculine as it can be: what kind of a
man hits someone less powerful or helpless? Well it is the kind of a man who
ain’t a man really. It starts with stuffed animals, progresses to smaller
garden animals, then to pets, and finally to women and children. The other day I saw a story about Arizona’s
infamous Senator Pearce having some choice DV background in his history which
didn’t particularly surprise me. The sad fact is that some men deal with stress
by hurting others while others go the route of Casablanca’s perpetually drunk but honorable Rick (Humphrey
Bogart).
The mix can be seen from miles away, though the victims
often don’t see it till it is too late to do any due diligence: good looks,
little or token formal education, bravado, uniform or overalls, barely concealed trash talk. After
forty years of trying, one has to wonder if it is a collective failure on our
part as a society to have been unable to impart such knowledge to so many
potential victims.