A REAL man never hits a woman. On Super Bowl Sunday, I was surprised to see "nice-guy" Travis Kelce snap, while getting in the face and screaming at his elderly head coach Andy Reid.
The man is 65-years-old, with a bad hip and having had knee replacements. If you watch the video, you can see Travis aggressively bumping into the elderly man, who stumbles backwards almost toppling to the ground.
Older people have brittle bones and coach Reid could have broken a hip or cracked his skull if he'd fallen and hit his head, or even worse.
During a post-game interview, coach Reid said it wasn't the first time Kelce had done this...
We were all shocked watching this, and the thought was spoken aloud; "If he'll lose control and do this on live TV in front of 100 million people, Is Taylor Swift safe? What happens if he snaps on her in the privacy of their home with no one watching?"
The original title of this piece was 'Why do Women Stay with Men that Abuse Them?' But after reflection, I decided to put the onus on THE MEN, where it rightfully belongs.
I come from a family of strong, independent women. In my culture (English western culture), I could not imagine a man hitting my mother, for instance. He simply wouldn't remain vertical anymore, as the men in the family would handle it.
My mother would likely poison his food or slit his throat while he slept. Nah, we're not having that in MY family!
I can still remember the ONE instance as a boy when we found out that my uncle was beating my aunt. All of the men went over, and uncle was given a good old-fashioned ass whooping! He was told if it happened again, his hands would be broken. It didn't, and they divorced soon afterwards.
We had a co-worker, a short and very intelligent Scottish-American woman. She told us of a 10-year marriage where her husband would hit her if he so much as heard the sound of her crunching food in her mouth.
So she had to chew slowly and drink lots of water.....
When she'd finally had enough and said she was leaving, he put her in a headlock with a gun to her head and threatened to kill her, her new boyfriend and himself.
She left. A few years later, after she found a new man, her Ex started worming his way back into her life. Flattered at the prospect of having TWO men competeing for her affections, she allowed her ex-cop husband to come over and hang out with her new beau.
They had dinners together and went on outings, with her being none the wiser.
On Thanksgiving day after her new boyfriend had filled his belly and was sitting on the couch, her Ex pulled out a gun, pointed it at him and demanded "Why are you dating my wife!"
She ran in the bedroom, slammed the door to call 911.
Shots rang out as the Ex killed both the new boyfriend, and then turned the gun on himself.
Turns out he'd planned the whole thing knowing the guy would be more vulnerable after eating such a huge meal, and to make a lasting statement on Thanksgiving.
To this day, the holiday has never been the same for her.
I don't think we realize how fully culture plays a part in the subjugation of women in society. As an American raised under ENGLISH culture, I consider men and women to be EQUAL.
When I lived in Germany, I'd often be approached by "men" from the Middle East and North Africa who wanted to learn about life in the US.
I always greeted both the husband and the wife because that's what you do. And I can still remember the Afghan man who asked me why I bothered to say hello to his wife because after all, she was "just a woman."
Horrified, I told the two-legged turd that she was a human just like him and deserved the same amount of respect as he did, and if he was going to live in America one day, he'd better get used to women being his equal.
There was a class in Germany where a Russian guy and a Ukrainian girl were dating (this was in 2017/18, before the conflict began). They both had partners back home, but it was clear they were both madly in love and that those relationships were over.
I used to always tease the Russian guy and tell him that I expected 10 children out of the relationship, it made him laugh wondering how he'd pay for it.
During a break in lessons, the instructor led the class in a fun discussion about relationships. Those in western and European nations shared how women were independent, when the Russian guy blurted out that in his country, a woman who spoke up to her husband would be beaten!
The entire classroom let out a loud gasp, and I was absolutely horrified. I asked him to look at the beautiful and amazing Ukrainian girl sitting next to him. "Would you actually hit her?"
I did this intentionally. Everyone's eyes were on him, and his girlfriend's icy stare seemed to bore right through him, and he backed down.
Crisis averted.
In our region, we have a heavy influx of Latinos from countries in Central America and South America (And NO, Central America is NOT a part of North America, which consists of the US and Canada. This is why Mexicans refer to an American as a "norteamericano"). Since their arrival thirty years ago, we've seen an explosion of domestic violence that was almost unknown before. We repeatedly hear of husbands and boyfriends threatening to kill their wives, their children, and then themselves.
I'll never forget the time when a Latino husband snatched the phone out of his wife's hand and threatened to kill her and the kids if he thought she might be talking to another man. She was clearly scared and handed the phone over for him to inspect.
On my blog, I shared about how I once saw an old friend from high school in the mall, who told me that she couldn't be seen saying hi to me because of her possessive husband.
What came to me were feelings of shock and sadness. The powerful and confident girl that I once knew, had now been reduced to living in fear of greeting an old friend.
In English (western), culture, a man who hits a woman is considered a coward. But she told me that in her culture (Latino), a man is expected to "keep his woman in line" and CONTROL both her and the kids.
And if that means beating and killing her, so be it. Being MACHO at all times trumps everything else.
We'd be in a retail store and see a man beating his wife. A few weeks later, she's holding hands with him as if nothing happened.
Un Fucking Real.
I've had some Latino men tell me that part of the control system is getting the girl pregnant as quickly as possible, we'll cover that in the following section.
When talking to women who stay with the men that abuse them, I found out that children are part of the reason they remain in an abusive relationship.
What they may not realize is that this is intentional and PLANNED on the part of the man.
I spoke to a room full of Latino men who explained the whole thing to me.
They said that getting the girl/woman pregnant as quickly as possible is part of the plan to control her. "Knocking her up" makes her HIS, and makes it very unlikely that she'll ever leave him. They shared accounts of using stealth to remove the condom during the early sex sessions. One guy said to me "Once she has my baby, where's she gonna go?"
And you know what? It seems to work.
In my conversations with Latinas, they mentioned that they were "staying for the children" time and time again. "If it wasn't for my kids, I would have left long ago."
So even though I think it's sad, I get it.
One of the things I found out about many of these relationships, is that the girl didn't know the guy was an abuser beforehand.
I was talking to my instructor in one of my Human Services classes about this very subject. He asked me how women could prevent themselves from being chained to a wife-beater. I said one thing they could do was to talk with the people who dated him in the past in order to find out what kind of person he was.
Was he possessive? Was he VIOLENT? Does he have control issues? Anger management problems? There are services out there that a woman can use to check a guy out before committing to have a relationship with him. Instructor said "You want the woman to perform a background check on the man?"
Absofuckinglutely!
If you're a woman, you need to know if this creep has ever so much as THREATENED a female, let alone, laid a hand on her.
You also have a responsibility not to expose any potential children produced from the relationship, to the horrors of an angry and violent boyfriend or spouse.
The kids don't deserve that, and neither do you.
Empower yourself. Make sure you know who you're dating, and who you're marrying. The life of yourself and your children could depend on it.
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