Rihanna and Thousands More: Ending Youth Dating Violence

Women tolerate this type of behavior because they are raised in a home and surroundings engulfed in violence and sex abuse and often no one is held accountable for it. They are shown little love, attention and guidance. I lay most of it at the doorstep of the parents.

1 in 5 btw the ages of 16-24 are raped:
1 in 3 teenage girls who date are concerned about their safety.

Agree we need to educate parents to this crisis, but we also need this to be part of our school curriculum! WE NEED AWARENESS!!!

And as video shows, our media needs an education.

This story and the stats indicating that 44% of teenagers feel that violence is a “normal” part of relationships makes me heartsick. It’s somewhat glib to say “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” But if we, as women and men, haven’t changed this mindset, we’ve not accomplished much.

Last night on Paulie’s show, someone mentioned and queried: where was Rev. Al Sharpton on the Rhianna case? Al Sharpton, so quick to point fingers at any sort of racially motivated wrong–where was “his” voice in a case of physical abuse. And where were the voices of other leaders from all sides and professions [Hollywood included] to condemn, call out and humiliate a violent offender?

That picture of this young woman’s face is God awful. But we cannot call out “just” the offender. Women, those who are abused, need to stand up and call this for what it is: an expression of absolute mysogyny. Too often, women back off, relent and forgive. It’s a losing, no-win position.

It’s easy to get incensed when a husband beheads his Muslim wife. I admit, I’ve done it. But we need to clean up our own house and school our sons [I have several] that this is never, never acceptable. I swear to God, I’d strangle [real or metaphorically] any of them if I found they were guilty of this.

Otherwise, we’re kissing the wind and the awful beat just goes on and on and on.

Strong essay, Amy!

Children must be told all through their life that if someone you are in a relationship with hits you – it’s over. You get out and you don’t go back.
It must be made clear at the beginning of a relationship and followed through. No ifs ands or buts. Some things in life are absolute and that’s one of them. If kids grow up understanding that, there is less likelihood of backsliding.

Amy, If you don’t already know of the activism of Jackson Katz and Jean Kilbourne, they are working to educate people about violence toward women with the goal of stopping it.

I heard Katz speak this spring. He is an anti-sexist male activist who repositions violence against women as a broader cultural issue, not just a women’s issue. He is the author of the book, “The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help”.

I know little about Jean Kilbourne, but have been told she has an impressive program as well.

I believe the involvement of the culture is vital, but I also believe women must unite and demand that such violence be taken seriously with sentences of jail time for the perpetrators.

Teenagers often experience violence in dating relationships. Statistics show that one in three teenagers has experienced violence in a dating relationship. In dating violence, one partner tries to maintain power and control over the other through abuse. Dating violence crosses all racial, economic and social lines. Most victims are young women, who are also at greater risk for serious injury. Young women need a dating safety plan.

http://www.acadv.org/dating.html

Bingo! They will not change not ever. I fund raise for women’s shelter and it is a fretful trend among young girls. The younger you reach them the better

HARP: You are so right a safety plan all women need one

but our media sucks

back in my day.this was unheard of.i blame the violent video games and other forms also that the youth of today is exposed to..
it must stop.

I think there should be separate school for girls and boys. At least this way they can concentrate on their school work instead of on each other. It would resolve a lots of problems.

In the weeks after hip-hop artist Chris Brown allegedly beat and strangled singer Rihanna, a stomach-turning phenomenon happened across America: acceptance.

This seems like an appropriate time to revisit a notorious popular song that was recorded in 1962 by The Crystals, called “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss). This song was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and Wikipedia reports

“Goffin and King wrote the song after discovering that singer Little Eva was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend. When they inquired why she tolerated such treatment, Eva replied, with complete sincerity, that her boyfriend’s actions were motivated by his love for her.

Here are some of the lyrics:

He hit me and it felt like a kiss
He hit me but it didn’t hurt me
He couldn’t stand to hear me say
That I’d been with someone new
And when I told him I had been untrue
He hit me and it felt like a kiss
He hit me and I knew he loved me
Cause if he didn’t care for me
I could have never made him mad
He hit me and I was glad
Baby won’t you stay…

It is most noteworthy that this song was produced and arranged by Phil Spector, now convicted of 2nd degree murder for killing a woman.

Target the adults, what are they teaching? Look at the media, look at the Olbermann/Musto attack on Perjean (spell?), look at Jamie Foxx(middle age male) and his sidekick Claudia (whatever) speak of teen Miley Cyrus calling her a little bitch and her need to make a sex tape with daddy, get chlamydia, etc.

What do we think girls are learning from these exchanges between adults? What do we think boys are learning about girls from these adults? The adults don’t care what effect they have on the young, they just care about having FUN and making the BUCKS.

Well, that’s telling, isn’t it oowawa? We’re quick to give lipservice to abhoring gender-based violence. But it really is a difficult battle when the popular culture is saying something else entirely.

“I got 99 problems but a bitch aint one.” Jay-Z

BO has grown quite fond of Jay-Z, not only playing his song as he entered the room after taking the Iowa caucus but borrowing his ‘brush of the shoulder’ move, after botching the Philadelphia debate against HRC. http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-adviser-calls-for-60000-80000-us-troops/74207/

Easy enough for these women of color to castigate the press, or extol the virtues of programs wherein teenage troops (of color) preach to the middle schoolers (of color), or pontificate we need a “new paradigm.” BUT WHAT IS REALLY COOL IS BEING LIKE THE ‘BLACK’ POTUS, who occupies the Oval Office notwithstanding that during the primary, on national t.v., he sneered to Senator Clinton on national t.v., “You’re likable enough,” and gave the former First Lady the finger. And the paradigm here and now has to be all about him.

I am in the schools, the urban schools, the inner city down and dirty schools every day, with native Muslims from Somalia covered head to foot – their vibrant faces are exposed – and Jehovah’s Witnesses from Haiti, and natural born Americans, all blaring hip hop on ipods audible desks away. These kids have ultra-sensitive bullshit detectors; I love that about them.

I make too may typos when I post mad.

Yes, Peggy Sue, Pop culture sure does spread these misogynistic ideas. It’s significant that when it came out in 1962, according to Wiki,

“Upon its initial release, “He Hit Me” received some airplay, but then there was a widespread protest of the song, with many concluding that the song was an endorsement of spousal abuse.[citation needed] The song soon became played only rarely on the radio . . .

If it came out nowadays, in the hip-hop culture, few would protest–just other rap-song. Ho-hum.

may = many (geesh!)

Jamie Foxx has a 14-year-old daughter.

Obama is just a thug (paradigm) in a suit. Unfortunately, the kids are being told to look up to just more of the same. Instead of pants falling off and cheap bling, they will dress in suits and still carry the flags of misogyny and corruption.

Sad.

I don’t blame every parent when this happens to a girl. I know many of these cases can be traced back to attitudes girls and boys got at home.

But…as an ex middle school and high school teacher, I could also point to many, many cases in which it was the peer pressure the peer culture that created the problem. Think about the fact that in many high schools such as the one I last taught in, there was basically about 1 adult to every 16 or 17 kids. But that is counting lunch ladies, janitors, teacher’s aides, secretaries, all adults. Most of the day, however, in the lives of these kids–in passing periods, lunch breaks, before and after school, etc.–there was no adult around. Parents were working; teens were on their own with the means to travel and go places where they could get in trouble.

Teens are master manipulators. Most can play “Eddie Haskell” very well, and many of the adults don’t see them enough to see through their masks.

I’m telling you that pack behavior exists in feral kids (which is what I call them since so many roam freely) as much as in feral dogs.

Raising nice boys and girls in our society is very, very hard when there are so many ways that adult influence can be undermined.

I was always astonished at the stories I would hear from my journalism kids about what really was going on with some of the popular kids whose parents, I could imagine, were busy composing their Christmas letters about the outstanding achievements of their children.

This is such Bull! I can tell you in a nut shell what went down. She got pissed about a text, she hit him and he hit her back. He was much stronger than she was. Do not use this case as the Poster Child for Abused Women! This is total bull crap. Again I am OBSP (Offcial Black Spokes person) and I know black folks and again this is bull.
Hell, I did not know who they were until this incident. Tina was abused, this women had as much or more access to money as he did. And, I believe that’s why most women who are abused dod not leave because of lack of financial support.
And by the way, I know abuse, I was a victim! Out of reach of family and friends and not resources. I speak to women on a weekly basis. This is not a case of abuse.

This is such Bull! I can tell you in a nut shell what went down. She got pissed about a text, she hit him and he hit her back. He was much stronger than she was. Do not use this case as the Poster Child for Abused Women! This is total bull crap. Again I am OBSP (Offcial Black Spokes person) and I know black folks and again this is bull.
Hell, I did not know who they were until this incident. Tina was abused, this women had as much or more access to money as he did. And, I believe that’s why most women who are abused dod not leave because of lack of financial support.
And by the way, I know abuse, I was a victim! Out of reach of family and friends and no resources. I speak to women on a weekly basis. This is not a case of abuse.

Nonsense.

Let’s look on the bright side of this acceptance of violence stuff, including a lot of posts here.

I say you should take every opportunity to point out to the children in your family just how crazy and stupid some people are in what they say and do.

If kids see that is your standard from a young age, they will become critical thinkers and not accept all the garbage that is in popular culture.

Hehe OK, the girls’ school will have all the college prep courses and sports, and the boys’ school will have remedial training, training for a trade job, and also clases on women’s herstory, fathering and nurturance.

separate but equal hahaha

What bullshit are they detecting….? Are you saying that they are detecting BO’s bullshit? Or are you saying that the violence and misogyny they’re hearing on their ipods – they detecting that bullshit…..?

Well, it’s something. If not abuse, what is it? It’s certainly not healthy, psychologically or medically. In my youth, in my time and place, boys didn’t even fight – let alone with girls – let alone girls fighting with other girls. I think there has been a huge uptick in the relationship (even friendship) violence that occurs in youth. Does it have anything to do with the middle class shrinking, and the working classes growing? I realize this singer must have money, but a lot depends on your upbringing, I think.

So DV has grown and is a serious issue, but now all types people (women, teenagers) are resorting to violence – well, it’s really “classing-down” our society – and what worse may come as these people become grownups?

I do realize that every generation thinks the last was stodgy and they want to be different. The 50s rock and roll era (think TV show “Happy Days”) was beginning when my parents were “rebelling”, the hippies were rebelling in the 60s, I had the opportunity to be a disco queen in the 70s. But all these generations of rebelling shared a happy outlook (the 60s encouraged drugs in that endeavor, but they were drugs to drop out and get inside their own heads, they weren’t about violence). Songs were about being in love.

I’m not counting acid rock, because it was fringe music and never the most popular. Maybe other eras had their own fringe music that was – well – anti-social. But much of the music now, instead of being happy and social – it turns the stomach of people like me – now it’s about killing cops, raping women, advocating violence, hating women in any way possible and definitely seeing them as objects. It’s all about anger, or more specifically, anger they don’t seem to want to work through. But the worst part is, where it once would have been “fringe” music, not heard that often, it is instead the most POPULAR, mainstream music.

When I realized that a fringe, anti-social type of music had become mainstream and popular, I knew something serious had changed in our country. It’s like all the kids have sunk down to the lowest common denominator – and love it! And yes, I ‘m one who feels such saturation with anti-social and violent themes will affect the kids’ moral compass.

you’re right; violence and every manner of destructive behavior has gained mainstream acceptance. god help america.

judging from the pictures, she received a little more than a self-defense blow or two. and while i’m certainly not an official black spokesperson. i’d venture to say that as many black men are financially dependent on women as the other way around, but the violence seems to be a whole lot more glorified when it’s a man beating the crap out of a woman than the other way around.

What can parents do when the “role models” presented by all types of media define our gender for us while they are unaware of their own objectification? Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears misbehavior makes it to prime time news and most certainly on the cable channels designed to attract young viewers. They are famous for no other reason and they are blissfully ignorant of being used and will be until one day the inevitably of time takes the only thing they have away from them. There is nothing new about Rihanna. There have always been those voices ready to blame the victims. I hope the New Agenda can evolve into a strong army of women whose message cannot be ignored.

obsp, the women speaking at the forum were not making this a racial issue because it is not. Nor is it an issue of economics. Abuse crosses every social boundary and women die. Thousands of women and children go to safe houses every year for protection and a new start. You are the obsp yet you seem unaware of the years slaves in this country suffered physical abuse without fighting back even though they may have been physically stronger because the problem is much more complex than your oversimplified view. Physical, mental and emotional abuse over a period of time destroy the will to fight back or leave.

I’m saying, verbalizing that boys need to respect girls and girls need to eschew disrespect, without castigating the reverse role modeling of the POTUS, is hypocritical. And the kids know this.

Do you think perhaps the lack of an adult male who is the one who tells the boys that it is NEVER acceptable to strike a girl is what is missing ?
The MEN were the people that set the rules for what wasn’t done around or to women, what wasn’t spoken or said to them, out of respect. No reason was ever needed, it was understood as a rule, due to differences, obvious differences that are accepted.
Nowadays, with “equality” rising – confusion exists, the adult male(s) is(are) too often missing or unable to lay down rule, or fail to.
If a young boy or young male was never impressed with the rule by an adult male that was respected, what is the result ?
Boys are often still expected to tussle or fight – or when they do it does not carry the same set of issues as this, and is less often a relationship problem (although that may be on the rise or at least heard of more often). Girls are now publicly talking about fighting eachother, often with vulgar phrases that are part of pop culture. It’s played as a joke or entertainment to hear one say what they will do to the other… often the “joke” becomes reality, with encouragement – it makes “equality” real.
Rules have changed, perceptions have changed, the delivery of those set rules has changed. There are other factors, and results, for instance the youtube fight videos, that often involve a group attack, many girls on 1, or 1 on 1 fighting with the crowd watching and encouraging it. Evidence.

Those separate schools are for the elite, (at least in Britain John Smith) – or were for the older generation who were taught respect from a young age.
I suspect nowadays, or rather see, that idea – well, you’ve been rebutted rather forcefully – (haha).
Yes, don’t spread those monied ideas around (religious schools too), very bad, very bigotted, we need everyone mixing and fighting like – as one said feral roving bands of animals. lol

I should perhaps mention a religious factor as well. Our most popular tradition there carried the expectation that girls or young women would not be struck – as religion is ridiculed and belitted in pop culture, it’s tenets are lost in the youth – add in the spin of Islamic law in nations, and ridicule or ignoring tradional religious ideas here is made easier.
I dare say as far as youthful dating – traditionally more often hidden as a general rule, and therefore quite discouraging of physical fighting that could show evidence of contact atfeer the fact, is also lowered. Condom distribution or even emphasis in schooling in a mixed gender enviroment and societally considered of utmost importance, instead of encouraging hidden relationships and therefore less fighting – has the opposite effect – making the realtionships more publicly acceptable especially at the interyouth level. The video notes “text stalking” from “boyfriends” (likely means ex or unwanted “boyfriends” / suitors).
So there are more relationships, more open, in the group and obvious to the adults – with the resultant deeper seriousness and “frustration and intensity” that goes along with it, with the sexualized culture “condom additions” as merely a single example. Hence, more abuse.
I seriously doubt anyone is wiling in the majority to go back to stifling, suffocating, non litigious, adults in charge, spankings accepted, “religious” like norms.
Well, there are consequences.

The kids have already grown up and raised the coming generation, so you’re a whole generation behind with that. That’s what we’re seeing, the last 15-20 years, with the parent or perhaps less often parents already cultured in accpetance of “changed values” now incapable of stopping the violence or imparting the morality to their children and society being as a whole becoming equally incapable.
One might take a trip down communist infiltration lane and their plans at this point – some famously read into the congressional record in 1963 for instance, and their former operatives claims the results they pushed for (yes, using media and spokespeople and the schools and position of authority as tools) have been spectacular and beyond their wildest dreams.
It’s on “autopilot” and is feeding upon itself.

I hate to be such a boor or a percieved troublemaker, but the idea of censoring that garbage – even discouraging it, or not buying advertising that promotes it – is considered way too right wing, a denial of human rights, Leiberman in character – or even outrageously racist, you fill in a half dozen other “movement” complaints that come from you know which party.
Yes, decisions have consequences – it’s so very unpopular to point out.
I’ll add since I haven’t seen it yet, the “male hatred” also used as an iconic mindset to further “sexual rights” and “equal rights” or “women’s rights” just might have a certain factor of the higher result in here.
I believe the seemingly less popular phrase was “war of the sexes”.
So in that, strange as it may seem, young males are taught that they may be viewed as a hated class – so here – “equality” is reached again, the horror that women experienced in their claim that as a group they were maltreated or “hated” by the opposite sex.
When a “movement” uses such concepts as a base for promulgating their redress of grievance, unintended consequences may arise ( I’m more than certain enemy forces of the USA like(d) this very much. )

Tom Cat: you would be exactly wrong. I know many young women (my own daughter included) who have been in physically abusive relationships even though they came from homes where they were valued as human beings and taught never to accept such treatment, and never witnessed such behavior.

This phenomenon is more likely tied to the pop culture of the younger generations. The younger generations of men are waaay more sexist and disrespectful of women that my (baby boomer) generation and the generations before us. It began with the Sexual Revolution of the sixties. Men started expecting sex on demand once Victorianism died and birth control appeared. Even in the sixties, if a guy took a date to dinner, he assumed he was entitled to sex. The violence followed.

Music, movies, books. Sending students from a violent ghetto culture into middle class public schools where those students had little defense against a violence they had no experience with. Instead of elevating white middle class people, bussing dragged all the younger generations down into a ghetto, gang mentality. I saw it first hand at my children’s schools. It all supplies the wrong message to young women. That’s why the younger women all fell at Obama’s feet: he’s black and completely misogynistic.

Unfortunately for so many women, excepting Rhianna of course, they discover they are in an abusive relationship after they have become financially dependent on the abuser. I had a friend who volunteered at a Women’s Shelter–a professional woman. She told me over coffee one day that she had little faith in programs offered to abused women at the shelter because she knew the underlying problem was money. If she had $100,000 dollars to hand any of these women, they would flee and their problems would be over.

Silicon Doc: I really wish people would not introduce religion into this issue and try to make the case that people who are religious are immune. If you could get hold of accurate statistics, you would see it is simply not true. We read stories of abusive patriarchs in religious settings frequently.

Recently we were in Texas at a legal gathering. We visited the offices of the local lawyers in attendance. I almost cried when I saw that one lawyer had posted pictures of the women and children involved in the polygamy case in TX. I knew that lawyer had tried to protect these victims and the court returned them to their abusers. Isn’t TX supposed to be one of the most Christian states in the union?

Actually, fundamentalists of every revealed religion are more prone to abuse toward their women and children because the Bible names men the head of the household and tells those men not to “spare the rod.”

I also believe religious men are more likely to act on emotion rather than logic and reason which might stay their hands. Religion is mainly emotion, since the revealed religions rely on supernatural phenomenon and not anything that can be logically proved.

John Smith: Amen. There is a vibrant movement toward that end.

Silicon Doc: I also don’t see how you can recommend spanking (hitting which often crosses over into beating) as a remedy. You hit your child from toddlerhood and say, “Now, don’t let anyone else hit you.” Spanking is the laziest form of discipline, for parents who only react when they get irritated instead of practicing consistent, positive discipline.

yeah since separate but equal has worked out so f#cking well in the past.

so I guess before women started attempting to gain equality they were treated ever so much better, huh? No violence against women, no rape, respect for our opinions, kumbaya for all.
you are dumber than dirt.

When a “movement” uses such concepts as a base for promulgating their redress of grievance, unintended consequences may arise
yeah, like getting the vote, asshat.

and don’t forget the women in our army:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46674

(an estimated 80% of sexual assaults/rapes go unreported).

“According to the DoD Report on Sexual Assault in the Military for Fiscal Year 2007, “There were 2,688 total reports of sexual assault involving Military Service Members,” of which “The Military Services completed a total of 1,955 criminal investigations on reports made during or prior to FY07.”

The criminal investigations yielded the shockingly low number of only 181 courts martial.
…

A 1995 study published in the Archives of Family Medicine found that 90 percent of female veterans from the 1991 U.S. attack on Iraq and earlier wars had been sexually harassed. A 2003 survey of women veterans from the period encompassing Vietnam and the 1991 Iraq attack, published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, found that 30 percent of the women soldiers said they were raped.

In 2004, a study of veterans from Vietnam and all wars since, published in the journal of Military Medicine, found that 71 percent of the women were sexually assaulted or raped while serving.”

sorry, should have said, “our military”

Elise,

I always enjoy reading your posts. They are articulate, insightful and on point. Thank you.

you said it, tek.

Nom, you know you’re talking to a guy who deep down has contempt for women when he claims that women have to “choose” between being treated equally and being treated decently/respectfully; if we want equal rights than we have to accept being treated like dirt. hmmm. as a woman, i have no problem treating men both decently and as my equal; it’s not that hard.

what silicondoc seems to be saying (and this is common thinking among the uber-religious) is that if men lose their superior status in society (and become the mere equals of women – gasp), “confusion” will result, and men will inevitable become very destructive and treat women very badly. sounds like the threats of some spoiled brats.

Any woman can become the victim of an abusive relationship. This is still a culture that blames the victim and shoots the messenger. The answer is educating women and men not to accept this type of behavior in a relationship and supporting women who want to leave an abusive relationship.