So now Janay Rice is saying she’s pissed off at all these meddling people who got her husband kicked out of the NFL. She did a post on Instagram saying so:
I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I’m mourning the death of my closest friend. But to have to accept the fact that it’s reality is a nightmare in itself. No one knows the pain that the media & unwanted options from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing. To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass of for all his life just to gain ratings is horrific. THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don’t you all get. If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you’ve succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is! Ravensnation we love you!
Well, of course it has – that’s a lot of money thrown away.
Sorry, but it can’t be helped. The law can’t give big athletic guys an exemption so that they can keep drawing those big salaries for playing football, and football teams and their league absolutely should not turn a blind eye to domestic violence so that they can keep the talented players. Nope nope nope.
Imagine if it were their daughter he’d punched in the head – should the NFL just ignore that and try to cover it up when reporters ask about it? No it should not.
The guy did what he did. That’s not the public’s fault, it’s not journalism’s fault, it’s not his wife’s fault.
I worked with patients who had suffered from domestic assault for about 20 years. A system that requires people living in fear and isolation to initiate complaints is perverse. Being fired from the NFL should have been the least of his worries. He should have been cuffed and hauled off to jail on the basis of the camera footage alone.
For those with no experience with this crime, it may help to think of it like a religious cult of two. Brainwashing, threats and isolation, leave one individual at the complete mercy of the other. Lacking resources, social safety nets and often living with shattered self confidence, the notion of escape may seem impossible.
Ugh, she keeps saying “we”
I will say, though, that this situation has really been drug out in the public more than it needed to be. But, contrary to what she’s saying, the reason for this is largely due to the NFL largely ignoring the problem early on. If you look at a lot of the headlines today, most seem to be about the NFL fumbling (pun intended — couldn’t resist) this issue. Therefore, if the NFL hadn’t screwed up, we probably wouldn’t be hearing so much about it.
Why would a woman marry a man who punched her into unconsciousness? Evidently, I have been single all of my life because I am not violent enough!
OK, so this is bothering me.
The law will prosecute the man — my guess is that he’ll probably get some sort of probation plus community service. Which is what I assume most first-time domestic abuse cases that are actually prosecuted get. Jail time? I see that as unlikely, but given the high-profile nature of the case, not beyond the realm of possibility. Even though someone as high-profile as James Brown (the Godfather of Soul) was arrested more than once for domestic abuse and never went to prison for those offenses. Rehab yes, prison no. He went to prison for other crimes.
And that’s fine. The law is the law, and however the judicial system works, that’s what’s going to happen.
It’s this extra-judicial stuff that is bothering me. There appears to be this massive pile-on to say that since this guy committed this crime (yes, it’s quite clear that he did), therefore should never be allowed to work ever again in football.
If we did this to every domestic abuse case, we’d have millions of people permanently unemployed. Where does justice end and retribution begin? Why is it that we expect football players (or maybe professional athletes in general) to be “punished” extra-judicially when the average Joe would not be subjected to anything near the same kind of treatment?
Or even the unaverage Joe. Mike Tyson was imprisoned for rape — fought a bunch of fights after getting out of prison. Don’t know how many millions he made — but it was probably many. Sean Penn beat up Madonna — didn’t even cause a minor blip in his career. Chris Brown appears to be a very violent man in general, and not just against his then-girlfriend Rihanna — and yet he still makes records and they sell successfully. And on and on.
I’m not declaring myself a fan of Rice (I’m not), nor am I justifying his actions (far from it). Just wondering why all of this concentrated anger on him, as well as this expectation that his crime somehow obligates him to be unemployed and unemployable for the rest of his life.
Is it just because it’s football? Or is it because of the amount of money he makes doing that thing (for at most another year or so; because he’s no spring chicken in football terms)? If Donald Trump slapped his girlfriend/wife/consort around, would we be demanding that he never, ever, ever do real estate development ever again?
Seeing more than a little bit of a double standard here. One system for everyone else and another system for football players?
Note again that I’m NOT defending Rice. What he did was inexcusable.
(And now I assume I’ll be accused of something vile. For the record, the last time I struck anyone was in the 9th grade when I was attacked from behind by a bully and I defended myself.)
Oh f#*king hell! That poor woman has full-on Stockholm Syndrome.
I fear for her. I fear for any children she might have with that arsehole husband of hers.
I’ve known through six degrees of separation a young woman whose mother was just as devoted to her violent husband. The mother ended up a wreck on valium while hubby molested and raped her daughter and taught his son (her half-brother) to do likewise.
Now all the mother has left are her f#*king pills, since her husband and son are in prison and her daughter won’t speak a word to her anymore because not only did her mother never help her, but accused her of ” destroying the family”.
Human beings can be so f#*ked up…
@ Kevin Kehres : I have no trouble with Rice being sanctioned, I have a problem with Penn, Tyson, Brown etc. not being sanctioned. Why do people waste money and adulation on scumbags? Why do scumbags get to continue multi-million dollar careers when decent folk are barely scraping by? I’ve cleaned toilets for a living, I don’t see why Sean Penn can’t or shouldn’t. And I don’t buy that whole ” but he’s an aaaaartist, we cannot do without his super-special contribution to this world” crap. There are plenty (aspiring) writers, actors, sportsmen and musicians to go around, we can afford to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Kevin Kehres #5
The trouble is, there is already a double standard at play. if an ordinary Joe gets convicted of a domestic abuse charge, he has to take time off work and pay court costs and fines. That right there can put his job or his housing at risk. Add in even a fairly small prison sentence and he can probably kiss them both goodbye. But these kinds of costs can be borne by Rice without his batting an eyelash.
I don’t have an answer for how much punishment is the right amount in cases like these, but I think it’s pretty clear that a 2-game suspension would not cross the threshold into to punishment for Rice.
Another reason why we should make a big deal about Rice is that nobody can deny what he did. Famous people always have their supporters, so they can get away with stuff no ordinary person could. We need to show the world that celebrity shouldn’t be a free pass for a crime like this, and since we have a ‘smoking gun’ in this case we can’t be lenient with Rice or it will send the tired old message once again that it doesn’t really matter what you do to women if you are rich or powerful or popular. It’s unfortunate that men who commit heinous acts of DD without a camera watching will often continue to wriggle out of paying a price for it, but at least in this one case we should try to hold Rice to account.
I sent a serious question into the local sports radio station–does this happen or is it helped to happen by the fact that athletes rarely face serious consequences for their actions? Local university quarterback, with the help of a teammate, assaulted two people for daring to celebrate the Seahawks Super Bowl win in…Seattle. The QB, a Broncos fan, felt these peoples’ cheering was offensive enough that he assaulted two people, breaking a woman’s camera in the process. Teammate gets 2 counts of 4th degree assault and malicious mischief, QB gets charged with…nothing. His “punishment” was not getting to attend training camp and missing out on the first game of the season.
What kind of message does that send if not, “Do what you want without any consequences”? And that same mindset stays when they hit the NFL (or NBA or…). Same radio station was discussing Ray Rice (before he got tossed out) and people kept saying, “But he’s a Pro-Bowler!!”. What difference does that make? Peter King, a “respected” sportswriter says things like, “…regardless of what brought on Rice raising a hand to his fiancée.” He certainly sounds as if, “Well, hey. You know, who knows what his fiancee said to bring all this on.” The Steubenville High School rape case happens and people wag their heads, blaming the victim and talking about those “poor boys and how unfair it is to maybe ruin their chances at a football career”. Dear lord and butter there has to be consequences for these bozos, starting in Pop Warner league and all the way up.
Kevin Kehres, Rice won’t be prosecuted; he’s been accepted into a pretrial diversion program, and unless he’s managed to spend it all already, he’s not likely to be hurting for money because he’s already received a large chunk of his $35 million, 5-year contract up front. I posted a couple of links in the “Failure …” thread; here they are again:
http://www.baltimorebeatdown.com/2014/5/20/5735940/ray-rice-accepted-into-pretrial-diversion-program
http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/08/news/companies/ray-rice-contract/index.html
As for why there’s so much focus on this particular case, it’s merely the latest in a long line of them. Violent professional athletes, football players in particular, seem to have been in the news an awful lot lately, the commentary surrounding these events has typically laid most of the blame at the feet of the victims, and sports in general are touted as virtuous because they supposedly instill character and teach social skills, which seems to be less true than people would like it to be.
I’d also suggest that a lot of the outrage is simply a case of enough is enough: many of us are sick to death of this behaviour – which has been going on, largely unpunished, for millennia – and the excuses made for it, and the lack of any lasting change in attitudes. Surely it’s about time some noise was made about this? Attitudinal change at the cultural change takes a lot of effort; the discussion has to start somewhere.
If I hear one more variation of ‘she hit him first,’ ‘she’s responsible for what happened’, ‘she should have known better to provoke him’, ‘it’s not ok for women to be violent toward men either’ today I will just explode into tiny rage-y pieces. God damn.
Kevin,
If I had committed a crime that got my and my employers names in the news, repeatedly, I would indeed be fired. And unlikely to find a job in my field or industry.
@10 — Karen: I agree with you that “enough is enough”. But it’s one thing to have a “discussion” and it’s another thing to demand — as many people are doing — that Rice be made to serve as an “example”.
That’s not what our system of justice is built on. It’s about (in the abstract) equal justice — which means equivalent punishment. And since you point out that he’s definitely not going to prison for this — I’m just wondering why we need to take another pound of flesh.
Even agreeing that the NFL has a “code of conduct” agreement with its employees, and they have a right to suspend people under that agreement for infractions like drug abuse. Heck, one player went to prison for a gun offense (during which offense he shot his own leg), and got right back into the league afterwards.
@8 — It’s a fact that rich people have it better than poor people when it comes to interacting with the criminal justice system. I agree 100%. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the extra-judicial pile-on by the NFL, being egged on by practically everyone.
Friend of mine got her eye blackened by her husband. She came to my house for shelter. In exchange for not calling the cops, he agreed to go into counseling. What didn’t happen was him losing his job or any prospect of ever being able to work again. How does that help anyone? In any situation? Doesn’t.
There’s a difference between justice and vengeance. I think the line is being crossed.
AGAIN, not justifying or excusing what Rice did. (Just to make it clear.)
@12: And is that a profession that requires licensing? You can get your medical license revoked, you can be disbarred, etc. But a disbarred lawyer can still earn a living — in most states as a paralegal. If your medical (and nursing) license is revoked, you can still work in the field. Teaching, etc.
If YOU got fired today for doing something like this (not accusing, it’s a hypothetical), would you expect that you’d be forced into poverty for the rest of your life? Being a Wal-Mart greeter? If that?
When does it become overkill? No matter what the crime, a person has to have a chance to return to being a productive member of society. And when the judicial system seems to have already settled on a diversion program and not prison — why are we demanding this over-the-top extra-judicial punishment?
I don’t get the blood-lust.
Kevin,
If Rice had assaulted a stranger and knocked him unconscious, he would have been arrested and tried. I don’t if he would have gotten jail time or not. And would an employer want someone that violent around. Just because it is a girlfriend doesn’t make it less criminal
@ Kevin Kehres : So there are men who feel entitled to hurt,harm and abuse women because they feel like it WE are the ones with “blood-lust”?
Nobody is entitled to a wonderful perfect career, public adulation and a pony that farts rainbows. There are a lot of people whose lives have been derailed by decisions they didn’t know they made at fourteen.There are people whose lives have been derailed by what others have done to them and what they were powerless to stop. All those people are expected to carry on and f#*king deal. Why do you consider grown men such frail, sorry creatures that need to be coddled and spoiled?
@ Kevin Kehres
Doesn’t? Only if you don’t count that person’s victims among “anyone.” If people had to worry about a domestic abuse conviction hampering their employability, maybe they’d have some incentive to change their behavior.
Why exactly do we have to be satisfied with the justice system’s handling of it?
Kevin Kehres @13,
First of all, I get what you’re saying, and I don’t think you’re being an apologist here. It’s a fair question what the appropriate extra-judicial punishments are here.
But you are grossly overstating things when you talk about “any prospect of ever being able to work again.” Rice may not need to work again, so he may choose not to work again, but he’ll have plenty of opportunities for gainful employment over the rest of his life. Perhaps not as a professional football player (though it’s way too early to say that; the NFL’s suspension allows for the possibility of reinstatement), but that leaves millions of other jobs for him.
He won’t even have a criminal record. And if you think that negative publicity will still keep future employers from hiring him…. come on. Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist, and he gets cast in cameos in major Hollywood movies and praised for how funny he is. Benny Johnson was fired by Buzzfeed for plagiarism — a wrongdoing directly related to his job — and months later gets a prominent new job with National Review. Jonah Lehrer’s plagiarism scandal was barely a pause in his career, as he got a $20,000 speaking fee and another book contract within months.
If two years from now, some Division-III college hires Rice to be an assistant football coach, it’ll be a minor news item in the where-are-they-now file.
Of course, more likely, Rice will hire a smart publicist who will instruct him to enroll in “anger management” classes, latch on to some respected football elder statesman (my money is on him finding Jesus and getting Tony Dungy’s blessing), then do the Oprah/Barbara Walters forgiveness tour (or whoever’s filling their roles these days), and apply to the league for reinstatement. And the public anger that you’re so worried has gone too far now will have subsided so quickly that you’ll be probably be bothered by that!
Kevin, Rice will not have to go to trial, will not have to go to jail, won’t have a criminal record associated with this offense, gets to keep at least 15 million dollars (and quite possibly a lot more) and, while he’s been suspended indefinitely by the NFL, hasn’t been kicked out of the league (which suggests it’s entirely possible that after he completes the diversion program he’ll be picked up by another or even the same team from which he’s been fired), AND the general public believes his wife is to blame for the abuse he inflicted on her, and that SHE’S the sole author of HIS misfortune.
Kindly explain how any of this is taking “another pound of flesh”. If you’ve listened to his “apology”, you should be able to tell that he hasn’t taken responsibility for what he did, it’s all just something “unfortunate” that “happened” to “them”, making it all sound like little more than getting caught in the rain without an umbrella or missing a connecting flight.
Rice isn’t entitled to a multi-million dollar football career. I don’t think anyone’s saying he’s irredeemable – the legal route that he’s being allowed to take, diversion program, exemplifies that – but surely he has to provide some evidence that he’s learned a lesson, that he’s changed his behaviour, and why shouldn’t there be social consequences to his actions?
How about some comparison between Mr. Rice and Michael Vick? If you were a dog, would you defend Vick? I doubt it. Abuse takes many forms and should never be excused…..yet Vick was allowed to play football again.
Acitta,
No, you’ve been single because you’re a sexist asshole.
Well, we’re all talking to Kevin here, so I want to join in.
Athletes and movie stars and anyone else in a position that people admire and want to emulate should — must! — be knocked off their high status because WHAT THEY DID IS NOT ADMIRABLE.
That’s why it’s different from Joe Schmoe’s “debt to society.” Practically nobody cares about Schmoe. But people, including kids, want to emulate athletes. That’s why it is so necessary to say loud and clear, “Not these athletes.”
What a weird and irrational responses to a balanced comment.
Kevin Kehres is obviously not defending either of the two, but is concerned about the extra-judicial stuff.
It’s like I can never work again in pipefitting, because I beat up my husband.
That’s strange, to say the least.
I also think I understand his use of the word blood-lust and I seriously wonder whether resident_alien distorts this use deliberately or that s/he really doesn’t get it.
He was pretty clear: “There’s a difference between justice and vengeance. I think the line is being crossed.”
Seven of Mine, formerly piegasms comment gives a good summary of the hysterical reactions:
“Why exactly do we have to be satisfied with the justice system’s handling of it?”
Indeed, who needs laws if the streets can handle it…
@6, resident_alien: “Oh f#*king hell! That poor woman has full-on Stockholm Syndrome.” – mental health diagnoses of people you’ve never met on internet comment threads is not cool. Don’t do that.
@11 jenniferphilips: The fact she hit him first is one of the undisputed facts of this incident. If you truly don’t want to read about it, probably the best thing to do is just stop reading about this incident. Your call, ultimately.
@15 karmacat: if Rice had knocked a stranger unconscious then yes, he would likely be arrested and charged, or given some other milder sanction (in the UK it would be referred to as a “Caution”, no idea of US equivalent) which is what seems to have happened. The difference is, if the stranger had hit him first
(a) it would have been a mitigating factor in his defence and
(b) the police would have waited for the stranger to regain consciousness and then arrested and charged him, too. Being the loser of a physical fight you started is not a magic get-out clause that exempts you from the consequences. Although there does seem to be something of a double standard at work there…
@22: So you are saying there’s a double standard — one for football players and another for the rest of the world. Because “role model”. And because “making an example” of Rice will instantly solve all domestic abuse problems everywhere and always.
Got it.
@19: Rice’s suspension is without pay — and, of course being cut by his team costs him even more, because of the way NFL contracts are structured. So, he most definitely is being given an extra-judicial punishment over and above what he will receive from the courts, and probably on a dollar basis FAR more than anyone who has ever reached a similar plea in the history of pleas of this sort. Which is precisely my point. Whether anyone “deserves” to be a highly paid or a lowly paid employee is not the issue. Nor whether or not he was paid what he was owed according to the contract prior to this incident — that’s a red herring.
And as long as the issue of Michael Vick is brought up…Vick served prison time for dog fighting. He was suspended by the NFL after reaching a plea agreement, then reinstated immediately upon his release from prison. Total games missed — zero. Ray Rice is not even being charged with a crime as he is going into a diversion program. And there’s a permanent suspension? Yes, dogs are not people, and no one should suggest I’m equating the two. But according to the judicial system, the harm Vick caused to society is greater than the harm Rice caused to society. Objectively on the basis of the sentences each received/will receive.
And as to the question of the victim: what does she want? She wants to be left alone. And she doesn’t want her life or his to be ruined by this incident. Why are you diminishing her agency by demanding something on her behalf that she doesn’t herself demand?
Again, I have no problem criticizing Rice and no problem with the court system dealing with him. It’s this blood-lust over-the-top fury that has me puzzled. Why? Because it was videotaped? So the lesson really is to “take the stairs”? Because people would be way less upset over this if there were no video.
Not defending Rice nor his actions. Nor excusing his behavior in any way.
That’s all I’ll say.
Kevin, for a guy who’s not trying to defend Rice, you’re getting awfully heated about your position here, and not engaging in fair discussion.
For example,
Quixote never said that punishing Rice “will instantly solve all domestic abuse problems everywhere and always,” or anything remotely like it. I fail to see why you’re engaging in this kind of hyperbole. Quixote didn’t claim it, and surely you’re not claiming that this is the relevant standard? That we don’t take any action to punish someone unless it will instantly solve all such crimes everywhere and always? No point in jailing one murderer, then, unless it will stop all murders everywhere and forever!
As to the bit about “role models,” yes. The NFL has already taken it upon itself to enforce the off-field, not-strictly-related-to-employment behavior of its players, as has every professional sports league I can think of. Standard player contracts have morals clauses. The league has fined or suspended players for racist or other inappropriate comments on social media or elsewhere (e.g. Riley Cooper), and for criminal behavior that the criminal justice system declined to punish (e.g. Ben Roethlisberger).
None of us just woke up recently and decided to impose this “role model” higher standard on NFL players starting with Ray Rice. The NFL has imposed it on them for quite some time, and Commissioner Goodell made it a point of emphasis when he took the job. The NFL and other sports leagues market themselves, their athletes, and their sport generally based on its character-building properties. We’re just asking the league to be consistent and treat domestic violence like the violent crime it is.
The victim’s wishes are not the determining factor in most systems of justice. They can and should be taken into account, but they aren’t dispositive. The criminal justice system doesn’t require the victim’s permission or approval to prosecute someone (though it may be difficult as a practical matter to prosecute without cooperation). A school principal who declined to punish a bully because the victims said not to would be doing a poor job. An employer who kept a violent employee around just because the victim had forgiven him or her would be making a dumb decision.
Basically what you’re saying is, “why should the rest of us care if Janay Rice decides to stay with an abusive man?” I think society has an interest in punishing violent assholes without waiting for them to assault someone other than their partner, or for them to finally assault their partner in a way that the partner won’t forgive (or can’t, because they’re dead). And while I don’t pretend to understand the complex reasons why victims stay with their abusers, I don’t think that it’s the kind of decision that we need to give 100% deference to. I’m not a hard-core libertarian — I’m ok with a little “paternalism” in the form of punishing abusers without the abused’s sign-off.
I agree that the video probably shouldn’t make as much difference as it has. But we’re talking about human beings here, and there’s something visceral about images, and especially video, that provokes a stronger reaction.
But I think the more important factor here is that the video took away most of the excuses. Far too many people — including those in charge at the NFL and the Ravens — seemed to have more empathy for Ray than Janay. They saw the initial, post-elevator video, and immediately their minds turn to constructing scenarios under which Ray’s actions are justifiable or at least excusable in some way: “well, maybe she was viciously attacking him and he was just defending himself,” “well, maybe he just shoved her slightly and she lost her balance and hit her head,” “well, maybe she ran into his fist.”
It’s the same way that so many people reacted to the prospect of harassment policies at conferences by constructing scenarios where they were the accused harasser, or why referring to a man’s advances as “creepy” sets off all sorts of rationalizing among some people (“Maybe he’s just socially awkward!” “Maybe he has Asperger’s” “I bet she would have been fine with it if he looked like Tom Brady!”)
The inside the elevator video forced all of these people, who had been trying so hard to put themselves in Ray’s shoes, to ask themselves whether they could see themselves throwing that punch. And, as shitty as many people can be on domestic violence issues, most of them don’t really condone someone who is no physical danger just throwing a left hook to the jaw of a much smaller partner. So suddenly the speculation and the scenario-spinning screeched to a halt and almost everyone was forced to admit that, yeah, this was a barbaric act.
In addition, certain sports reporters (Peter King, Adam Shefter) passed along reports from “sources” that the league had seen the inside-the-elevator video and that it provided some mitigation that justified the league’s mild punishment of Rice. So suddenly people who were puzzled by the league’s decision but were trusting that the league had access to additional information that justified it, had their position cut out from under them.
So that’s why the video matters. For many people, it eliminated the doubt, the uncertainty, the gosh-who-knows-what-really-happened agnosticism and forced them to confront the cold hard facts that the rest of us were pretty confident in all along.
Golly gee, why are people mad at this thing which is merely the latest, most public iteration of a millenia-long pattern of violently repressing and abusing women? Such a mystery…
If we treated domestic abusers like criminals, we would have to accept that domestic assault is a crime. That’s why abusers don’t always lose their jobs, because, ultimately, we think that people who abuse their spouses are real criminals.
However, I can assure you that many people convicted of crimes lose their jobs. It is an acceptable justification for termination if the employer can show that the criminal conviction and/or public charge have adversely affected the reputation of the employer or has the ability to do so.
Of course, you might have a point there. The NFL’s reputation couldn’t possibly be worse than it is.
renet @ 23
Because being less than satisfied with the way something was handled by the justice system is totally the same as advocating vigilantism.
@ Kevin Kehres
There is video of this guy dragging his unconscious wife out of an elevator and dumping her on the floor. And people made excuses for him. They tied themselves in knots trying to find a way for it to be her own fault. It took video from inside the elevator showing him punching her to get people to finally, begrudgingly admit that OK, yeah I guess he really is the only one to blame.
As frustrating as it is for people to be as dismissive as they generally are about rape and abuse, it’s exponentially more infuriating when they have video evidence of it and that’s still not enough. He’s on video abusing his wife and he’s not being charged with a crime. What the fuck does it take for domestic abusers to be treated like the criminals they are? Of course people are incensed by that. Of course people are more angry about that than they would be if the circumstances were more ambiguous. Why should we not be angrier about Ray Rice being coddled in a situation that is as unambiguous as it’s possible to be than we would be about a situation where there is some room for doubt?
@29 Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm:
Not necessarily, but in this case it is.
renet @ 31
Bullshit.
@25 Kevin Kehres, you ask “Why are you diminishing her agency by demanding something on her behalf that she doesn’t herself demand? ” The answer is that the criminal law acts (in theory at least) in society’s name when behaviour is not acceptable irrespective of the victim’s expressed wishes. It is impossible for someone to agree legally to be assaulted, for instance, even if, for some reason, that is exactly what they want and they clearly say so.
Interesting that Accita’s question @4 “Why would a woman marry a man who punched her into unconsciousness?” get’s no traction here. Way too uncomfortable, I think.
@33
There’s a hashtag about it
What I meant to say:
there’s women writing on twitter on why they stayed with abusive partners (#whyistayed).
Speculating is … problematic