Tuesday, September 23, 2014

"I wonder what he did to prompt her to poison him?"

It doesn't always happen in elevators with cameras. "The most dangerous place for a woman in America is her own home." See the story of one of the bravest women I've ever know, Deanna Walters, from the documentary, "Private Violence," premiering on HBO, October 20, 2014.


Victim Blaming of Men is not only permissible, but laughable as well. American television's "CBS This Morning" just reported on Dr. Ana-Maria Gonzalez-Angulo, a well known breast cancer oncologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, who is accused of poisoning George Blumenschein, a doctor who researched and treated lung, head and neck cancers at the same hospital. The response of the female morning news anchors? "I wonder what he did to prompt her to poison him?" Then they laughed and joked about how he must have spurned her love. Can you imagine if a man had poisoned a woman and a male news anchor asked, "What did she do to prompt him to poison her?" Or beat her? Or kill her? This is not an isolated incident. I have personally experienced victim blaming. When people see the scar on my back, I explain that it is a wound from a set of keys being dragged across my skin by a female. With a smile, the first question they ask is, "what did you do?" They are asking what I did to deserve becoming a victim of violence. Why do we blame men for acts of assault and violence perpetrated against them, but rail against anyone who blames female victims?

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