Man Down

Rihanna has a new song called 'Man Down'. In it, she grapples with her decision to kill a man. Violence is regularly glorified in music, yet this song is different. Rihanna seems to genuinely struggle with her decision and its consequences, making her song less like those of many of her hip-hop counterparts and more like the corresponding verses of Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

The video for this song has caused a great deal of controversy. It begins with the fatal shooting, then backtracks to the events leading up to it. The twist to the video is that the man Rihanna shoots is her rapist. Those condemning the video aren't complaining that sexual assault is too violent for a video, though the assault in this video isn't graphic. They are complaining that it's too violent for a woman to kill her attacker.

WRC doesn't condone the use of violence by anyone, yet we hear from several women every year who are forced to kill their batterers to escape the abuse. There are battered women's clemency projects across the country who work with these women to help them escape jail time and rebuild their lives. It is never a decision that a woman makes lightly and it is rarely one that they celebrate, other than to sigh in relief that the abuse is finally over. Taking a life shouldn't be easy and the women we talk to don't find it so. They grapple and struggle with their decisions, too. Yet in a country where domestic violence battery is a misdemeanor that often doesn't result in jail time, many women with truly violent partners can never feel safe while those partners are still alive. Most continue to try to live their lives while constantly looking over their shoulders. Others feel forced to take more drastic measures.

Conviction rates for sexual assault in many Caribbean nations are abysmal (about 1% of reported cases) and many of those islands are small. With her attacker free to roam, would Rihanna's character ever feel safe again?

The homicide in this video could easily be interpreted as a revenge killing, yet we don't think it is. Our work with women who have killed their partners emphasizes that it isn't a triumphant attempt at vigilante justice. It is a tragedy that affects a woman for the rest of her life, whether she ends up in jail or not. We don't think violence should be glorified, but we also don't think this video does that. It shows a hurt woman who makes a choice out of pain that hurts her even worse. She now has to flee her home and the community she clearly loves. The vibrant happy woman of yesterday has become the shell-shocked woman who today must leave everything behind. This video doesn't glorify violence, it just shows one realistic way that such an encounter might end, and how devastating a sexual assault and its consequences can be for a survivor.

The video also shows that women have a right to wear whatever they want, to go out dancing, to be sexual, and to walk alone at night without deserving to be raped. That is something that should definitely be praised, but is being overlooked fairly consistently amidst the controversy.

Finally, we have to remind our media friends again not to totalize Rihanna by her experience with dating violence. She did not ask to become a poster child for the violence against women movement and we should not reduce her to that by examining everything she does in the context of Chris Brown's famous assault on her. Because of her past, that gives her a powerful voice when she discusses violence against women, and it probably influences her to give issues of violence against women a prominent place in her art, but there is no one way that a survivor should act, and we shouldn't hold Rihanna up to some false standard that we have created. She deserves to move through her life without judgment as much as any other woman.

See also: Independence Day by Martina McBride or Good Bye Earl by the Dixie Chicks

We Hate The Way You Lie

On Friday morning, a WRC staff member was on CNN’s American Morning to discuss “the glamorization of domestic violence”, specifically in the context of Eminem’s new video featuring Rihanna. Because we couldn’t fit everything there is to say about the video in a time-limited interview, you get it here. If you haven’t seen the video, search “Love The Way You Lie” on Youtube. Done? Let’s get started.

Best-Case Scenario

The best-case scenario for this video is the one Eminem and Rihanna are promoting. Eminem just got out of rehab and has stated that he’s trying to make amends for the things he’s done wrong in his life. This album is called “Recovery” and the songs on it reflect that theme. Because he has a lengthy history of violence against women, he decides to write this song to give his fans a glimpse into the mind of a batterer. After all, he begins the song rapping, “I can't tell you what it really is. I can only tell you what it feels like.” He’s letting us know that this is how a batterer views an abusive relationship.

Viewed through that lens, the scenario is pretty realistic. A batterer doesn’t see himself using power and control. He thinks her temper is as bad as his. He sees her fighting back in self defense and thinks that she’s violent, too. He says he just snapped, but, when he tells her it won’t happen again, he knows he’s lying. He enjoys the heightened emotions, the “drama”, and the make-up sex (which she might enjoy or to which she might be too scared to say no). He assumes she likes it too, or else she wouldn’t be around. Still, he acknowledges that she has tried to leave him before, and, if she tries again, he’ll kill her.

We all know Eminem purposefully recruited Rihanna to sing his hook. She says that the experience was cathartic and that she was drawn to the lyrics. She plays the victim as the abuser sees her – a woman who likes it when he lies and likes it when he hurts her. We’re supposed to see Rihanna’s face and remember all of the victim blaming that we did even though we have graphic photos of her beaten almost beyond recognition. We’re supposed to be sickened by the thought that anyone could like that level of violence.

Rihanna also sings about the true #1 reason that women tell us they stay in abusive relationships - love.

Worst-Case Scenario

The worst-case scenario is that Eminem just made another song to add to his violent repertoire. How is this substantially different from the lyrics to Kim:

“Sit down b---h
If you move again I'll beat the s--t out of you
Don't make me wake this baby
She don't need to see what I'm about to do
Quit crying b---h, why do you always make me shout at you?”

“Come on we're going for a ride b---h
(No!)
Sit up front
(Well I can't just leave Hailie alone, what if she wakes up?)
We'll be right back
Well I will you'll be in the trunk”

Or ’97 Bonnie and Clyde:

“Oh where's mama? She's takin a little nap in the trunk
Oh that smell (whew!) da-da musta runned over a skunk
Now I know what you're thinkin - it's kind of late to go swimmin
But you know your mama, she's one of those type of women
that do crazy things, and if she don't get her way, she'll throw a fit
Don't play with da-da's toy knife, honey, let go of it (no!)
And don't look so upset, why you actin bashful?
Don't you wanna help da-da build a sand castle? (yeah!)
And mama said she wants to show how far she can float
And don't worry about that little boo-boo on her throat”

“There goes mama, spwashin in the wa-ta
No more fightin wit dad, no more restraining order
No more step-da-da, no more new brother”

Love the Way You Lie paints a picture of what relationships look like to guys like Eminem. Not just violent relationships, all relationships. They are always jealous, violent, dysfunctional, and destructive to those involved. Both parties are equally to blame. Sometimes she starts it, sometimes he starts it, but each has a horrible temper and the rage controls you both. Sometimes you hate it, but mostly you love it. The emotions are so heightened that being together feels like a high and the passion burns like the flames of a house fire. It’s the new version of a Harlequin romance, complete with sexy young stars. This may be domestic violence, but both parties are equally to blame. The video ends with them curled up peacefully beside one another in bed.

Most Probable Scenario

When it comes right down to it, the intent of this video doesn’t matter. You can say something that hurts someone, but saying that you didn’t mean to doesn’t erase their pain. The intent of this video may or may not have anything to do with how it is interpreted.

Most people, especially young people, will take this video at face value. Most people will draw on their own life experiences and what they have seen in the media as they interpret the song and the video. If this is the only type of romantic relationship you have seen, you won’t know that relationships can look different. If every man you loved has hit you, you won’t know that there are other ways to love. We’re told by popular culture that this is what relationships looks like. Equitable partnerships and mutual respect are boring. Watching this video is titillating. It’s exciting. This is what young people will strive for.

Men’s rights groups will tell us that this video is an accurate depiction of most domestic violence. They say that women are equally violent and that the violence in most relationships is mutual. For the moment, let’s assume that is true. Let’s assume that women aren’t fighting back in self defense, or that they aren’t starting fights because they are tired of waiting for him to snap and just want to get it over with. Let’s pretend for a moment that they are equally responsible for the violence. Some women might enjoy the heightened emotions. Some women might find appeal in the “love is suffering” meme. But never in this song does Rihanna threaten to kill anyone. Even if the slapping and pushing is mutual, Eminem takes it to a whole new level when he says that, if she tries to leave again, he’ll tie her to the bed and set the house on fire. Maybe she enjoyed things until that point, maybe she was equally violent until that point, but men were the killers in 97% of domestic violence fatalities in this state in the past five years. Women are much more likely to kill a partner in self defense

Speaking of women, did anyone notice how this post differs from most of the media surrounding this song? Yeah, we’ve barely mentioned Rihanna. That’s because Rihanna is an adult woman and, no matter her life experiences, she is allowed to make her own choices. She is allowed to participate in this song if she wants. So, instead, our comments focus on the project – the song and video as a whole. By critiquing the project, of course we are critiquing the involvement of everyone who participated. But Rihanna didn’t ask to be the posterchild for domestic violence, and we don’t believe that a survivor’s life should forever be filtered through the lens of domestic violence. We think everyone involved with this song is sending a bad message to those who listen to the song and/or watch the video. But we aren’t going to hold Rihanna to a different standard than anyone else. No one should have signed up for this one.

When Do Batterers Deserve Our Forgiveness?

AKA, another Chris Brown post. We've had several requests to comment on Chris Brown's emotional breakdown during his Michael Jackson tribute at the BET awards. Many people in the media and many of Brown's fans feel that he has been punished enough and that it's time for us to forgive. Many others think that Chris Brown has never truly apologized for his use of violence and that this is another carefully constructed ploy to revive his career. As always, WRC wants to defer to the experts. We want to know what survivors of domestic violence think.

Survivors are certainly not a monolithic group, and many will have differences of opinion, but when wondering if it's time for forgiveness, Ruth from Feministing, a survivor herself, writes:

On the last day of the US Social Forum, I ran into an old friend from a campaign I had worked on a few years back. I had seen her on the first day but bee-lined in the other direction. I was dodging her because the only Rose she had ever known was a woman who felt trapped in a domestically violent relationship. I have since left that relationship. Years have passed since then, but I am occasionally haunted by memories when I see an old friend from that era of my life and they ask me the dreaded question, "Are you still with him?"

Blood on my walls. Cops at my doors. Large scars on my back from being pushed on the floor. These are the things I remember with great sadness when my memory is triggered by an old friend's concern about my present well-being or the sighting of male aggressors of violence. These are the things that ran through my mind when the BET awards showcased Chris Brown, probably one of the most infamous batterers of our generation. And if Chris's presence alone on a stage that drew 7 million viewers isn't enough of a stab in the gut, Jermaine Jackson pressed the knife by claiming that it is Chris, in fact, who needs healing.

Ann Powers over at the LA Times also used language that disarmed me. Although Powers conceded that BET airing Chris Brown was problematic, she described Chris as someone who will "forever be in recovery." It's as if there has been a pandemic of amnesia and some among us have forgotten who the victim really is here.

America's conversation about Chris' conviction of felony assault has officially been shifted to the controversy at play in Chris' tears. Adding insult to injury were the stars and fans who have been caught on camera cheering on him, his performance and calling Sunday night's performance a comeback. I can't help but ask: what about us? What about the women who relive their experiences when a man is given a platform to imply that his pain is greater than the brutality he has inflicted on a woman's body? What about Rihanna? Where is the tribute for survivors and what has BET done to change the scourge of violence in Black women's lives?

I am thankful for the presence of male allies who have the courage to stand up and remind us that African-American women ages 15 to 34 die more from the violence of a current or former intimate partner than by anything else. Than By Anything Else. This makes BET's decision to air Chris a profound act of traitor-ship against women and girls. Plain and simple it was an irresponsible action taken by BET. And this can't be wanded away by Queen Latifah serving as a host and a two-sentence plug about Dorothy Height. BET owes African American girls and women so much more than a year grace period for one of the most remorseless batterers of our time.

If a victim wants to or can forgive her batterer as part of her own healing, that can often be a healing choice for her. But please stop asking us to forgive Chris Brown. We will continue to hold him, and Charlie Sheen, and Mel Gibson, and all other famous batterers accountable for the violence they inflict on their partners. There is certainly a place for forgiveness, but until these men start actively trying to undo the harm they've done by partnering with an organization like Men Stopping Violence, we can't take their apologies seriously. After all, using violence against a partner is supposed to harm your career. That's why they call it punishment.

Can We Leave Chris Brown Alone?

No. That's the answer to the question asked at CollegeCandy.com because, as much as we'd like to forget about him, people are still trying to make excuses for him and let him off the hook.

But this isn’t about him hitting her. He said he was sorry. He said it on TV, he said it online, he said it on the radio with songs like Crawl and Changed Man. He apologized to his fans, to his family and, most of all, to Rihanna. He let Larry King rake him over the coals. Both were seen together at Diddy’s house just days after the incident, yet, even after all of this, the media continued to berate only Brown. Both artists had scheduled tour dates they had to rearrange, both had new albums they’d been working on, both had fans that suffered.

So why does it seem like our culture can’t see through the publicity stunt that Rihanna used to sell her albums? She told Diane Swayer, “If I didn’t have little girls looking up to me, I’d have stayed with him.” Uh, really? She can say that, but we can’t let Chris Brown perform on GMA?

Lest we forget that a few weeks ago, when asked what she wanted for Thanksgiving, Rihanna said “Food and Sex.” Her new album seems to be following along the lines of Disturbia, with songs like Russian Roulette that have dark lyrics about death, love and sex. In another interview she said that her next boyfriend “better be well endowed, because size matters.”

Am I the only one who heard that? Are we missing something here?

Lately, it seems like we’re punishing the wrong person. [emphasis ours]

Now we come to the crux of the argument. Why isn't Rihanna being punished for being punched in the face?

Let's take a moment for that to sink in. Because that's really the question this poster and so many others making the same argument are asking. And to them, it doesn't sound ridiculous.

What they are also asking is why isn't Rihanna acting like we think a "victim" should.

• She should have put her career on hold. ["Both artists had scheduled tour dates they had to rearrange, both had new albums they’d been working on"]


• She definitely shouldn't talk truthfully about her experiences or set an example for other women. ["She can say that, but we can’t let Chris Brown perform on GMA?"]


• She certainly can't ever date again. ["In another interview she said that her next boyfriend 'better be well endowed, because size matters.' ... Are we missing something here?"]


• I get to tell her how to live her life, what she should do and who she should see, but I see absolutely no irony in the fact that I'm treating this woman like a batterer would. This includes thinking that she should be punished for violence inflicted upon her.

We applaud Rihanna for getting on with her life and are glad she has the resources to do so. She can get a new place to live. She can go on with her career without worrying about him showing up at work. She can hire a lawyer who will get a judge to listen to her. She can hire a therapist to help her heal emotionally. But instead, she's supposed to hide in her shame even though she committed no crime, while Chris Brown can go to a few anger management classes and expect his fans to rally for the resurgence of his career.

That's the part that sounds ridiculous to us.

Chris Brown Updates

We're a little late to the game on this one - Summer is a very busy time at WRC - but there has been a lot of recent Chris Brown news. We don't normally zero in on celebrities like this, but following the Brown case start to finish can really provide some insight into what abusive relationships looks like.

First off, after accepting a plea deal for no jail time, Brown was spotted at a party wearing a $300,000 custom-made diamond necklace reading "Oops". In light of that, his video apology rings kind of hollow. We're not the only ones who think so.

The obvious flaw in his apology is that you can't tell what he's apologizing for. He simply calls his brutal assault on Rihanna "the situation" or "what I've done". Anna at Jezebel provides a critique:

Brown says he's sorry about "those few moments," about "what I've done," about "the situation," about "what happened," and about "my mistake." Only once does he actually use the term "domestic violence," and this when he is mentioning the domestic violence that he witnessed growing up. Whether or not his apology is simply a calculated "ploy to encourage parents to let their children buy his records again," as entertainment.ie puts it, someone in Brown's camp clearly knows that if he said, "I'm sorry that I beat Rihanna," the apology would go down a lot less smoothly.

By going the vague route, Brown allows fans to forget the visceral reality of what he did — assaulting Rihanna until her face was swollen and bruised — and instead focus on all the nice things he says about his mother, his "spiritual advisors," and his commitment to change. By saying he's sorry he didn't "handle the situation better," he casts the beating as a response to a bad "situation" — and instance of poor conflict resolution, not of flying off the handle. And by implying there was something that needed to be "handled" in some way, this statement subtly implicates Rihanna too.

It seems that Oprah didn't buy it either. As promised in his apology video, Brown wanted to immediately begin doing interviews once his sentencing hearing was over. He wanted Oprah, but Oprah turned him down, so he turned to Larry King instead. His handlers believe that King will allow Chris the opportunity to get his apology across without facing “brutal questioning”.

But what does all this mean? Will Chris Brown stop being a batterer? Will his fans accept his apology and move on? No one knows, by Jaclyn Friedman at Huffington Post summarizes the implications of the sentencing, and of batterers intervention in general, nicely.

But what really may make the difference for Brown is a factor most programs sorely lack -- accountability. While all eyes will be on Brown as he completes his sentence, that's hardly the case for most abusers. In fact, few jurisdictions in the country have systems in place to enforce their own sentences when it comes to batterer intervention programs, resulting in a national noncompletion rate of about 50%. Given that abusers who fail to complete their court-mandated programs are more than twice as likely to reoffend than those who do, that's a gap which urgently needs addressing.

Go read Jaclyn's whole article. It makes some recommendations I'm sure that our friends at Men Stopping Violence would agree with.

Chris Brown Pleads Guilty - No Jail Time

According to CNN, Chris Brown accepted a deal with prosecutors in which he pled guilty to one count of assault with the intent of doing great bodily injury. In exchange for the guilty plea, Brown was sentenced to five years of probation and must serve 180 days in jail or the equivalent - about 1,400 hours - in "labor-oriented service." He must also undergo a year-long domestic-violence counseling class. The judge also issued a "stay away" order, requiring Brown to stay at least 50 yards away from Rihanna at all times - 10 yards if the two are at the same "industry event."

Some women's groups are outraged, while others are angry but not surprised.

"I was very surprised that he will get no jail time. Paris Hilton got jail time for heaven's sake. This man beat Rihanna to a bloody pulp and he's not going to spend a day in jail," said Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization of Women. It really tells you about the way that judges look at violence against women."

"The level of assault wasn't met with the same level of consequence," says Rita Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "It's not that Chris Brown didn't get more serious consequences. Most batterers don't get more serious consequences."

Smith feels it's reactions to first time offenses, like Brown's, that encourage repeat offenses. "The first time they show up in the justice system you don't say, 'This is a really horrible thing you've done and you have to stop it, this is not acceptable behavior.' We don't say it strongly enough."

Letter from a Black Male Feminist

In place of a post from us this week, please click through to this open letter to Chris Brown from the blog Diary of a Black Male Feminist.

Teens Blame Rihanna

Nearly half of the 200 Boston teenagers interviewed for an informal poll said that Chris Brown's assault on his girlfriend Rihanna was, in fact, Rihanna's fault.

Of the teens questioned, more than half said both Brown, 19, and Rihanna, 21, were equally responsible for the assault. More than half said the media were treating Brown unfairly, and 46 percent said Rihanna was responsible for the incident.

Now, this was not a scientific poll, but I guarantee that if we went next door to Decatur High School we'd hear the same thing. Oprah did, on her Thursday program on dating violence.

Unfortunately, we almost expect that attitude from the boys, but the vehemence with which teenage girls and grown women defended Chris Brown caught us by surprise. It shouldn't have, and Melissa from Shakesville calls us on it (warning, linked post contains adult language).

As if boys and girls grow up in a different culture. As if girls who are told they are less than over and over and over, in myriad ways, throughout their entire lives, who see rape and violence against women served up as the butt of jokes and consumable entertainment, are just going to spontaneously reject all of that and create an alternative viewpoint for themselves in which abuse against women is wrong. As if, in a culture that communicates to girls from birth that their worth is largely determined on their ability to "get a man," girls will spontaneously reject the narratives that excuse men's behavior and demonize their female victims. As if girls will spontaneously be self-reflective enough to identify they blame victims because they deeply fear being one, and because society defines victims as "weak," and we tell girls to be "strong." As if girls can just be brought up in a patriarchy and expected to spontaneously free themselves from its stranglehold.

Why do we expect that of girls, but not of boys? If you're arguing that it's perfectly logical that boys should condone violence against women, then you're essentially just arguing that boys are socialized by their culture. And if you're arguing that it's consternatingly inexplicable that girls should condone violence against women, then you're essentially arguing that girls should be magically resistant to their socialization. That's fair.

Where have we gone wrong with girls? The same place we've gone wrong with boys: Not providing them alternative narratives, that's where.

That's where the real anti-violence work lies, folks. That's how violence against women ends. Providing our children, male and female, with an alternative narrative, an alternative way to live their relationships than through violence, unequal power, and tactics of control.

Five Mistakes We Make

Props to Newsweek for a remarkably good article about Chris Brown's assault on Rhianna (by the way, notice how we put the blame on the abuser by framing him as the actor).

We've copied the article here in its entirety:

Last week, R&B singer Chris Brown was formally charged with two felonies, assault and making criminal threats, in connection with the alleged beating of his pop-star girlfriend Rihanna on Feb. 8. Though we will never know exactly what happened that night, many of us have seen Rihanna's bruised and bloodied face on the front pages and read horrific details of the alleged attack from the affidavit of a LAPD detective in which he describes contusions on the singer's body. At same time, rumors are that the 21-year-old singer is back in a relationship with Brown, whom she has accused, according to the affidavit, of biting, choking and punching her until her mouth filled with blood.

While we can argue about how much of all that is true, it really doesn't matter. This sad story doesn't have to be verifiable for it to potentially warp how Rihanna's hundreds of thousands of tween fans think about intimate relationships. We've all heard that this should be a "teachable moment"—a chance to talk about domestic violence with our kids. But children and teens aren't just listening to your lectures, they're listening to the way you speculate about the case with other adults; they're absorbing how the media describes it; they're reading gossip Web sites. When you tune into to all the talk about Rihanna and Chris Brown, it's scary how the same persistent domestic-violence myths continue to be perpetuated. Celebrity scandals may have a short shelf life, but what we teach kids about domestic violence will last forever. So rather than "raise awareness," here are five myths that anyone with a child should take time to debunk:

Myth No. 1: It was a domestic argument, and she provoked him
We need to remember that any discussion of domestic violence should not revolve around what the couple may have been arguing about, or as one CNN anchor put it: "the incident that sparked the fight." Nor should we be using the word "provoked" when describing this case, as in the Associated Press account that said the "argument" was "provoked" by Rihanna's "discovery of a text message from another woman." Domestic violence has to do with, well, physical violence, not arguments. There isn't a verbal argument that should "spark" or "provoke" an attack of the kind that leaves one person with wounds that require medical attention.

Cable news has to stop referring to this incident as a "violent fight." A "fight" involves two people hitting each other, not—as is alleged in this case—a woman cowering in a car while a man punches and bites her. If Rihanna had called the police beaten and bloodied and alleging an attack of this nature by a stranger, no one would be calling it a "fight." They'd say that a man was being accused of severely beating and choking a young woman half his size.

Myth No. 2: Evolution makes us do it
Steven Stosny, a counselor and founder of an organization that treats anger-management issues believes that the tragic tendency of women to return to the men who hurt them (battered-woman syndrome) is a product of evolution. Stosny was quoted on CNN.com as saying "To leave an attachment relationship—a relationship where there's an emotional bond—meant certain death by starvation or saber-tooth tiger."

Apologies to Mr. Stosny, but that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. This is the kind of argument that really boils my blood because it seems to naturalize the torture of women. Very little is known about the emotional attachments of early humans. And trust me, after 50,000 years, our fear of saber-tooth tigers has abated. In most domestic-abuse cases, we're talking about a situation where one person is wielding power over an individual through pain, fear and domination. It's not about being scared to leave because of the dangers that await you in the world, it's about being too scared of what's at home to leave.

Myth No. 3: People make mistakes. Give the guy a break
When singer Kanye West talked about the Rihanna-Brown case with his VH1 audience recently, he asked: "Can't we give Chris a break? ... I know I make mistakes in life." Kanye's not the only one saying this kind of thing, so let's get something straight: People leave the oven on or fry turkeys in the garage and burn their house down. One may even accidentally step on the gas instead of the brake and run over the family cat. Mistakes resulting in tragic consequences happen all the time. But one cannot mistakenly beat someone up. You do not accidentally give someone black eyes, a broken nose and a split lip.

Myth No. 4: Brown said he was sorry and they're working it out
Experts will tell you that domestic violence is an escalating series of attacks (not fights) designed to increase a victim's dependence on her abuser. According to the police documents released last week, Rihanna told police that Brown had hit her before and it was getting worse. Sorry means you don't do it again. In discussions about abuse, we need to make it clear that sorry is not enough.

Myth No. 5: She's young, rich and beautiful. If it was really as bad as the media says, she'd leave
The secret to the abuser's power is not only making his victim dependent on him, but convincing her that she is to blame for the attack. No amount of money or fame can protect someone from the terrible cycle of emotional dependence, shame and fear that keeps them with abusive partners. Women who are abused look for ways they may have "provoked" an attack, finding fault with their own behavior to explain the unexplainable—why would someone they love hurt them? And it doesn't help when people outside the relationship blame the victim. In this case, Phylicia Thompson, a cousin of Brown's, told "Extra TV" that, "Chris was not brought up to beat on a woman. So it had to be something to provoke him for Chris to do it." As the rumors swirl about whether Rihanna is back with Brown, understand that those who are abused do not stay with their abusers because they want to be beaten again, or because they are really at fault; it's usually because they feel trapped and guilty.

You may have noticed that the words power, control and domination running through my rant. That was purposeful. What we need to remember, and what we need to teach our children, is that yes, you should never hit anybody and you should never let anybody hit you. But, we also need to tell them that love does not guarantee respect and that any relationship they find themselves involved in should be based on both equally.

How Chris Brown Fits the Cycle

The typical progression looks something like this:

A child witnesses domestic violence and learns that violence is an acceptable way to solve problems. Violence is normal. That child never receives help.

Chris Brown Talks Growin' Up In Domestic Violence

Child grows up to assault a partner.

Chris Brown Under Investigation for Felony Battery

Someone notices.

R&B singer Chris Brown booked on suspicion of making felony criminal threats
Chris Brown In Legal Trouble For Allegedly Assaulting A Woman
Chris Brown Assault: Rihanna & Chris Brown Cancel Grammys Appearance Over Domestic Violence Investigation
GRAMMY DRAMA: Chris Brown Investigated In Domestic Violence & Felony Battery Charges!
Chris Brown Wanted In Domestic Violence Charge, Rihanna Cancels Grammy Appearance!

The abuser begins to be held accountable for his actions.

Chris Brown's Bottom Line Takes Beating (what a title)
Wrigley suspends Chris Brown, Rihanna silent
Will More Radio Stations Stop Playing Chris Brown?
Is Chris Brown's Career Already Over?

He attempts to justify his actions, making it all her fault.

Did Rihanna Give Chris Brown an STD
Rihanna gave Chris Brown Herpes?

If that doesn't work, he attempts to discredit her story, by making her look crazy or by making her the "real" or the "worse" abuser.

Chris Brown fights back: Insiders claim Rihanna beat Brown, has history of violence

And we move smoothly into victim blaming, where she deserved it and all of their friends think she's the one who's crazy. If she's the one to blame that means he doesn't get punished, and she learns never to calls the cops again.

Just watch.