in this. The NFL even tweeted that her words were good to hear. THE NFL IS FULL OF SHIT! They don't care about anyone. WHY DID THEY HAVE TO SEE HIM HIT HERE TO GET RID OF HIM WHEN THEY HAD TAPE OF HER LYING ON THE FLOOR!? HOW DID HAVING THE REST OF IT "MAKE IT DIFFERENT" AND PRECIPITATE WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE FIRST OF ALL!?

I want to hug that girl.

agree with everything.

the same kind of folks who wander around DU asking "What patriarchy?" and swearing issues like this are not at all cultural.

2nd: Janay took appropriate responsibility for her role in the incident, who are you or anyone else to tell her she is wrong for admitting to her wrong doings?
3rd; Janay taking responsibility for her actions does not minimize the responsibility Ray Rice should have for his actions, it does not minimize her victimhood, it does not put the blame for being knocked out on her.
4th; Ray Rice's actions all belong to him, he owns his violent actions and should take responsibility for them.
5th; Let's not muddy the waters by pretending that Janay's actions were ok simply because Ray's actions were much worse.
6th; All people, regardless of gender, have a responsibility to deal with their anger in safe and responsible ways. No person, regardless of gender has the right to strike another person.
7th; Violence against women is a huge problem not only in the United States, but around the world, and everyone should view violence toward women as a serious issues which needs to be dealt with.
8th; Those who try to use Janay's actions as a valid reason for Ray's violent response should be vilified and denounced for the arrogant people they are.
9th; Those who try to pretend that Janay's actions were justified because of Ray's worse actions, should also be vilified and denounced for the arrogant people they are.

There we go, every person owns responsibility for their own actions, we all deserve a right to be physically safe from harm, regardless of gender. Anything other than this is wrong, none of it is justified!

thirdly, she is a victim of violence so what she says and does is not necessarily what she would do if she wasn't someone's punching bag. I would read the rest but I don't feel like it. I can say whatever the hell I want. I have no way of understanding how you could find in my comments anything that says she deserved what happened to her but hey. That's you.

just average looking, or worse, if she was unattractive that you might feel differently?
Really, what does her beauty have to do with anything?
If she were not beautiful would you have less compassion for her?


You obviously didn't read my whole post or you would understand the point I was making, therefore infer that you have no interest in knowing what my point is, you simply want to vent you anger at me for taking disagreement with a portion of your post!

I disagree with your statement that you "can say anything the h*ll you want", DU has a set of rules called TOS, I'll thank you to speak civilly and without use of derogatory terms!

Funny how nobody calls for a boycott of pro sports.

Correction, not funny.

Pathetic is the operative term.

i'm out.

about how in the initial investigation Goodall asked Janay to recount the events while Rice was in the room. That is just horrible.

The judgement is twice as harsh.

Patriarchal society. Still.

She looked so unhappy and beaten down. Abused again in the spectacle to bolster this man for the sake of a game.

for that vicious man's actions. She never deserved anything like that - period. It's not "blame" to wonder why a woman who has been so horribly hurt would marry such a man - child or not. I would have had him arrested and put in jail.

And, no, I don't think she "provoked" him to do that. The man is an animal with no self-control.

Shame on you

for what? To wonder why a person deliberately stays with an abuser. That is absurd.

People who have never been in that situation or been around it have every right to wonder. Not everyone is as enlightened as you. Maybe instead of shaming them you could think about educating them.

to be amazed and puzzled that someone stays in an extremely abusive relationship.

It is not blame to wonder why. It would be blame to give her a hard time for it. There is a real difference.

No one is 'blaming' the victim by asking.

AND if she were to go into counseling for help on this issue ~ after a session or two, the counselor/therapist would start helping HER look into HER role in the dysfunctional relationship. This is not blaming, this is what it takes to heal and grow.

The term "blaming the victim" has been inaccurately thrown around quite abit the last few days.

EXTREMELY.

They will buy flowers, promise never do it again, woo the person, etc.

But by that time they've also subtly destroyed their self-esteem and self-confidence. They think that they're with a good guy who just has a few flaws. That he has to be a good guy, or he wouldn't do all the nice things they do before and after they knock you out cold. That they must have done something to deserve it. That it's their fault, because otherwise why would this "nice guy" hurt them?

By the time an abusive relationship has gotten to the point of actual physical violence, they've brainwashed their victims via emotional abuse into believing that there's no way they could ever do better.

The other one is just an illusion, held forth to keep a victim under control and coming back. It's a hard realization to come to after you've fallen in love with the illusion. And these abusive types are VERY charming and generous when they want to be. - when it serves them and the pretense they so deftly maintain to the rest of the world. They can sweep a person off their feet quite well with charm and attentiveness. I personally consider it a warning sign.

Until most of the questions asked are about why the abuser chose to be abusive rather than why the victim did or didn't do - whatever - then we'll never get to the real reasons this is such an epidemic. We're too much asking the wrong questions of the wrong person in these situations.

"I would have had him arrested and put in jail" is a fine thing to say if you haven't been there. That's already wrong because it implies that the victim is Doing It Wrong and you, the woman who has never been dragged around in her shoes, are going to tell her the right way to be victimized. Needless to say that's already some bullshit.

But it's also a great leap of faith in the police and the courts that experience would likely teach you was unjustified. Keep in mind that in this, the most prosecutable of cases, with the eyes of the media upon them, with two camera angles of video, with an act of tremendous violence beyond any doubt at all, she did not get justice. The man who knocked her cold and spat on her unconscious body got pretrial diversion. If he keeps out of court for the next year he'll get his record expunged. Like her abuse never happened. Could she see that coming? Likely. She knows that he's an enormous fish in a small pond, and a wealthy man. She likely knew that she would get no justice even if she advocated for herself, she should not be judged for understanding this reality. This is especially true because not only is she a woman in a world that does little to protect women, but she is a black woman in a world that does even less for black women. This is an angle that should not be forgotten in this matter.

It's also disregarding the simple fact that abusers spend a great deal of time selecting and grooming their victims before they do something this overt. Quite likely he was interested in her because some previous trauma had ground her down, and then he molded her further to his needs. He didn't walk up to a confident woman on the street and ask how she'd like to get knocked around by a professional football player for the rest of her life. He almost certainly found a woman with downcast eyes and manipulated her with alternating flattery and cruelty until she needed him to fill the widening gaps in herself.

Let's not forget that she had a head injury.

Bottom line: You don't know what the hell you're talking about and you need to stop. If you want to pin some Strong Woman Who Knows Better Than All Those Victim Women button on yourself and strut around go right ahead, but you need to do it in the privacy of your own home because otherwise you're further victimizing women whose abusers don't really need an assist from you, thanks.

rant is not convincing. I have a different opinion and it doesn't include BLAMING the person who is the victim of abuse. The ABUSER is to blame for that.

you got nothing except a skip me forum name.

Why is THAT?????

physical, emotional, verbal AND sexual abuse as a child. I literally told myself that as a child, I didn't have a choice but when I was grown up, I would and I would NEVER allow ANYONE to put their hands on my, come hail or high water. Now, I will tell you that THE FIRST THING I asked if WHY SHE MARRIED HIM.... I was so determined NOT to allow another iota of abuse into my life that I was engage 7 TIMES and LEFT T3 OF THOSE SOB's at the altar.

I don't get it because I am both a survivor AND BLACK woman I could NOT wrap my head around someone who stays with someone like this. I am NOT blaming her...but I just don't get it. I LEFT men who showed anything approaching the abusive ways of my cowardly, lying, TAH-WISTED father who thought NOTHING if beating his own AND ONLY daughter. I DO KNOW EXACTLY what I am talking about and have the HEALED FRACTURES TO PROVE IT. I think someone needs to intervene and get that poor girl some protection and remove her from this mess because from what I saw, eventually, HE WILL KILL HER. I was RAPED at 5 for a FULL YEAR by a GROWN man...then had the luck to be called a whore and told that I would be a prostitute and drug addict from 7 YEARS OLD! I was BEATEN my "father" whenever he was angry at my mother, ( too much of a coward to threaten her) from 7 until I was almost 21 years old when I was a MONTH out of emergency surgery and he broke into my house and carried me BY THE NECK down my front walk on a Sunday while my neighbors WATCHED and not ONE of those bastards so much as called for the correct time. I finally fought back, punched him in the jaw ans broke my nails off in his skin because he was trying to kill me and noone was trying to help in any way. Suddenly, he couldn't get away from me fast enough and actually left a shoe in the driveway. I called the police but because they hadn't seen it, they would arrest me if they arrested him. I was 110 lbs 5'5.75" in height. He was 6'6" and almost 300 lbs. REALLY? At the time, they said, their hands were tied and they wanted to take him in.

I believe it's a legitimate question as to why she married him AFTER he beat her in an assault that looked like attempted murder to me. I made that decision that I would NEVER allow ANYONE, (MAN, WOMAN OR BEAST) to lay a finger on me and I've kept that promise to myself.

I had NO problem WALKING AWAY from 7 fiances, 3 of them at the altar and 2 were wealthy, one a BILLIONAIRE but no amount of money was worth giving away my safety and well being to someone who was too weak to talk like a decent human being and solving everything with a fist, whether verbal or physical. I believe it's a legitimate question people have because MOST people cannot imagine staying with, let alone marrying someone who would come so close to killing them and then, not only lying about it but getting their victim to take part of the blame. I. DON'T. GET. IT!! I just don't understand how she would stay with that cowardly lying son of a bitch. I have had so many injuries, (green stick fractures, no displaced fractures, etc) and looking back at it, it's amazing that I survived with some semblance of sanity. It's not blaming her at all to wonder why she would marry this guy after what he did to her. It makes me think that she either grew up in place where she saw this abuse AND/OR he'd been beating the 'ish out of her for some time before and had literally beaten her into submission. DAMN SHAME!

and at the age of 15 finally fought back by telling my father if he ever touched me again, I was going to have his ass arrested. The physical abuse stopped but the verbal never has. My father is a hateful man and I can understand why he is but that doesn't excuse it.

Then before coming out I was briefly married to a man who decided the best way to make me stay with him as I was moving out was to beat my head upon a wooden box. With my childhood experience firmly implanted in my mind, I walked away. It was easy though because I had already decided to leave him.

You're right when you say people have a choice: the abuser has the choice not to abuse. Ray Rice chose not to keep his hands to himself. If you watch the video carefully, he hits her twice in the elevator, the first time is what brings her walking towards him and lands that knock out punch. He chose to convince her to apologize for her abuse.

Why did she marry him? We don't know the reasons for that. Maybe it's love, maybe coersion. I know my mom threatened to leave my dad when I was little and his response was that he'd take me and my mom would never see me again. She believed him and stayed. I believe he would have made good on his threat.

So, we don't know the why and probably never will but it isn't always simple. If a rich, powerful man says you're going to marry me or I'll make sure you never see that baby you're carrying, what would you do? My dad wasn't rich but my mom believed his threats.

The better question is why isn't he in jail? Why is he being sent the message that what he did (up until yesterday) has no real consequences? Is he going to blame the woman he punched in video for losing his career? If so, in what form does his blame take? Does he beat her or the child? Why not ask that question?

The point to this long ramble is this: you and I were both victims of abuse and we had the courage of our convictions to stand up for ourselves and say no more. My point is that not everyone is like you and I. We reached the point our abuse cycle much quicker than other women that are abused and their reasons for staying May be bewildering to you and I but they do have reasons, some of which we may never understand. It's not our place to question their journey but to encourage them with the strength or our experience and convictions.

strong & determined as you and I. I also do believe that he will, if he hasn't already, blame HER for his career end AND eventually kill her and/or whatever child they have. This is the reason that I DO NOT GET IT because if he were a stranger, he would a) be UNDER the gaol, especially since he's black & b) if there's a child, she needs to think about that child, if she cannot think about herself.

First of all, trust me when I say, that if this woman was white, there would be a VERY different conversation taking place regarding his having to pay a heavy price. Had he attacked a stranger like this, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN ARRESTED AGES AGO and this PISSES ME OFF to no end.
I suppose the reason I ask these questions and remained perplexed is because I suffered abuse AS A GIRL and younger woman and I LITERALLY left the "men" who showed signs of being an abuser, whether physical, sexual, emotional or verbal. I LEFT 3 of them AT. THE. ALTAR....in front of invited guests and business associates. It's easier not to legalise the connection with a creep who, no doubt, has beaten your ass before and will undeniably, do so again in the future. I am not fundamentally different than other people. I have a strong sense of self preservation, as most any other human being, outside of the suicidal types, do. I just DO NOT get why she would leave. She is in the most dangerous point right now because he's lost his career and is being justifiably villified by the world for his actions and she WILL be blamed. I am afraid FOR her and know how these types operate.

As I raise my daughters, I wonder what I can do to make sure that my daughters are strong enough to leave a man like that! Yes, one does "wonder" why she stayed!

I want my daughters to be economically independent, strong-willed, and have a strong sense of personal justice. I want them to know that they are harming the very child they claim to be putting first when they stay with their child's abusive father. And, honestly, I hope that they don't value fortune so much that they would put their own lives at risk for it. Unfortunately, I do think that some women will put up with a lot to obtain a certain lifestyle. I know one, personally.

I think there's a lot to the old adage, "Women marry men like their father." I'm not saying this is true of all women (some of us are gay and marry women like our father) but studies say the father/daughter relationship has a huge impact on how women pick their mates in adulthood.

My husband has never lifted a hand to me, except to grab my wrist too tightly once when I attempted to slap him about twenty years ago. My only attempt at violence for which I am ashamed, and I'm a much more mellow person, now. Their father has been a wonderful role model. We are very fortunate.

was a child growing up in the 70's but I knew that I would in adulthood. I was engaged to TWO incredibly wealthy men but they showed me STRONG signs of believing that somehow I would 'BELONG" to them, granting them the right to lay their hands on me or be verbally, sexually or emotionally abusive. I was engaged 7 times and left 3 of them, AT THE ALTAR- in front of friends, family and business associates. I did that because there's not enough money in the world to sell my sense of peace, well being and safety to someone for ANY amount in the world. I refused to return to a time where I was nervous and afraid in MY OWN HOME, wondering when the next physical attack or verbal assault would come. NEVER AGAIN and I've kept that promise to myself. I actually began the divorce process when my husband, (who is bipolar and has depression that presents as rage out of BLOODY NOWHERE), acted a fool and left. He got into treatment and worked to change as much as he could, meds and mental health treatment. He's NOT perfect but he's also NOT the man he was before.

Please accept my gratitude that you raised your baby girls to be strong enough and secure enough to stay out of insanely dangerous relationships like this one. I only wish there were more women like you to build people who will NEVER accept this into their lives. A.N.D, a hearty and belated welcome to DU! right glad tameetcha!

And I'm not finished raising my kids. I have married daughters (and grandkids ), and still have a daughter at home. Unfortunately, she does have self esteem issues, but we are working on it. Sometimes, I swear I don't sleep at night worrying about her.

grandmothers, aunts, uncles & grandfather who helped me with that. Just don't give up. It's so worth it. More than likely, she'll
grow out of it. If she's in High school, graduation will do ALOT to improve her esteem. Just don't ever give up. Good on ya for what you're doing.

Nobody should ever have to suffer all that.

"He didn't walk up to a confident woman on the street and ask how she'd like to get knocked around by a professional football player for the rest of her life. He almost certainly found a woman with downcast eyes "

Why do I think that she would most likely be insulted by that description?

I hate people who make things up to prove their own points.

I just think there is more to this story than we know.

The guy is a scumbag lowlife wife abuser. I hope he never works in football again. The video sickens me.

Here in Charlotte, we have another wonderful athlete accused of domestic abuse. Greg Hardy. He is playing.

I love football, but this is starting to turn my stomach. Over entitled and undereducated assholes.

I'm more worried about the child they have. I don't think this story is over yet.

Why on a DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND forum you need all the ---- ___ subterfuge.

ALONG WITH WHY ARE YOU BLAMING THE VICTIM.

Is there some "screen name" place that will give us names that are approved by you?

Are you serious?

the effect is to perpetuate violence more. In distracting from the criminal and blaming the victim, they contribute to a climate where batters are excused, victims blames, and violence against women commonplace. People who inflict violence should be treated as the criminals they are, while those who excuse it by blaming victims should be treated as pariahs.

Each and everyone on DU who wrote any iteration of "why does she stay" is making it harder for women to leave their abusers. They should be ashamed of themselves. I wouldn't want to be seen supporting abusers, but that is what they are doing when they are questioning the victim rather than the abuser. They should all edit their posts and insert the question "Why doesn't he stop his abuse?" and "Why doesn't society condemn the abuser rather than the victim?" instead.

A whole lot of abuse apologists on DU tonight.

No one asks, "Why doesn't he stop his abuse?" because ABUSERS NEVER STOP ABUSING - PERIOD. When are people going to learn that?

It is absurd for you to call people "abuse apologists" who are NOT blaming the victim for the beating, but questioning why she doesn't leave - period.

It creates an atmosphere that tells the victim that because she didn't see through him to leave him immediately, she is to blame for what happens to her, That is enabling abuse.

The reasons why victims don't leave have been amply documented in several threads here on DU, both through research and personal anecdotes of survivors and of families and friends of survivors and of those who did not survive. Leaving an abuser is the most dangerous part of an abusive relationship. In the UK, more than two women a week are killed by their abusers. The risk of death is very, very present. Yet the abuse apologists at DU would rather ask her why she doesn't leave in order to cast doubt about how bad it really is for her - after all, she doesn't leave him. That is their mindset. And doing so makes it more difficult for her to make that decision, and because they make it more difficult, morally, they are abuse apologists.

Is she reading the posts here? And, NO, I am NOT saying that just because she didn't leave him she is TO BLAME for what happens to her. I never, ever said or implied that.

The abusers are 100% to blame, but the victims have a CHOICE and they can seek help from family and friends to protect their lives. Period.

pets '100%' and so they stay because they can't leave. Even if you put the psychology out of the equation, they stay because no one will help them, they don't have any way to support themselves, they have children ... running with five kids is hard, etc.

We have a victim here that I wrote about a while back, someone beaten half the death, then pushed face first into boiling water. That girl refused to talk because he 'loved' her and she was pregnant (she wasn't). She was royally fucked up and should be dead. It is easy to say why and the rest when it didn't happen to you.

That beautiful girl has a broken spirit. If that was my daughter, I would be in jail right now because I would have taken an ax handle to that fucker's head. He is not moved, nor is he remorseful. Not. One. Bit. Try and buck that after probably years of abuse. He's an NFL star and she is his whipping post.

The trial of our local abuser ... 'the worst case of domestic violence in Peninsula history' is coming up eventually. These things crawl along. Another reason not to go.

God bless, Janay. I hope he doesn't kill her.

absolutely, and it is reprehensible.

But I still wonder why someone would marry a person that punched them out cold. It makes me sorry for her. Why?

At that press conference he had a while back he blabbed on with a self pitying nonapology, then at the end, he turns to a solemn Janay and says something like "Janay has something to say too..."

Ug. He made his victim...his own wife...apologize for him knocking her out.

It disgraces women and men are portrayed as cavemen incapable of restraint and not engaging in violence.

A heated argument can't excuse violence. We don't need to see the violence to judge it as wrong as a society either.

..... is complicated, often nuanced and fraught with human emotion. It might not be understandable but it is most certainly not damnable. Why someone beats the shit out of their partner might be complicated as well, but it IS damnable on its face.

I think folks who are trying to understand why a woman would stay in this situation are in over their heads.