More Vapidity

Got a column? Been to journalism school? Just write down whatever occurs to you, as long as it sounds good. Who cares if it makes sense. Lisa Pryor, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald print edition, compares domestic abuse to trench warfare and battered women to soldiers in said trenches. She then uses that argument to justify her views on why women stay in abusive relationships. Unfortunately her supporting argument sucks.

“Just as war can turn men into blubbering wrecks rather than dashing heroes, domestic violence can turn women into cowards with low self esteem, psychological problems and a lack of resolve.”

Staying in the metaphor, the argument is poorly planned, cannot advance and is about to come under hellish fire. The danger of this argument is that most of the premises sound right, sound good and you want to accept the conclusion (that war and domestic abuse are comparable) anyway - domestic abuse is horrible, war is horrible – sure, why not?. Unfortunately even if the premises were sound, they do not support the conclusion at all. Domestic abuse is nothing at all like battle and it’s silly to compare them. And the premises themselves are shaky to start with. Here is the first one:

“…war can turn men into blubbering wrecks rather than dashing heroes…”

The clear implication is that a soldier’s motivation in battle is to become a “dashing hero” and presupposes that becoming one is something all men aspire to. “It’s not fair, it’s my turn to take out the machine guns single-handedly and save everybody Eddie got to do it last time. Why do you hate me, Sarg?” The premise depends on stereotypical and simplistic ideas of what motivates men and women.

And as for the “blubbering wreck” part, I would venture this comes about from the fact the soldier wants very much to leave the situation and cannot. The army has this thing about shooting deserters. The soldier is highly motivated to either extricate himself or kill the fucker, whatever it takes to make it stop. Heroics and cowardice have nothing to do with it. Not many soldiers are heard saying “Oh sure the enemy lobs the occasional high explosive round at me, but that’s just his way. He promised he wouldn’t do it again. I probably deserved it.”

As for the second premise, “…domestic violence can turn women into cowards with low self esteem, psychological problems and a lack of resolve.” Ignoring the redundancy of the statement, isn’t a “coward” the opposite of a “hero”? Again the implication that everybody wants to be, or should want to be, heroic. A battered women who stays is no more a coward than one who leaves is a hero. It’s. not. that. simple.

Not only has Pryor told us nothing new (abuse victims suffer psychological effects which often prevent them leaving the situation), she hasn’t even managed to back it up coherently. Her argument is propped on stereotypes -men are brutes except when they’re heroes, and women are too meek/stupid/passive/cowardly to help themselves. Pretty bad when you can’t even defend a truism.

Pryor ends with a nice touch “Let’s not forget that there but for the grace of God we all go.” Does she mean we’d all be soldiers in a war if it weren’t for plain good luck? Or does she mean most men are only one step away from violence by nature and you can't tell when one will go off, like a bomber on a bus - and that it's all down to God/fate who you end up with? Or what? Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

I think it’s all a bit of a mystery to Pryor too.