by arsenalyank » Wed Sep 24, 2014 5:45 am
This is just my opinion, but to think that all situations are held to the same black and white standard is naive and overly simplistic. While I think that the onus of responsibility for the altercation is on the woman (from what we know), and that she's quite deranged, we're all responsible for our actions in all situations, and Ray Rice was responsible for his. If an child attacks you, a child who is smaller and bears no physical threat, are we within our right to knock them out ? If you're a highly trained military solider who has lethal hand-to-hand combat skills, and some idiot drunk starts shoving you in a bar, are you within your rights to break their neck? No, and this is true for both men and women. If a woman beats up a child who's acting out and becoming physical, or if she's the trained military solider who breaks someone's neck she's going to be serving time just like if it was a male. In essence, this is the physical disparity between Ray Rice and his wife, and to state that this disparity plays a role in interpreting the situation is not sexist, unless there's a definition of sexist that I'm not aware of.
Now, if this was some stranger that he didn't know, or if there was any possibility of being attacked by a weapon (i.e. actual possibility of physical threat), then what Ray Rice did should be acceptable because he was ensuring his own safety. However, given that they are now married I'll wager he knew her pretty well and could accurately predict that she wasn't going Sling Blade on him. While the woman may be an idiot, she was hitting him with her hands; what damage is she going to do? Ray Rice's response was overly excessive and unnecessary (the leaving her in the hallway bit didn't help either), and that is what people are upset about.