Double Standards

Tiger Woods and his wife (Elin Nordegren) have provided a real-life alleged example demonstrating the point that I made in a previous blog posting, when the former appeared to have been scratched and beaten with a golf club by the latter before and/or after an alleged car accident, allegedly resulting from an alleged argument between them regarding Woods’ alleged adulterous affairs. The alleged domestic violence portion of all this was denied by Tiger Woods, and dropped quickly by the Florida Highway Patrol, according to this article from The Examiner.

Ironically, Chris Brown (of all people) actually made a nice point (see the Examiner link above) regarding the double standard in our society that I delineate in my discussion of Pink’s lyrics in the above-mentioned blog posting. Our society seems to be significantly less harsh on female perpetrators of domestic violence than male ones. If this situation were reversed, would an investigation of Tiger Woods’ hypothetical alleged violence toward his wife end so quickly? Would the world be so focused on Elin Nordegren’s hypothetical alleged affairs, or would the world be unwaveringly focused on the domestic violence?

Regarding Woods’ affairs, as I’ve said regarding David Letterman’s affairs, it isn’t our business. It is unquestionably wrong, but it is not our business. If Elin Nordegren did assault Woods, that is the real issue. As immoral and despicable as adultery is, assault, even for the sake of vengeance, is far more immoral and criminal. The infidelity of a celebrity is not our business, particularly when that celebrity has spent his public life protecting his and his family’s privacy. If his wife did assault him, he is a victim; if he were a woman, more people might recognize that, and perhaps the investigation into whether domestic violence occurred might have at least appeared more thorough, or might have taken longer than four days to be completed.

If the situation were reversed, the investigation would not have ended so quickly, and people wouldn’t be so focused on the wife’s hypothetical alleged affairs. The world would be making proclamations of “so what if she had affairs, that doesn’t excuse violence against her.” The same should be true in this alleged situation.