Rihanna, Chris Brown, the British, and my downstairs neighbor

Lots of celebrity watching tongues a waggin' about the reported reconciliation between Rihanna and Chris Brown. I don't watch television, but even in my brief scanning through channels, I have managed to pick up that both The View and Oprah have had shows talking about the event. For those who don't know or haven't heard, Rihanna (a very young pop star) and Chris Brown (a very young rapper/pop star) are dating and following some award show in February, Chris beat the living shit out of Rihanna. Allegedly. He was arrested, and like many allegedly abused women, Rihanna has returned to her abuser. Everyone has advice for her. I hope she's listening. There are lessons to be learned here.

On the heels of that, comes this--a scathing indictment of male privilege in Britian (read: and the rest of the western world).

Whoa. Let's review the content of this study.

One in seven British men people surveyed indicated it is acceptable for a man to hit his spouse/girlfriend for wearing revealing clothing in public or for "constantly nagging or moaning at him". Ladies, you might want to cancel that pool membership/beach vacation this summer and for God's sake, don't ask him to empty the garbage.

One in ten people surveyed indicated that it is acceptable for a man to slap his spouse/girlfriend for flirting with another man. Ladies, no more charming the socks off the husband's boss or you'll get yours when you get home.

Interestingly enough, it is far more acceptable to the British public for a man to hit his wife/girlfriend for flirting or not treating him with respect than for actually cheating on him. Apparently, appearances are everything. Presumably he is PUBLICLY humiliated by flirting and being dissed, but only privately humiliated by cheating.

According to the study, Brits think women are at least partly to blame for rape and sexual assault if they are wearing sexy clothing. Welcome to the age of the burka, ladies.

What is most disturbing to me is that only 86%/76%/64% are likely to intervene if they suspect a female family member/friend/neighbor is a victim of abuse. Of those who refused to intervene, 62%/69%/72% felt it was none of their business, for the couple to work out, or they simply didn't want to get involved. Ladies, if you were expecting your neighbors to act like grown ups, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Nothing like a little empathy for others to create a cohesive community.

Am I alone in thinking that this is totally fubared? I lived upstairs from a domestic abuser when I first moved to Chicago. Honestly, the man was an idiot. He was a drunk. He hid his beer in the bushes in front of the house. When I found it, I took it. He had a wife half his size and a toddler. He would get drunk, the wife would begin nagging at him for drinking, things escalated, and the beating and screaming began. I could hear it coming, even if she couldn't. I called the cops regularly.

This was not a house they were unfamiliar with. Where domestic abuse is the norm, these people do come to the attention of the police. But apparently, the police depend on the abused to file charges, and many are unwilling to do so.

My brother thought I was kidding about it until he moved in with me following the breakup of his marriage. One night when I was out with friends and he was home alone, one of those fights began. My brother called the police. When the police arrived he went out and talked to them. He told the officers that if they didn't remove this guy from his apartment and throw him in jail all night, when they left, he would take care of the situation. They took the guy away.

One day, after my brother moved out, I called the landlord. I'd had enough. I told him that I was afraid of the abuser downstairs. I told him that I had no idea whether he was a danger to others or just his wife. I explained that he was a drunk. I explained about the booze hidden in the bushes. I told him that something had to be done. That I lived alone. That I didn't feel safe.

The next day, the wife from downstairs came and knocked on my door. She stood there, with a black eye and told me that she was sorry they had disturbed me. She tried to calm my fears that he was not a danger to the single woman upstairs who had turned him in to the police and called the landlord. I stared at her. I must have looked incredulous, because the more she talked the more animated she became. She kept apologizing to me. She did. Where was her mother-fucking coward of a wife-beating husband? I bet he sent her up there to take care of this problem.

I let her speak her peace. When she finished, I told her only this.

"One day, he is going to kill you."

She turned and walked back downstairs into her apartment and closed the door.

I moved out when my lease was up. I have no idea what happened to that couple. I hope he hasn't killed her.

Thank God for this guy.

Solving the world's problems at their root

An idea has been festering in me. I've been reluctant to show it the light of day, cause it's not fully formed and I don't want to look like I don't have my ducks in a row, but somehow the darkness isn't causing it to ripen and allows me to simply ignore it. So I'm bringing it out, half-baked so to speak, in the hope that discussing it will enable me to move my thought process forward.

I have been thinking that virtually all the world's most vexing problems can be advanced by empowering women. What sorts of problems? Oh little things like overpopulation, terrorism, world hunger, human rights abuses, you know, little stuff like that.

So how might that work?

One of the biggest obstacles to stemming overpopulation is lack of access to birth control. In a large swath of the globe, women lack any self-determination in the execution of their reproductive rights. Globally speaking, I maintain that women want control over the timing, spacing and number of children they bear. I maintain that no woman wants to bring children into a world where their chances of survival are slim, where they will starve or suffer needlessly. And yet, they are forced to do so by dispassionate husbands and a perverse social structure that supposedly "values" children. Women are not baby factories.

Freedom to pursue economic independence. When women are economically dependent on their husbands, they have little to no ability to carve a better life for themselves. They have little say outside the home. They are mere chattle. Money is power. Power is a voice. The power of many voices can change the world.

Equal rights. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive. King Abdullah has said that he is willing to lift that ban sometime this year. Not sure whether he has or not, but it's clear that it is meant to stave off calls for larger scale calls for equal rights and women's sufferage. Where women are prevented by modesty laws, social convention, and threat of death from full participation in society, men rule with impunity. And as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Delusions of superiority, an unyielding sense of entitlement, fundamental religious beliefs are a breeding ground for terrorism. I believe that women, fully participating in society, would offer a balance. I doubt any woman wants to raise sons to go off on kamakazi missions for Allah. In any event, I think there would be fewer of them if their mothers were respected as full members of society.

Anyway, don't know where I'm going with this, but it seems that just about all these problems could be improved by ensuring that women have the same rights as men around the world. I know it is all jammed up right now, but it seems to me that when you get right down to the root of the problem, it might be improved exponentially by improving the lot of women.