This was originally posted on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2022/03/words-can-and-do-kill.html.
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From my coming weekly news post:
verbal violence against a woman suffering from the autoimmune disease (alopecia areata is NOT androgenetic alopecia which is ordinary baldness) alopecia was followed by a physical violence response - with the latter receiving most disapproval (there was a fair bit of sexism as well)
The commentary has almost exclusively - certainly overwhelmingly - been focused on the act of physical violence, with almost no-one showing any consideration for the victim of the verbal violence.
Make a teaching experience out of it? Oh puh-leeze.
FFS, things like gaslighting cause massive devastation, some racist words are banned because of the harm they cause - directly and indirectly, and there are major sections of law around defamation!
Words do not do serious harm?
Some such words signified events such as the beginning of a lynching or a pogrom.
Words can and do kill.
Words can and do drive people to commit suicide.
Words can and do kill.
Now, physical violence is NOT an appropriate response unless the aggressor is behaving in a threatening way (e.g., chasing the victim with a raised axe, clenched fist, or a gun). Will Smith's response was wrong; so was Chris Rock's pseudo-"joke".
Would anyone go something to be abused by, for instance, fat-phobic people, or to be subjected to racist abuse, or to misandry or misogyny?
No - and it is not reasonable to expect them to.
It IS reasonable for people to expect that they can go out and enjoy themselves without being subjected to threats of or actual violence - including verbal. If there is no protection against such abuse, people will stop going out - that does happen, and when it does, the BLAME and need for counselling lies with the abusers, not their targets.
The PROBLEM is that the laws on these matters date back to an era with patriarchy was endemic, and thus a lot of decisions were made by clueless, privileged males.
If there had been genuine gender equity back then, would we have had decades of sexist abuse in the streets, police siding with domestic violence abusers, and gaslighting? NO! The harm that words do would more likely have been recognised, and the stupid laws that minimise and decry anything not macho (such as emotions) would not exist.
This whole incident and response REEKS of sexism - especially the males leading the "words don't matter charge".
