Letters

Equal

“Slap ‘er down again, Paw, slap ‘er down again. Make ‘er tell us more, Paw, tell us where she’s been. We don’t want our neighbors talkin’ ‘bout our kin. Slap ‘er down again, Paw, slap ‘er down again.”

For those too young to remember, this was a 1948 hit song in America. It was right up there with, “I don’t want ‘er, you can have ‘er, she’s too fat for me…”

I’m not making this up. I sang both with glee when I was a child. It was not only acceptable, it was encouraged. But times have changed, or so I thought. It seems domestic violence is alive and well.

Rich Lowry’s column in last week’s Gazette misses the point entirely.

First, he blames the media.

I happen to agree that the media blew a golden opportunity by pandering to society’s worst instincts for sensational gossip.

It could have used the opportunity to open thoughtful discourse on modern cultural acceptance of domestic violence.

Lowry writes, “Domestic violence declined 63 percent from 1994 to 2012…” If you google “domestic violence” you find this particular statistic buried among a lot of others that may be more meaningful, and you’ll also find it questioned.

His writing is a good example how the media he attacks “cherry-pick” the information they want to convey.

But all this misses the point, which is this: domestic violence continues unabated, not only among the fabulously rich entertainment and sports industries, but, more importantly, among the disenfranchised: the poor, the homeless, the uneducated.

And this comes ‘round to the underlying problem: disrespect for and degradation of women.

Although men also suffer domestic violence, particularly among the elderly, their numbers are disproportionately small compared with those of women.

The only way the underlying problem can be solved is if all of society recognizes that, in the sight of the Creator, women and men are equal. Women deserve equal opportunity, equal pay, and particularly equal respect from all quarters of society: spouses, other family members, educators, businesses, and on and on.

Years before women gained the right to vote in this country, a visitor who had been imprisoned for six decades because of his beliefs, spoke eloquently about this issue in talks from New York to San Francisco. His name was Abdu’l-Baha and he was promulgating the beliefs of the Bahá’í Faith. Here are two brief examples of what he said could happen if women gained their God-given equality:

“Women shall receive an equal privilege of education. This will enable them to qualify and progress in all degrees of occupation and accomplishment. For the world of humanity possesses two wings: man and woman. If one wing remains incapable and defective, it will restrict the power of the other, and full flight will be impossible. Therefore, the completeness and perfection of the human world are dependent upon the equal development of these two wings.”

“When all mankind shall receive the same opportunity of education and the equality of men and women be realized, the foundations of war will be utterly destroyed. Without equality this will be impossible because all differences and distinction are conducive to discord and strife. Equality between men and women is conducive to the abolition of warfare for the reason that women will never be willing to sanction it.”

Pete Haug,

Colfax