368 to 1
Russia is decriminalizing domestic violence. Not a joke.
Domestic violence kills 14,000 women every year, the Russian Interior Ministry estimates. And just 2 percent of Russian victims of domestic abuse report attacks to police.
Now, the country has just passed a bill that would decriminalize some forms of domestic violence, enraging rights groups who say the measure will leave abuse victims even more vulnerable.
The bill ― known as the “slapping law” ― passed an initial hurdle in the Duma legislative body. It would eliminate criminal penalties for first offenses or attacks that occur only once a year in which a woman or child is not “seriously” injured.
So husbands and fathers get one freebie a year, provided no bones are broken. That makes sense. Obviously a man is going to punch his wife and/or one of their children all the time, so it would just be cruel not to let them do it at least once. What the wife or the child thinks about it doesn’t matter, because only the man is a real person.
The measure’s major proponent, arch conservative senator Yelena Mizulina, has said the current penalties are “anti-family” and a “baseless intervention into family affairs,” CNN reports.
Seriously. Where would family life be if the adult male couldn’t throw a punch now and then? What are families for if the adult male can’t hit his inferiors?
The Russian Orthodox Church also backs the bill, which its leaders see as in line with its patriarchal view demanding a man’s wife and children’s absolute submission to him.
Well God is the patriarch, see, so it all makes sense.
Some 36,000 women are beaten by their husbands daily, the state-run news agency RIA Novosti reports. In 2008 the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that two-thirds of all homicides in Russia were attributable to household or domestic confrontations.
The controversial bill breezed through its first reading — 368 to 1, with one abstention. It will next go through a second and third reading and be voted on again.
Wow. That’s shocking.
I never can seem to get used to how much women are hated.
Note: some of those homicides are women, solving their problem.
Once divorce became acceptable in the US, the cases of wives killing their husbands dropped.
Because women *are* human beings, and value their own lives if no one else does. But because men don’t realize women are people, they don’t see the risk to themselves in giving women no legal recourse.
One can’t help wondering whether Yelena has a husband. Alive.
When will white women stop shooting themselves and other women in the foot?! The majority of white women voted for the Pussygrabber in the recent American election, and now this! The major proponent of this ridiculous bill in the Duma is also a white woman – arch-conservative senator Yelena Mizulina. It will come as no surprise that she also supports limiting abortion and LGBTQ rights.
Sam, you made my day — and quick too! (She has, and two children.)
Strangely, wiki skirts around the subject of her connections to intelligence agencies, only glancingly mentioning that some of her opponents have found themselves extensively interrogated. And two days after she proposed a tax on divorce, guess who filed for one? (No, not Dr Muzilin.)
One vote against — that was gutsy! Even abstaining may have a cost.
Sam, in reality, the majority of married white women tend to vote Republican most of the time – following their husbands, perhaps. Some of us manage to be married, white, and liberal at the same time.
But the votes of the white women voting for Trump were probably not only racist, but in a sense, misogynist as well. A lot of the conservative women I know absolutely hate feminism – women’s lib, they call it – and believe that somehow or other, women like me (educated, professional, only one child) are ruining not only my life, but theirs.
I kid you not. My mother, may she rest in peace, truly and honestly seemed to believe that if women got their equality, she would not be allowed to be married anymore. She would have to leave my father, desert her children, and go get some sort of job doing who knows what (since she had no marketable skills) with women like me, women she despised, women she felt were somewhere in a world that was substantially less than men, but not in a position to be a woman, either – so, women were less than men, and women like me were less than women – some sort of grotesque mutant.
iknklast, get-togethers with your mum must have been stressful for you both. My own mum started out with views similar to what you describe, but circumstances led her to work outside the home. At that time, women’s lib (as she calls it too) was starting to make inroads. Although she would never identify as a feminist, she was proud as hell when her daughter graduated from med school. That said, Mum was impressed by the short-fingered vulgarian, and this led to some conflict over the holiday season. Thankfully, she’s not American and couldn’t vote.
There will always be some proportion of oppressed people who adopt the views and beliefs of their oppressors. I’m just amazed when that proportion amounts to a majority.
Sam, my mother was never proud. She wanted to miss my college graduation, but my dad wouldn’t hear of it.
Fortunately, I had my grandmother, an old suffragette from way back…she was a strong, educated, professional woman who provided me with encouragement and guidance. But I lived every day with my mother, and three sisters who agreed with her.
I am the only one in my family who has accomplished nearly as much as I have; I am, consequently, the black sheep of the family, both for showing up my brothers, and for being such a poor example of a woman. I dealt with it by moving away, and rarely going back. My contact with my family is at the level of mere acquaintance now.