Everyone in North America remembers the brutal beating of Rodney King by police in California on March 3, 1991. This incident received enormous and near constant NEWS coverage around the world, and led to charges against the police involved. The acquittal of four police officers led to riots, leaving 53 dead and thousands injured. This incident was widely condemned as racially motivated; Rodney King was African American.
So, more than 20 years later, we can assume that violence motivated by police bigotry is universally condemned. The public will be outraged, and there will be marches, and protests when it occurs?
Not so fast.
A week ago a police officer in Sweden brutally beat a man to the ground with a steel baton without cause or provocation, and it was all caught on video, shown here.
Will this incident elicit a "Rodney King style" response in Sweden, or anywhere in the world for that matter? You see, the police officer was female and her victim was male.
Female on male violence is often considered a laughing matter, if it is even acknowledged. So much so that famous talk show host Sharon
Osborne, of "The Talk," felt perfectly safe laughing at a man who had his penis cut off by his wife, apparently because he wanted a divorce, and the audience laughed enthusiastically along with her.
I can't imagine a more gruesome crime against a man, nor can I imagine any talk show host joking about a man carving off a woman's sexual organs. In fact, the network would fire any host who even joked that a woman couldn't do math. But gruesome disfigurement of a man by a woman is, in the words of Sharon Osborne, "fabulous."
I suspect the fact that she is female will be used to minimize the severity of the crime committed by this Swedish police officer. Just like in Domestic Violence incidents, we have been trained to believe that female perpetrators don't exist, and that when women beat men, they are just defending themselves, or even that "he must have deserved it."
I can't imagine a more gruesome crime against a man, nor can I imagine any talk show host joking about a man carving off a woman's sexual organs. In fact, the network would fire any host who even joked that a woman couldn't do math. But gruesome disfigurement of a man by a woman is, in the words of Sharon Osborne, "fabulous."
I suspect the fact that she is female will be used to minimize the severity of the crime committed by this Swedish police officer. Just like in Domestic Violence incidents, we have been trained to believe that female perpetrators don't exist, and that when women beat men, they are just defending themselves, or even that "he must have deserved it."
Some people say that Sweden is among the most misandristic countries in the world. With evidence like this, I'm inclined to agree.
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