If there's one thing I hate, it's society telling me how I'm supposed to react to a story. And yet, when I heard an old woman from Palm Springs, California took a pair of scissors to her husband's penis, I knew I was supposed to cheer and say, "Yeah, lady!" Only problem was, I couldn't help wondering: what would have happened if the situation was reversed? Made you stop giggling, didn't it?
Police say 69-year-old Virginia Valdez has had a "long-standing" marital dispute with her husband of 32 years that explains why she allegedly grabbed a pair of heavy-duty shears and decided to try to cut off his manhood. She was arrested this past weekend, and she's already out on $100,000 bond, set to appear in front of a judge again next month. Anyone else shocked someone so vicious is already out on the streets?
You should be!
See, we don't know the source of this alleged dispute. And yet there's this inclination to give an old lady a big high-five because we assume she was getting back at her jerk husband for some sort of sexual assault. There's a society prescribed means for responding. Why?
Why do we assume the woman is being wronged every single time? At the very least, when a man attacks a woman in a vicious sexual manner, doesn't that mean we have to give him the same benefit of the doubt? Just imagine some guy takes a scissor to a woman's vagina. Would you be laughing or cheering? Didn't think so.
So we shouldn't be giggling about Virginia Valdez either.
Fact is, not every woman is a Lorena Bobbit. Just because she acts out violently toward her hubs doesn't mean he was a sick perverted jerk who was raping his own wife. Point of fact: domestic violence against men represents about 40 percent of the cases in America. Sometimes a woman can just be a sadistic witch with a set of heavy-duty shears.
Of course, we don't know why Valdez allegedly decided her 62-year-old husband needed to be castrated. He could be one sick jerk who got lucky that the incident wasn't more serious (he was treated and released from the hospital). Or he could be completely innocent. But in America, a normal person doesn't deal with their issues by getting violent. They go to the cops. They get a divorce. They do something other than attack someone's gonads with a pair of scissors. People like that are the ones we should applaud. Not Virginia Valdez.
Do you find yourself falling into the society trap of always assuming the woman is the victim?
Image via James Bowe/Flickr