I’m not sure what it is about me, but I tend to get confidences. At the pool today I exchanged pleasantries with a young mother. Within minutes she told me how this was her first outing with the kids since she got a restraining order against their father. His best friend had acquired a gun, and he told her if she didn’t “straighten her ass up” he was going to kill her.
Twelve years, she told me, then apologized for crying. Twelve years and six kids, and she’d finally had enough. Then all the kids came running because they thought they’d recognized the car of the gun-toting friend–who had put his gun to their dog’s head one night to show they better listen to him.
Later another woman came in with her family. I know she was the mom of one of the women she was with. Two older girls were there as well and may also have been her daughters. With them were three small children, all too young to swim, and a man.
In that man’s eyes, that poor woman could do nothing right. He snapped at her to get in the pool, then she didn’t do it fast enough and he told her to do something else. Then he cursed her out for not being in the pool. He called her stupid in front of all of them, he swore every time he talked to her, and once he raised his hand as if to slap her. The shallow end was closed, so she climbed down the ladder in the deep end and made her way towards the four-foot section where she could touch. I’m guessing she couldn’t swim, because she moved by walking her hands along the wall. And that bastard yelled at her for not taking one of the babies from him when she was in five-foot water–which would have been over her head.
Yes, there are definitely worse places to be a woman. Korea, as shown by that link a few entries ago. Islamic countries where honor-killing goes on, despite it being against (as I understand it) the teachings of the Quran. But that doesn’t mean what goes on here is okay!
It’s so frustrating. It’s easy to condemn others’ actions, but how do you change them? I have no patience for this education thing. We’ve been doing that for years and the job isn’t done. Can I just carry a big stick?
Oh, sweetie. It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it?
*sends you a big stick*
Dammit, last comment was me.
Uh, never mind, my original comment doesn’t seem to have gone through. (Sorry if it has.) Anyway, I said something along the lines of: I’d have sent you a mace if I knew it’d get through customs, ’cause those pricks sure as heck deserve it.
It’s awful people have to live through that. I haven’t had any exposure to it myself, except perhaps the hints about my grandfather that my parents hadve dropped, but… heh. *Hugs*
Er, that Anon was me.