There are all sorts of defining moments where the rules all change. The press will never turn the other way after the Senator Hart and the Monkey Business. Behavior between men and women in the work place will be forever changed after Anita Hill. Lots of things changed post Watergate. Sports figures will never get by with domestic violence after Ray Rice was banished from football after a video was released of him coldcocking his soon-to-be wife in a elevator, knocking her unconscious.
Many folks were already upset that the NFL had such lightweight sanctions on players who were involved in violent acts against others. Penalties were longer for those who were arrested for drug use than for beating one’s wife to a bloody pulp. All that is going to change now and it should.
Hopefully these kinds of sanctions will carry over to other sports and to other career fields. Domestic violence has to have sanctions. Now, here is the question. Would we feel differently if the roles were reversed? What if the perpetrator was not a well-know athlete? Would we have the same abhorrent reaction? Is this about size difference? Gender? Would we be as upset if a wife or girl friend flew into a rage and pummeled an athlete? No one seemed to care that Mrs. Woods broke up tiger’s golf clubs. Speak to the issue of domestic violence please and do we cut slack to women to beat on their husbands?
