Stephen A. Smith suspended for domestic violence comments

[jthig32]

That's why I don't think the "scantily-clad woman getting raped" metaphor that Jthig mentioned above necessarily equates to a situation where a woman happened to hit a man... Rape is a completely predatory act, but when one person hits another person, it triggers a primal defense mechanism. So saying: "women who dress provocatively had it coming" isn't exactly the same thing as saying "if you hit somebody, you might get hit back."

I completely agree that a woman attacking a man changes the conversation on domestic violence, to a certain extent. But there's two things I wont to point out, and you touched on one of them yourself:

1. Smith didn't say "don't attack first". He said don't provoke. And that's just way too generic a statement. That can be interpreted so many ways that's it's pointless and insulting to even say.

2. As you pointed out, we have to put some context around these situations. If a woman that is outsized by that much slaps a man, it's tantamount to spitting on him, or pushing him. Or maybe yelling at him. Sure, technically it's assault, but he's not in danger. He doesn't feel threatened. He got pissed. That's all. It'd be no different than if my 13 year old daughter slapped me and I punched her lights out. If I did that, would we be talking about provocation?

There's nothing she could have done to justifiably provoke what happened. Which is why I think the rape scenario fits as a comparison. You say hitting someone produces a primal response. And seeing a scantily clad woman in a compromised state doesn't in some people? And there's nothing predatory about what Rice did, when he followed up the punch by dragging her by her hair? Plenty of people claim situational causes with rape, that they didn't plan for it to happen. They claim to have been seduced and/or teased and then asked to stop. They got caught up in the moment. And people absolutely try to explain it away by focusing on the victim. Same thing is happening here.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by jthig32

I completely agree that a woman attacking a man changes the conversation on domestic violence, to a certain extent. But there's two things I wont to point out, and you touched on one of them yourself:

1. Smith didn't say "don't attack first". He said don't provoke. And that's just way too generic a statement. That can be interpreted so many ways that's it's pointless and insulting to even say.

2. As you pointed out, we have to put some context around these situations. If a woman that is outsized by that much slaps a man, it's tantamount to spitting on him, or pushing him. Or maybe yelling at him. Sure, technically it's assault, but he's not in danger. He doesn't feel threatened. He got pissed. That's all. It'd be no different than if my 13 year old daughter slapped me and I punched her lights out. If I did that, would we be talking about provocation?

There's nothing she could have done to justifiably provoke what happened. Which is why I think the rape scenario fits as a comparison. You say hitting someone produces a primal response. And seeing a scantily clad woman in a compromised state doesn't in some people? And there's nothing predatory about what Rice did, when he followed up the punch by dragging her by her hair? Plenty of people claim situational causes with rape, that they didn't plan for it to happen. They claim to have been seduced and/or teased and then asked to stop. They got caught up in the moment. And people absolutely try to explain it away by focusing on the victim. Same thing is happening here.

Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree with you on these points, but I think there are several different issues being discussed at once and confused in the overlap:

1) Ray Rice - what he did was inexcusable. It's not like his girlfriend was holding a knife to his throat and he hit her out of self defense. Everybody, including Stephen A Smith, agrees on that.

2) Stephen A Smith - what he said was vague, which is why people have attributed their own meanings to his words... Everything from "she had it coming" to "Rice had the right to defend himself." The big problem here is that Smith totally bombed at communicating his idea, which left people to fill in the blanks. He started out talking about the Rice case, specifically, but by the time he tossed out the word "provocation" he was addressing women as a whole. It's one thing if someone reacts to violence with violence - it's quite another if someone reacts to a verbal jab with violence. What, exactly, was he referring to?

3) Gender equality - the idea that no man should ever hit a woman under ANY circumstances just because he's a man... Which is really more of a tangent that people like myself are going on, but an overlooked issue in what is still a male-dominated society. The idea that a man should take abuse from a woman just because he's a man is ludicrous. Of course, I don't think self-defense applies in the case of Ray Rice, but it does fall under the generic umbrella of SAS's statement about "provocation."


So, like most problems in the world, Stephen A Smith's issue stems from bad communication. I can't really attack or defend the guy because I'm not 100% certain what he was trying to say. His words were clear, but the meaning could be construed in all sorts of ways, given the context... All I can really say for sure is that if you're going to tackle a sensitive issue like this publicly, then you better communicate your idea clearly. He didn't, and that's why ESPN suspended him for a week.