When I was a child, the violence we saw in entertainment had a purpose and wasn’t very graphic. It was presented as a regrettable but necessary means to stop evil, and nobody got seriously hurt. Since then, violence in entertainment has become more realistic and violence in society more prevalent. Whether art imitates life or life imitates art I am not certain. What I do know is that things have unraveled to the point where politicians now make jokes about domestic violence with impunity and are attempting – and at times succeeding – to pass laws that effectively turn back the clock on the status of women in society as equal to men.

I wonder what leads a man to do such things. I wonder what kind of profound insecurity would make it necessary for a man to attempt to legally make women second class citizens, and what a profound lack of compassion and empathy would be necessary for him to be unaware that these laws would negatively impact the women in his life, too. Finally, I find myself believing that the best thing that could happen to wake these politicians up would be for them to become the victims of the kind of violence they find so insignificant or entertaining when it is directed toward women. It’s at that point I realize that I have a long way to go, too.