Worrying

I was at the station the other night. I was nearly home and wandering across the concorse, a group of teenage girls, I'd guess they were about 14, were walking the other way. It's half term so I assume they were off some where fun and as teenagers are want to do they were bellowing their joy. There were the usual characters that make up a group. The incredibly loud, confident, pretty leader. Two girls, also pretty and willing to agree with whatever she says (shouts) and the dumpy one who is allowed to hang around because she occasionally makes them laugh and makes the others look good by comparison. (This sounds so bitter, you can guess which one I was). Anyway. Teenagers are annoying, we all know this. They shout their opinions and think they are hilarious. Depending on my mood I either enjoy listening to their 'dilemmas', which are always easy to follow as they are transmitted at volume and include so much detail. Or I just wish they'd shut up and spend my journey silently plotting their downfall. However on this occassion I was simultaneously worried for them and despising of them. And this is for why;

They were talking about Chris Brown.

Not his music (he'd just won a grammy and performed at the ceremony), no - loud confident girl (who was wearing shorts, in February) was loudly proclaiming the view that 'He's so fit he could hit me anytime.' One of the two pretty friends laughed and said 'Yeah he could hit me in the face and I wouldn't mind'. They all laughed and carried on walking.

Now I'm sure they thought they were being mature and ironic and we were all congratulating them on their irreverant and post modern humour. We weren't think that they were pathetic children who were broadcasting ideas that they have no idea about and were transmitting at a volume when they had no idea of their audience. Now I am glad that they have never experienced it and so do imagine it to be not that bad, I am terrified however that they think domestic violence is OK if the man is fit, that domestic violence is something to be dismissed and that domestic violence is a topic that is up for jokes.

It's not.

Domestic violence should be a subject that is discussed freely and openly. There should be no judgement on the victims and help should be sought and freely given. However domestic violence should be a taboo subject when it comes to humour. Oh I know the majority of people are joking and would no more dream of hitting their partner or kids anymore than they would think about going postal with a gun in a shopping centre, but there's the 1% that thinks that they are justified in going home and beating seven shades of shit out of their wife because they've had a bad day and it's that 1% that hears the jokes and uses them as a defence of their actions. Somethings are so horrendous that they should not be joked about. Humour justifies actions and makes unacceptable things palatable. Most of us, thank God, are far enough removed from things like this that we feel safe joking about them. Our family isn't affected therefore we can joke. But it's always someone's family that is being affected.

It also leads to girls coming out with comments like the girls at the train station. It breaks my heart. Not only because it's girls turning on other women and justifying violence against them, but it's girls betraying the rights that we have fought for. It's in living history that it became illegal for men to hit their wives. We fought long and hard not to be seen as our husbands property. These girls take these rights for granted and so abuse them. They need to know how we got to this point. We need to respect our past and band together so we don't go backwards.

And Chris Brown should just fuck off.