21st

This was a particularly heart-wrenching episode we watched in class (especially when you make the little boy so cute). It really made me think about how many children something like this has happened to. This reminded me a lot of a mock-trial I did my senior year in my College U.S. Government class involving a woman who had killed her husband (yes, an extremely different outcome than the episode had) and the defense was claiming Battered Woman Syndrome was the reason for it. I feel that when you see men like this, or hear about men like this, BWS is not a far-fetched idea. I would be extremely scared if I were to find myself involved in a situation involving abuse. Yes, its easy to say that it would be easy to just get up and leave, but even if you are able to, how safe are you? The episode we watched before class was also a disturbing one. The main man involved was just sick, and because of him, his wife had become a fairly sick person as well. It was really difficult to know how to feel about the wife, because I almost want to be angry with her, but then again, I feel awful for her as well, and can not imagine going through what she did, what a scary scary man to find your self stuck with.

These episodes, as well as our discussions with the guest speakers, made me think about how scary it really is down there. I’m always making sure when I go out or am with my guy friends in a new situation or somewhere I don’t know many people that I stay close to them, that I don’t walk by myself, especially when its dark (they don’t even let me do that). Yes, this seems like a safe plan, but its odd that these people I trust, are statistically, the most likely to hurt me. It really is a scary world for women out there, and its extremely unfortunate that we all must feel a fairly constant need to protect ourselves. Safety just shouldn’t be something difficult to come by.