‘Woman fi get beating, straight’

A video circulating on the Internet last week drew the ire of many persons who watched a man repeatedly beat his woman whom he accused of breaking his necklace. Throughout the video, and in a vox pop afterwards involving other men and a young teen boy, there was general consensus amongst the men that the woman deserved the ‘discipline’ since she had provoked the man.

Most said the beating — which involved him punching her in the face and kicking her in the stomach — was justified.

The sentiments weren’t confined to the men in the unidentified community, believed to be somewhere in rural Jamaica. After the video went viral, and even as women’s groups slapped their foreheads and groaned in collective resignation, men in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew, were telling an All Woman team that indeed, sometimes a woman deserved a fine whopping.

The reasons they gave included when women cheat; if they weren’t ‘behaving right’; if the women attacked first and if there was defamation of character.

“Woman fi get beating of course,” one young fellow trading cash for gold said. He was too shy to share his name, but declared, at the top of his voice, “If she violate of course she fi get beaten. Mi beat woman yes. Mi nah go just get up and beat her so, but if she do something of course she fi get lick!”

His colleague shared similar sentiments, adding that he has had occasion only once to slap a woman in her face.

“Mi nuh really beat woman still, but woman fi get lick, straight,” the 24-year-old who gave his name only as Ricky declared. “A one time mi box a woman still and is because mi go home and see another man inna di house. That was the only time.”

He then admitted that the house actually belonged to the woman but, “a mi a har man! What she a do wid other man deh?”

Psychologist Dr Leachim Semaj said women beaters often live what they learn and know no other way of resolving conflicts.

“People live what they learn and so people who are close to you — your parents and those you admire, if this is what you see them do then you are going to learn that that is the appropriate way to deal with things,” he said. “Now if you don’t have some counteractive measures that say otherwise then you will revert to the most basic method that you know. So when you are frustrated, when something interferes with your objectives, when you’re physically exhausted, this is what you will do. Once you believe you have a physical advantage over the person, especially if you feel that you have been disrespected, if you feel you have been humiliated, if you feel you have been disobeyed, there is that almost raw response that if you don’t have something else that will counteract it, that will give you other reasons to behave differently. Then a number of persons, a large number of men will behave in that manner.”

However, irrespective of the cause or what the woman may have done, Dr Semaj said beating is never justified.

“No one has a right to impose their will on another person,” the psychologist said. “None of us has the right to physically assault another person. But there are many men who take it upon themselves to do so.”

He said at this point the State should intervene or if this intervention is not done, family and friends should play a part.

“Oftentimes they (women) have family, they have friends, they have associates who sometimes step in and help to contain the behaviour,” he continued. “But many times when a woman speaks to me about domestic violence, the first thing I ask is where is your father, where is your uncle? You don’t have any half mad brother? Because oftentimes it’s that immediate fear of influence that can directly appeal or directly threaten the male so that his behaviour now comes back on track.”

Dr Semaj said the other part to domestic violence is that there are women who will not allow the man to even lift his hand, because whether directly or indirectly, she makes it very clear to him that ‘if you do so I will kill you!’

“For me that is the ultimate thing that keeps domestic violence in check,” he added. “When a woman makes it clear to the man that ‘you can hit me but it’s the last time you going to hit anybody’. They tell men that, and the men know that, and those women don’t get hit. Because the man knows clearly, even if she does it as a joke, he knows he would have to pay the penalty for it.”

Twenty-four-year old Kevin Brown, who has been in a steady relationship for three years, said he does not believe that women should be beaten because that is ill-treatment. He feels that should an argument ensue, it is best for the man to walk away. However, there is one condition upon which he feels hitting his woman is justified.

“If she hits me then it’s a different thing,” he said. “If she instigates a fight then than justifies it ’cause you have to defend yourself.”

Other men interviewed felt too, that at this point, they would have to retaliate.

But not so, said Dr Semaj.

“If she attempts to hit you, if she attempts to do you harm then the appropriate thing for a man to do in defending himself is to restrain her and remove himself from the environment,” he said. “It is never right to hit a woman. You might have people around him saying ‘yeah man lick her, she dis you and she no have no right’. It is never appropriate to hit a woman, because no matter how right you are, you still wrong because you hit a woman.

Semaj said education and socialisation is what will make the difference for men who have been accustomed to this practise.

Twenty-eight-year old Jason Tucker, a merchant spotted Half-Way-Tree, said beating women is something he was accustomed to until he got older.

“I used to beat woman when I was younger, yes, but as I got older I realised that it doesn’t make sense,” Tucker said. “It doesn’t solve anything so it makes no sense.”

And Robert Foster, a barber, had similar views.

“Beating is not going to make the situation better,” he said.