The person my friend hurt ultimately dropped the charges, and wanted to stay in the relationship. Should that make a difference? This isn’t intended to be a leading question either. It’s genuinely a difficult thing to sort through.

Well it was a slap and not a punch, should that make a difference?

Well if anyone is going to write a character reference, please please be honest. You have to be honest. That’s the whole point, and it’s for the good of society.

I mean, part of me accepts that as a good clear line in the sand.

Personally, I like to think that I’m very selective with the company I keep. And I wouldn’t associate closely with anyone that I thought had violent/abusive tendencies.

I’m sorry you went through that.

This is an excellent point. If someone isn’t confrontational by nature, it can be difficult to decide to confront a stranger being abhorent. And it can be risky doing so if you feel like the person could become threatening.

That’s so unexcuseable it’s almost mind-blowing that someone could even call that an accident.

I know in my case I never realized until later that what was going was abuse. I thought it was just something to be navigated in relationships.

Jeez, that’s horrifying.

It’s never the happy mother, the dedicated wife, the accomplished physician.

And let’s remember, if we’re talking about emotional/psychological abuse), it’s actually committed slightly more by women than by men.

No profession, no sphere of public life—no matter how “noble” or “good”—is insulated from abusers, because the cultural conditions that enable and sustain abuse, be it physical, sexual, or emotional, transcend all of that. And while abuse certainly happens to men, we can’t ignore the disproportionate ways it…

Umm, hitting y0our partner, even in the middle of an argument, IS STILL ABUSE.

I could see this asshole throwing a shit fit.

First they come for the sparkly cowboy hats...

Reached for comment, Steve King responded

I smell political hackery here. While the GOP only lost a few % points of the white woman vote, it is freaking them out because their only schtick now is they are the party of the whites. So to try and keep white women on their side, they’ve got to appeal to that white fragility “economic anxiety”—them uppity negroes…

Missing an important accessory:

Not only that but, if you want to look the part and be taken seriously, sometimes you HAVE to choose to spend money on professional clothes even if it’s a fucking economic hardship.