Opinions

End the domestic violence divide

Why is Hope Solo allowed to play on the soccer field for the Seattle Reigns amidst her domestic violence charges while Adrian Peterson sits at home, deactivated by the Vikings for his indictments of child abuse? Why is Solo captain of the national team and getting praise for her 73rd career shutout when Ray Rice committed the same crime and was suspended indefinitely from the National Football League?

Here’s why: U.S. Soccer doesn’t want to be part of the apparent “war on women,” so they would rather take no action against Solo and her domestic violence charges than hold her accountable.

At a late night party over the summer, Solo allegedly punched her sister and her nephew. The reason Solo is still on the field is because there’s some notion out there that men are the only monsters capable of violence, and that there is a war on women. Wrong.

Though domestic violence victims are overwhelmingly women (85 percent), according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which also notes that over 800,000 men are assaulted each year. These victims no doubt should also be included in the domestic violence discussion.This so-called “war on women” out there is distracting us from the real conversation we should be having about violence against all humanity.

Yet, U.S. Soccer is focusing on the political rhetoric of national figures—that “our society still does not sufficiently value women,” as President Barack Obama stated last week at a White House event to launch the “It’s on Us” campaign. Obama described it as “a new public awareness and action campaign designed to prevent sexual assault taught at colleges and universities, and to change the culture on our campuses and to better engage men in this effort.

But how can Obama think this society doesn’t value women? People went ballistic over the video showing Ray Rice punching and knocking out his fiancé in an elevator. The amount of conversation that is taking place over abuse against women in the NFL alone, and especially on college campuses, is staggering.

“We still don’t condemn sexual assault as loudly as we should.  We make excuses. We look the other way,” Obama said on Friday.

U.S. Soccer is looking the other way when it comes to Solo’s domestic violence charges. They don’t want to be seen as “waging a war on women,” so they turn a blind eye towards Solo’s charges.

“We have fought for families, for moms and dads and kids and the values that hold us all together,” Hilary Clinton said at a Democratic National Committee leadership forum last week.

But who’s fighting for Solo’s 17-year-old nephew whom she allegedly punched that night?

Clearly we aren’t really fighting for all. An inexcusable gender discrepancy exists when the Hope Solos of the world don’t face equal consequences for their actions as their male counterparts.

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