Need to atone

Was thinking about everything I've done wrong (well, maybe not everything, but lots of things) and what first popped into mind was the day fifty years ago when I walloped a little girl with my roller skates. It's true she was a snob and bossy, but nobody deserves that. Even my father couldn't make me apologize to her. Apologizing was worse than the beating I'd get for refusing to apologize. Still, I don't understand all the dynamics behind that incident and how it continues to affects my world view. I know that I sometimes think that men who hurt women are punished without looking at the role the woman might have played in inciting that violence—but even saying that out loud would be very unfashionable these days. I need to atone for creating an anti-social fracture in my life, to my father for defying him, and to her for hurting her.

4 Comments

Post a Comment

That's your problem

Jan 26, 2020 at 2:25pm

Your problem is that you feel that if someone wrongs you then you have to do something back to them. Revenge, in other words. But that's the problem. You don't . If someone wrongs you, that's their problem to deal with. If someone wrongs you, that means they're a crappy person and you should just move on. Unless someone is in your face, threatening your physical well-being, you don't need to do anything back to them. It's the need for revenge that puts you in the wrong. We have all had injustices happen to us because crappy people exist and we don't always see them coming, but it is not our obligation to wrong them back.

an unpopular two-cents

Jan 26, 2020 at 3:35pm

Let's admit that some women are awful bullies. Some women are monsters who take advantage of antiquated sexist views to get away with things a man would never get away with nowadays. Some women abuse men. Some actually physically abuse them, and the men have nowhere to go to be safe. This is because we are still a sexist society, and could not imagine that woman could beat her male partner, but it's real and we don't think men deserve protection because we think all men are strong. If a man defended himself from a woman's abuse, he'd be carted off to jail and those bully monster women know this and take advantage of this.
If we want true equality, we need to acknowledge that violence happens from both sexes to both sexes, and should not accept any of it.
One awful bully woman I knew of got too emboldened and went too far with a man at a bus stop, berating him and getting in his face being verbally abusive. He responded with clocking her in the head and that shut her up. She wasn't so mouthy after that day. When we all heard about it, we felt relief because it toned her down and felt like poetic justice for all the times she made many lives miserable. And while an eye for an eye is not the answer, some bullies deserve a sock in the head for all the times they hurt people without a care in the world. Fair is fair.

@ That’s your problem

Jan 27, 2020 at 10:06pm

Perfectly put.
People can be horrible and try and push all kinds of buttons... that’s their miserable existence, once you react, you make it your own.

Eye for an eye

Jan 28, 2020 at 8:23am

Almost had me. Wordsmith. Had to read that over. Brain injury, neurological damage, limited functioning, other. Not right to berate someone. Not right. fair, to retaliate with vicious attack. Not an eye for an eye. Just encouraging over the top violence. Symptom of a sick society.

Join the Discussion

What's your name?