After reading Steve Chapman’s column, “Reading too much into the grim fate of a battered wife” (June 23), I plan on not reading too much into it. He just doesn’t get it.
What ugly, snide and callous remarks the educated Chapman made about not giving these men permission to beat their wives, and the fact that men don’t brag about such behavior. How stupid do you think the public is when men fail to speak out if they notice bruises on a buddy’s wife? How smug can you get when we all know that the women who do press charges, the courts let the abusers go with a slap on the wrist and no counseling?
No punishment, no public censorship-who is going to stop them? They don’t brag, but they still get away with it and often escalate the severity of their beatings after women seek justice or have left their abusers.
And what a half-wit statement-that we can’t deal with every issue that surfaces in America’s crime portfolio. The sordid issue of domestic violence that has barely been dealt with when it leads to murder will be a lifelong struggle for both families to put things back into place with some semblance of normalcy.
But things can never be the same. Life goes on, we just keep truckin’, and the bodies continue to pile up. After all, according to Mr. Chapman, there are more important crimes to deal with.
