Clara Listensprechen's Cranny: Meredith Vieira's #WhyIStayed speaks for many, many, many women

By now, Meredith Vieira's story of domestic abuse has made the rounds in the news circuits and she makes a number of good points. Not that I was ever in an abusive situation myself, being someone who has successfully avoided such entanglements thusfar--but I've known a good number of women who were, including but not limited to a woman who went back to the guy who knifed her and she dropped the charges.

If it looks like a skunk and smells like a skunk, it probably is a skunk.

There's not a whole lot to be said for belief in this thing called "woman's intuition" when you see so many women getting stuck like that, or when women get cheated on and she's the last one to believe that it actually was happening "under her nose" while being totally clueless when all the clues were there. Women who are fortunate to have avoided such men as that were more than just lucky, though. They could tell, you can call it "woman's intuition", and acknowledge that these women were actually paying attention to it. It's not the exclusive purview of women, though; such characters as Sherlock Holmes and his side-kick Watson used their intuition to great advantage, and yes, they were fictional characters but the product of the mind of a male.

So is the concept of marriage as a definition of property ownership right down to a male's concept of children and mate as chattel. Sure, women got suffrage and limited property ownership rights, but still as long as the woman was single. Marriage might theoretically be more enlightened today, but there are males out there that don't understand that, especially the steeped-in-tradition conservative types. The woman might think she still owns herself, but the abusive spouse begs to differ. And so I remain single, not ever having married even once. I go to bed boss and I wake up boss with no man as my lord and master. Fork that snit.

I've always been my own boss and I'll be in a nursing home first before that changes. Nobody gets away with telling me to shut up, pipe down, do as I'm told, or give me orders. Not nobody not no how, not ever.

UPDATE, Goodell Statement Edition: I'm seeing some quoting polls how fans don't think this man should step down. I'm seeing a league that has made no move on this issue until the sponsors started pulling their support. The NFL has never been concerned before about the issue at hand and isn't concerned about it now--the only thing they care about is the sponsorship.

I'm seeing a union that's too interested in covering/protecting criminal behavior, and as liberal as I am, I do NOT support unions that do this. Given the misogyny of union tradition at the get-go, and not just in sports, I'm one liberal who does not support unions no matter what. This snit DOES stink.

Saturday PostScript: The image immediately following is certainly food for thought as a different aspect of Adrian Peterson's case, and worthy of serious consideration...