Today I was scrolling through BBC news and I found a news article that made me feel quite sick.
A man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for beating his wife with a cricket bat and forcing her to drink bleach. Firstly, 18 months is nowhere near long enough for such extreme domestic abuse.
But what made me feel sick was this was a resentencing. At first, he wasn’t given any time in prison, because he had claimed that he had a contract to play professional cricket. He was resentenced after it came to light that that was a lie. There was no contract. But if there had been a contract, he would have affectingly ‘got away with it’ all because he had a ‘bright future’ ahead of him.
I know these things happen. Men’s futures are put ahead of the harm they have done to women. But they had done it so brazenly. They hadn’t made any excuse about why he shouldn’t have gone to prison. They made it quite clear that it was because of the cricket contract.
I’ve always thought judges did this because the men were young and they convinced themselves that the men didn’t understand the consequences of their actions. In this case, the man is 33. He’s definitely old enough to understand that his actions would effect his future. A man of 18 should also understand this in my opinion but I could understand a judge thinking they were too young.
This news article has sickened me. It’s really shocked me into realising just how disturbing the sexism is in our society, just how widespread and ingrained it is, because of how brazenly the judge did this.
Sometimes I feel like we will never get rid of sexism. Sometimes I feel like giving up hope. That is one of those times.
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