Thursday, August 08, 2013

Dating Violence Quote Unquote

It's a stunning headline: "Girls commit dating violence as often as boys, studies show"

Stunning, and hard to believe, so I went on reading, and found this: "While most of us may not rank name-calling, or bad-mouthing another to their friends as “violence,” the researchers say they included the psychological and relationship tactics because they can have a profound impact."

I had to re-read that a few times. "Most of us" may not rank "name-calling" as violence? Yeah, no kidding. Because name-calling is not violence. It's "using your words"!

And it's not just a matter of "rank". "Rank" makes it sound like there's some smooth continuum between insult and injury. Which there isn't.

Being verbally attacked
is not the same as getting whacked.

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