Over the past week Fathers & Families’ Ned Holstein, MD has been making the point in the media that “Many commentators are criticizing McNair because his murder revealed that he was apparently having an extramarital affair. This is another double-standard on men & DV–it”s very hard to imagine the media criticizing a married woman who was gunned down by her boyfriend.” Colby Cosh of the Canadian National
Post apparently agrees, and wrote a nice column on the issue–Celebrity death trap (7/14/09). Cosh writes:
Few voices were raised to counter the chorus of victim-blaming, although Ned Holstein, a Boston physician who studies domestic violence, pointed out that “it’s very hard to imagine the media criticizing a married woman who was gunned down by her boyfriend.” Hard? Try impossible…The double standard here is self-evident…When a man and a woman have an affair, it’s the man who makes the decision, and if someone is harmed, the fault is his.
Cosh cites numerous examples of victim-blaming in the McNair case, including:
In the view of FOXSports.com’s Jason Whitlock, it is not even clear which half of this murder-suicide should be assigned to which party. “I’m only willing to acknowledge four victims — McNair’s four sons,” he wrote, overlooking the bullet-riddled corpse. Joe Biddle of The Tennessean boldly compared Mc-Nair’s adulterous legacy to those of a number of NFL drunk-driving laureates who have actually killed people-Donte Stallworth, Dwayne Goodrich, Leonard Little.
Commend Cosh for his piece by sending him an email by clicking here.