Tiger Woods is a victim of domestic violence, but he’s the one who makes a humiliating apology and begs to be able to continue providing his violent wife with a billion-dollar lifestyle. The media have largely ignored the domestic violence, and the public are only interested in how genuine and remorseful his apology seemed. Imagine if the tables had been turned; if Tiger Woods had attacked his wife with a weapon after finding out she had been sexually unfaithful, if he had injured her and chased after her as she ran for her life, if he had attacked and damaged her car as she desperately drove away so frightened and distressed (and unable to see through the windscreen he had broken?) that she soon crashed the car into something. Tiger would have been charged under the US Violence Against Women Act, even if his wife did not make a formal complaint. The propaganda-soaked public would have focused almost entirely on his violence and her victimization, and those who sought to draw attention to her infidelity as a provocation would soon be shouted down with “violence is not OK” slogans. No way would she be going on television to apologize! Rather than losing advertising contracts, new offers would be rolling in especially from purveyors of products for modern women who are “worth it” enough to put their own needs first. Women’s magazines and other media would outbid each other for interviews with this brave survivor of domestic violence. Judges would uphold her right to be unfaithful because it’s not against any law. Feminist laws have ensured that her unfaithfulness would be sanitized through no-fault divorce, full relationship property entitlements, the ongoing right to occupy the family home, and close to certainty of keeping primary custody of any children and therefore ongoing financial support from her ex-husband. Indeed, if he had so much as raised his voice in objecting to his wife’s infidelity he could expect to have his civil rights and his relationship with his children further damaged through a protection order. In some countries including New Zealand, any claim by him that he was provoked by her infidelity would be rejected legally, and instead would probably have him judged as “victim-blaming” and therefore deserving of increased punishment. In fact, nobody should ever dare try to mention her infidelity because a woman will be protected from cross-examination concerning her sexual history. Aside from all of this, his wife would blame her unfaithfulness on Tiger’s insufficiency of some kind and the public would nod their heads in recognition of her hardship. And the only thing she is likely to be criticized for widely would be saying that her wishes now were to save her marriage and to protect her children’s family unit.

Ah, but that’s the way stories go when wives are unfaithful and husbands react. When the genders are reversed, we get the Tiger Woods story.