By Jennifer Johnson
Serious situations are often made light of through humor in order to ease feelings of pain and
awkwardness. However, the serious situations I speak of should not, and do not, include domestic violence.
Now of course, there are other topics that should never be made light of, but recently, two members of the FSU community chose to dress as an angry man and a battered woman for Halloween. There was a photo posted on Instagram and the following hashtags were used: #lightenup #itsfunny.
Innocent people are beaten to near death in their homes every year, and usually, it goes unreported. According to Merriam Webster, the definition of batter is “to beat with excessive blows so as to bruise, shatter or demolish.” Is that laughable?
Domestic violence is a major issue all over the world, and it is something that is not discussed nearly as often as it should be. In the United States, one out of every four women will experience domestic violence at some point in her life, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Of all these assaults which are occurring only one quarter of physical assaults against females by intimate partners will be reported.
When people joke about domestic violence, regardless of gender, it is not something to be laughed at. We as a society have yet to solve the problem. For all you know, there may be a victim of domestic violence sitting right next to you, and the likelihood of that is pretty high.
Lack of seriousness toward the issue is one of the factors that push victims away from reporting the violence they have experienced. As a society, we must have sensitivity toward domestic violence and take every aspect of it seriously in order to create an open environment for improvement.