What masculinity is not

Today, this article came to the news desk at the TV station that I intern with:

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/man-arrested-after-brutally-beating-his-wife-groveland-police-say/-/1637132/24960014/-/kxejidz/-/index.html

As you can see, I am the author of the article. As such, I was unfortunately exposed to the police report that accompanied this man's arrest. It made me cringe -- on numerous occasions. The victim listed here was beaten and bruised on nearly every inch of her body after her husband 1. looked at her cell phone; 2. got angry that she let her daughter take out the truck to go to the store; 3. had too much to drink. On separate occasions.

As you can see -- unless they have been deleted by monitors -- there are some people who commented accusing this woman of falsely incriminating her husband. That was the first thing that came to someone's mind, simply because the gruesome details were not there for the world to see. (I hope, that if she reads the article, she is happy with the lack of explicit details of her injuries involved.)

Violent behavior toward any person -- man or woman -- is never all right. This article infuriated me, especially after watching last week's video on the culture of hip hop. When we allow negative attitudes and implied violence to permeate our culture as if it is totally acceptable, what sort of precedence are we setting? Do I think that rap and hip-hop music are the reasons that this man reacted in this manner? Absolutely not. Far from it, actually. However, the culture of violence enables people to think that ACTUAL violence is exaggerated; or untrue; or, god forbid (and I did not see responses that indicated this) warranted.

Masculinity should never be defined by how "hard" someone is, or their power over women. It should be defined by their ability to love themselves, and care for the one's they love as a response.