Male Victim.

The other night at the ER we had a man who had been assaulted by his girlfriend. This wasn't some demure little ladyslap either. This was nasty. It could easily have killed him and will permanently scar his face.

And I couldn't fucking believe my coworkers.
"Whooee, I wonder what he did. You know he did something."
"Boy, I wish I could [graphic description of how the man was attacked] my husband sometimes!"
"She sure got him good!"

I didn't just sit there stewing in my moral superiority (the way I do when they talk about Weight Watchers, oh my God shut up about Weight Watchers you goddamn self-hating pseudoascetics); I stood up. It didn't do any damn good though.

"Hey, he's really hurt."
"Oh come on, have a sense of humor."

"Wouldn't that be a really messed-up thing to say if he were a woman?"
"Yeah, but this is different!"

"I just don't think it's appropriate for us to..."
"You know what, you're just a tech. Go answer 18's call light and do an EKG on 14."



To be fair (and to evade any "so you see how men are victims of the matriarchy" blather), most female rape victims in the ER also endure intensive break-room analysis of their appearance, behavior, substance use, mental health history, "situation she put herself in," ad fucking nauseum. And the only things I can say about it seem to translate to "HI I'M HOLLY AND I'M STUCK UP AND NO FUN."

Well, there's no foolproof way to reshape everyone's opinions to match mine. Kinda sucks though, when the opinion in question is "deviating from traditional gender roles makes the victim of a violent crime laughable and/or culpable."