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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   14189 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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I wonder how many physically abusive men, when "apologizing" to their wives for their most recent outburst, have excused their behaviour with exaggerated or invented claims of being victims of abuse themselves. I wonder if abusive men even deliberately/unconsciously seek out gullible or suicidally empathetic women who'll be more susceptible to these kinds of rationalisations.

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I couldn't help but read your comment and be intensely reminded of my father. Both my parents grew up and lived in Korea until after I was born, and the culture in Korea in the 70s-80s when they were dating and then married was certainly very very permissive of physically abusive husbands (it was only very permissive in the 90s). But that's not the part that reminds me, it's that whenever my father beat my mother, he would excuse it to her that this was just a result of the upbringing he had in his family (his father beat his mother quite a lot worse than he beat my mother, by all accounts), that he was trying his best to escape it (they were/are both second-wave feminists, which was a movement that, AFAICT from my mother, was quite popular in Korea during that time).

I haven't watched the show, but I heard that there's a scene in The Last of Us Season 2 where there's a flashback to Joel's father Lalo Salamanca explaining roughly the same thing to him while or after beating him and his brother, that his father beat him really really bad, but he only beat them really bad, and they'll go on to beat their sons only kinda bad, or something. So I get the sense that this is at least common enough to be a cliche or stereotype, and it matches my anecdotal experience.

My father's 2nd wife was also Korean and even less agentic than my mother by my judgment and also suffered quite a lot of beatings from him, which at least somewhat anecdotally points in the direction of such men seeking out such women who are ready to be victimized.

Interesting. Are you Korean?

I used to be, but I'm American now.

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