Justice is for the bitter

A friend of mine recently directed me to the 'RIP Raoul Moat--you legend' Facebook fan page. For those of you who don't know Raoul Moat, he shot his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart twice in the stomach, killed her new boyfriend and then went on the run where, a week later, he finally shot himself in a police stand-off.

During the course of their six year relationship, he split her head open, threw her against a wall and jumped on her stomach and threatened her with a gun. His former partner, Marissa Reid, has said he beat her with his fists and a baseball bat, and raped her while she was tied to a bed. When he was jailed for hitting a child, Stobbart took the opportunity to leave her abusive relationship. Moat considered it cheating and went after her as soon as he was released on bail.

The saddest, sickest part of this whole tragedy is the aftermath. The Facebook fan page (which has 37 000 fans) is filled with comments like, "You legend. Giving whores what they deserve. She pushed you to it huni," "Moat is a true British hero, he done what he thought was right by taking revenge on his cheating ex-girlfriend," and my personal favorite, "Maybe if she kept her legs closed none of this would of happened. Maybe Moaty had good reason to be angry." There is a YouTube channel set up by his 'supporters', countless blogs lauding his actions, and at a recent Newcastle football game, 2000 fans started a chant honoring him.

It's not just men who are coming out in support either. The Facebook page was started by a woman, and many of the comments (aside from being grammatically incorrect) are from women, claiming to have sympathy for the man. Moat's declaration, that 'if I can't have you, no-one can', seems to have struck a chord. When did we, not just as women, but as human beings accept that it's ok for one person to treat another like this? When did we re-accept the idea that men can 'own' women?

But there is another issue here. Earlier this year, billboards went up in Times Square, San Francisco and Atlanta, showing loved-up couple Charles and YaVaugnie. The problem was, he was married...but not to her. They'd been together 8 1/2 years when YaVaughnie found out that Charles (head of software giant, Oracle) had a wife, and this was her response. The billboards directed people to an online photo album of their relationship, including scanned in Valentine cards and notes attached to delivered flowers.

The result? YaVaugnie was mauled by both press and bloggers, whose descriptions ranged from 'sad and pathetic' to 'deranged and unbalanced.' The billboards were pulled down after one day, although she'd paid to have them up for longer, with the media agency claiming to have been misled. (Nike, who lied about using child labour, frequently advertise on these same billboards, but that's a whole another story.)

Before I go any further, I want to make a distinction between Raoul Moat and YaVaugnie Wilkins. What Moat did was revenge, but what YaVaugnie did was justice. There is a clear distinction between righting a wrong, and simply getting even. Raoul Moat's actions were clearly the result of a very sick man. YaVaughnie's, on the other hand, seems to be a clever and amusing way to expose a scumbag. I am not comparing the actions, merely the responses to them.

Then there's the website www.dontdatehimgirl.com where spurned American women can expose the scumbags and dropkicks they've dated. It has hundreds of entries, from cheating men (complete with wives and STDs) to fraudsters and thieves. Yet discussing this with my girlfriends, they all agreed that this was 'a site for sad, single women.' This seems to be the prevailing sentiment; that women who expose the men who treat them badly are somehow shameful and to be scorned. Is this a reflection of our social values--that it's 'ok' for a man to hit back, but not for a woman? That when men do it, they're lauded and told 'she deserved it' but when women do it, they're lambasted and labelled 'desperate and bitter'?

It seems ok if female revenge is confined to private encounters and small circles of like-minded women, but the second we expose these men for what they are on a large scale, we're the ones tarred and feathered. Considering that 22% of married men have cheated on their wives according to an MSNBC/iVillage survey, where was YaVaughnie's Facebook fan page? Surely thousands of women have been exactly where she is--where is her outpouring of support?

What are your thoughts? Ever taken revenge? Ever wanted to?

Postscript: YaVaughnie does have a Fan Page, started by Victoria's Secret model Karolina Kurkova. It has 9 fans.