We don’t hear much about defending a woman’s honour these days.
Perhaps that’s because the concept is as old-fashioned as handing the housekeeping to the little wife every week.
It’s 2022, and women are perfectly able to defend their own honour when it comes to boorish jokes and insults.
Yet actor Will Smith appears to have missed that memo, striding onto the Oscars stage and physically assaulting Chris Rock for daring to make a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith’s alopecia.
It wasn’t a great joke – but it certainly didn’t require a medieval show of violence.
Smith also yelled ‘keep my wife’s name out your ****ing mouth!’ and later apologised - when he won his Oscar - because ‘love will make you do crazy things’ (incidentally, an excuse used by every abuser since the Bible).
Several A-listers tweeted their shock and condemned Smith’s violent behaviour. Some viewers thought it was a marvellous show of protective chivalry.
Many, however, missed the toxic issue at the heart of the incident – the belief that a woman ‘belongs’ to a man and must therefore be protected from other men.
Would Smith have been quite so furious if the joke had come from Amy Schumer? And if Rock had said it about another female actor would he have been so quick to throw a punch?
Unlikely. This kind of rage stems from a place of arrogance and ownership, just as it has throughout history, when sword-wielding knights battled over a lady’s ‘honour’ (read ‘owner’).
‘Protective’ violence is no more sophisticated than a dog fight - a simple, primitive way of marking territory.
Instead, Smith could have turned to support his wife, and let her speak for herself, then or later. As it was, he ignored anything she might be feeling, running off to whack the baddie, then drawing attention to her embarrassment by yelling abuse.
In these circumstances, a highly capable, 50 year old woman is reduced to a possession, with no right of reply.
In future, few will see her name on a movie poster without immediately thinking of the Oscars night when her husband made it all about him. That’s not love, it’s bad temper and narcissism.
The poisonous narrative than women ultimately ‘belong’ to men and must have their honour defended as they stand by, pretty and helpless, should have been ditched along with gas lamps and carriages.
Of course, so should cruel jokes about appearance due to a medical condition. Smith could have made room for Jada to speak.
She could have advocated for people with alopecia and raised awareness of a misunderstood condition.
Instead, he blustered and punched like a pub drunk who dimly perceives an insult, then put it down to ‘love.’
He may be a talented, sensitive and now Oscar-winning actor. But when it comes to his personal life, he has a lot to learn.
Firstly, that women don’t need men to defend their honour – we are more than capable of doing that ourselves. And that loving someone doesn’t mean ignoring them while you start a fight to make yourself feel better.
