At the end of last week in the Instagram feed I came across a video in which the unpainted blogger and presenter Regina Todorenko apologized for her statement about domestic violence. Before I google this statement, I decided to read the comments. There were a lot of them, the blogger had an audience of 8 million people. The female comments were flaming with such hatred that scenes from several works of cinematography came to my mind at once, in which the hero was lynched, leading through a brutal crowd. And when a hero is carried out like this and everyone throws a stone at him or tries to pinch, leaving a bloody bruise, and aggression increases with every step of the victim, you already think - no matter what this person did, let him be guilty, but normal human society cannot and should not behave like that.

It should not spin the coil of aggression in itself, because it itself loses its human appearance on this and becomes much worse than the person whom it is trying to punish. Why did I just use the word “victim”? But because when everyone rushes like this on one, he becomes a victim, no matter what guilt behind him. Todorenko already apologized, but they continued to beat her. 

Unlike many, I'm not going to say that I was not subscribed to Todorenko and found out about her only after she made a statement. There was - after I met her in the fall at the Tula Journalism Forum, where she spoke and I spoke. Over tea, she asked me some strange questions about journalism. They surprised me, but I answered them, because in general the girl is positive. Then she had 7 million subscribers, and they rushed with Regina like a treasure. It’s all because of the subscribers: such an audience is capital. This is money for advertising, and this is hypocritical attention to the blogger himself, who, just mentioning you in his post, can give you the opportunity to bite off a little from your audience and also start making money. Money, money, all the same money. I subscribed to it right away: I was wondering what she gives to her audience and what is the basis of her success story. 

But let's get back to the statement. What did Todorenko say? She said: “You need to be so mentally ill person to take a camera and say:“ God, my husband beats me! ”. Come on? Do you have any brains? Perhaps some critical moment is coming to say this. Why is he hitting you? Have you ever thought? And what have you done so that he does not beat you? And what did you do to hit you? ” After these words, a scandal erupted, and one glossy magazine stripped her of the title Woman of the Year. The awarding took place not so long ago - in any case, I was already a subscriber of Todorenko. And then I did not even begin to wonder what kind of merit the magazine awarded the blogger with such a title, and so it was clear: he wants advertising for 8 million people. 

But Todorenko uttered her terrible words, and the angry part of the female public demanded that she donate money to organizations working with victims of domestic violence. Yes, I used the right word - “demanded”. She didn’t ask, didn’t offer, didn’t advise, but she demanded - she told her where to spend her money. But, as far as I know, donating to such organizations is a charity. And the most disgusting thing that can happen to charity is when it will be done under pressure, gritting your teeth and not from a pure heart.

This is how we kill the very idea of ​​charity in our minds. Well, public organizations themselves will look very strange - after all, they will act as laundries, laundering with reverence the reputation of those who stumbled.

Personally, I am grateful to Todorenko for saying. She, of course, did not have enough expressive means of the language in order to convey her idea, but if it is shifted to normal Russian, then there are several sensible arguments. She talked about why in the Russian language there is a stable expression with a negative meaning "to take dirty linen out of the hut." If a woman is going to continue to live with this husband, who beats her, and she uses public accusation of domestic violence against him as blackmail, then this is dirty linen, and a person who behaves like this is probably really mentally ill.

But if a woman really wants to save herself from the tyrant and her “critical moment” has come, and she has no other ways to defend herself, then no one can reproach her with the fact that she went out with her misfortune to the public. But we have already repeatedly witnessed unfair accusations when a public verdict was issued against men without trial and investigation, and the presumption of innocence did not work in any way. And then it turned out that everything was not quite like that, but by that time the man was already losing everything that he could lose. 

In our country, a high percentage of domestic violence. And this is a different kind of violence. Different degrees and different levels. Violence is bad, yes. It should not be. There is no such family value as domestic violence. A man should not beat a woman. A woman should not use psychological violence against a man. But still, many women do not want to leave families with periodic violence, and if, for example, the husband of such a woman looks at another, then this will suffer and fight for him in every possible way. It happens, and it often happens. And only the hypocrites who reason with simple slogans cannot accept this fact. 

I have met many women who recognize themselves as victims of domestic violence. And I always asked them one question: “You are not guilty of being beaten. No one has the right to beat. But tell me, are you responsible for how you lived the last ten years of your life? ” The answer was always: "Yes." These women whom I met in real life have never been as aggressive as their defenders in online battles. They were well aware that they, too, were responsible for their idealistic ideas about this man, for their many years of hope that he would someday get better, for not leaving to be considered married and not single in society. Usually a woman herself knows what his fault and what is her responsibility. 

In my opinion, one of the big problems of Russian society is that boys are not taught to discuss their emotions. To find a way out for these emotions in words, not in fists. A man can carry in himself a different mixture of boiling emotions and, not being able to use words, release them through physical strength, through assault. The woman is not to blame, but she often does not know how to help this man find a verbal expression for his feelings. In what Todorenko said, this thought slips, and this is a rather deep thought. And if society was not so embittered, then this problem could be calmly discussed with the same large audience of Regina and find a long-term way to solve it. In the end, those women who are now cursing Todorenko are unlikely to want their own rising sons in the future, society to be judged without the presumption of innocence and turned into enemies only because they were born men. And so it will be, and these women with their own hands are building such a future for their sons. 

However, the dialogue could not take place. Because of Todorenko’s success story. None of those indignant need a constructive dialogue about the future of our society. It was necessary to lynch a blogger who gained 8 million people in his audience. Now it looks like this: “We have been following your success for a long time and patiently waited for you to stumble. You stumbled. Get it. "

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.