Viewpoint: The vilification of women needs to stop

Rihanna opens up to Oprah Winfrey during an interview for "Oprah's Next Chapter" at Rihanna's home in Barbados.

This Sunday on Oprah’s Next Chapter, audiences will listen to Rihanna recount the aftermath of the 2009 argument she had with Chris Brown that left the R&B singer beaten, bloodied and bruised.

In a preview clip of the interview, Rihanna tearfully describes the emotions she felt following the assault and the media attention that then surrounded her and Brown.

Admittedly when I first read the article, I couldn’t help but think, “Why are we still talking about this three years later?”

But after watching the short clip, I commend Rihanna for her bravery and her honesty.

She spoke from her heart, even if her words weren’t the ones she knew the public wanted to hear.

“I lost my best friend, like everything I knew switched in a night. ... It’s not easy for me to understand or interpret,” Rihanna tells Oprah in the interview.

“It was a weird, confusing space to be in because as angry as I was, as angry and as hurt and betrayed, I just felt like he made that mistake because he needed help, and who's gonna help him? Nobody's gonna say he needs help. Everybody's gonna say he's a monster without looking at the source. I was more concerned about him," she goes on to explain.

I browsed through the comments section on various news sites (never a good idea) to see how others reacted to Rihanna’s interview. Here are just a few of the especially cringe worthy (but not the worst) of the whopping 3,910 comments about Rihanna posted on Yahoo Music News by late Thursday night:

1. “How sad these women are, who have such low self esteem that they think it is alright for a man to beat them”
2. “She would get back with him in a second”
3. “Classic co-dependent”
4. “Boo efen hoo!”
5. “So sad that she gives a typical battered woman answer, that he is the victim”
6. “She is such an idiot....she should just shut up and go back to him and get punched....but this time, don't call the cops and waste the tax payers money”

Now, let me get this straight from the start: I would never defend Chris Brown or his actions. Whatever his “reasoning” for assaulting Rihanna, whether he had anger issues, or childhood problems, or drinking problems, it doesn’t justify anything. He was wrong and disgusting, and a woman should never live in fear of being abused by a man.

That being said, I do not think Rihanna’s words about her former boyfriend reflect weakness or ignorance or stupidity as many faceless Internet commenters suggest. She admitted candidly that the person she once loved turned on her, and she didn’t know how to make sense of the situation. She still felt protective of Chris Brown, even after what he did to her. And while that may be a hard pill for some people to swallow, it is the reality of many women’s feelings in abusive relationships.

And if I were a woman who was or is in an abusive relationship myself, I would feel relieved and happy that another woman could speak so openly about how I too was probably feeling about my own partner. Having confused feelings and even love and concern for an abusive partner doesn’t make you “an idiot” or full of “low self-esteem,” it makes you human.

I don’t think Rihanna needs me to come to her defense, but many commenters’ opinions reflected a perhaps a much bigger problem with our society. To me, the harsh comments show that even after a woman is abused, many people still feel the need to judge her, say she is stupid and direct their anger toward her. The woman, though victimized, is still the villain.

I am not immune to this type of reasoning. So many times in college I’ve rolled my eyes at my friends who are upset after ending an unhealthy relationship and called them “stupid” behind their backs or in my head. If a friend wanted to talk about her current or ex-boyfriend who I didn’t approve of, I often shut her out or told her I didn’t want to listen.

I regret this now, especially after going through a hard breakup of my own, and feeling confused about how I could hate and love a person so much at the same time.

If a woman is stuck in an abusive relationship, you should tell her to get out immediately. But you also shouldn’t shut out her feelings about her partner. Because though you may not understand them, that doesn’t mean they aren’t valid.

All relationships are almost always complicated, intricate and easier to judge from the outside than the inside.

I respect Rihanna’s bravery for talking about how her relationship truly was, rather than how we would like it to be. I think what we can learn from her honesty is to simply listen, even when we don’t understand, and to not so be so quick to judge other women or men.

Lauren Ingeno is a Summer 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.