From the annals of good ideas gone horribly, horribly, wrong, comes this seriously misguided attempt at a domestic violence awareness campaign. As hatched by a Danish advocacy group, the “Hit The Bitch” website allows you (or someone like you), in the guise a meaty male hand, to beat the crap out of a woman. And, for the sake of convenience, to simulate the beating, you can use either your mouse or your webcam. Here’s what Gwen Sharp at Sociological Images has to say about it:
"The woman gets increasingly bruised and bloodied as you hit her. I forced myself to try the site and hit her twice, and it was honestly sickening to watch her head jerk backward or to the side and hear the sound of the slap and her reacting. At the top, a counter keeps track; you start out as 100% Pussy, 0% Gangsta, but your Gangsta rating goes up every time you hit her (below).
Apparently, though, when you get up to where you’d be at 100% Gangsta, it instead says 100% Idiot, as though this is a real put-down that is going to make you think really seriously about domestic violence. I am trying to think of any context that would make this seem like a good idea, or an effective way to combat domestic violence. I mean, ok, yeah, I guess people might be made more aware of it after hearing about or playing the game, but is it likely to have any positive effect?
It seems more likely that people who don’t already take domestic violence seriously would either be uncomfortable, leave the site, and never think about it again, or find it funny to play for a few minutes just to see what would happen…and somehow encouraging people to slap around an image of a woman for fun seems like a really weird way to get people to think more seriously about domestic violence."
After reading this article I decided to visit the Hit the Bitch Website.
Unfortunately, the site got so much publicity that they've limited traffic to just those from Denmark. Here is what the site is supposed to look like:
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