MANSPLAIN

ESPN Analyst: Abused Women Provoke Men

Talking about Ray Rice.

Stephen A. Smith, ESPN First Take panelist and mansplainer extraordinaire, talked Friday about Ray Rice’s two-game suspension for beating and dragging his unconscious fiancée from an elevator. Smith expressed on-air that domestic violence is wrong but women should also take care to keep from “provoking” men. “But what I’ve tried to employ the female members of my family…is that again, and this what, I’ve done this all my life, let’s make sure we don’t do anything to provoke wrong actions, because if I come, or somebody else come, whether it’s law enforcement officials, your brother or the fellas that you know, if we come after somebody has put their hands on you, it doesn’t negate the fact that they already put their hands on you. So let’s try to make sure that we can do our part in making sure that that doesn’t happen.” Smith later took to Twitter to clarify his remarks, but essentially repeated himself: “In no way was I accusing a women of being wrong. I was simply saying what that preventive measures always need to be addressed because there’s only but so much that can be done after the fact…once the damage is already done.”