It's a troubling scene: an intimate partner is slapped across the face, punched twice, kneed in the head, and thrown onto the floor. This is the kind of behaviour we are all looking to amend, in a new era of domestic violence awareness.

And yet rather few people reacted to this particular situation, even though it was described in the autobiography of one of the biggest stars in sports.

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Ronda Rousey wrote in "My Fight, Your Fight" that she slapped her boyfriend across the face "so hard my hand hurt," "punched him in the face with a straight right, then a left hook," and then "grabbed him by the neck of his hoodie, kneed him in the face" and threw him onto the kitchen floor.

Is this a case of domestic violence? That's hard to say without context. Australia's National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and Children (NCRVWC) says that:

... a central element of domestic violence is that of an ongoing pattern of behaviour aimed at controlling one’s partner through fear (for example, by using violent or threatening behaviour) ... the violent behaviour is part of a range of tactics used by the perpetrator to exercise power and control ... and can be both criminal and non-criminal in nature.

We simply don't know if there's a "pattern" here, since we hear little from Rousey about this relationship. Rousey, in Australia for her fight against Holly Holm, could not be reached for comment.

The boyfriend, "Snappers McCreepy" as Rousey calls him, was purportedly found to have taken nude photos of her. She grew incensed, as almost anyone would, and reacted with force.

"I'm not comfortable with her behavior," said Kim Pentico of the USA's National Network to End Domestic Violence.

"What I am absolutely not willing to say is she's committed domestic violence without speaking with him and learning more about that relationship."

There is no established pattern, so by the NCRVWC definition there is not proof of domestic violence. But that raises other questions about how our society approaches domestic violence.

There was no known pattern in the Ray Rice incident, either. There too, we only know of one incident, in an elevator. We do not know what brought it about.

Both Rice and his wife deny any prior abuse. So you have one professional athlete who struck his then fiancé and has become a living symbol of domestic violence, and you have another professional athlete who struck her boyfriend (by her own admission) and has gotten hardly any criticism for it.

In fact, Rousey has become a bit of a heroine on the subject, as she was lauded for calling out noted domestic abuser Floyd Mayweather. After she won an award for "Best Fighter" from ESPN, Rousey said, "I wonder how Floyd feels being beat by a woman for once."

It was a brave and impactful statement levied against a man who has gone to jail for domestic violence. But then a passage in Rousey's own book got no real scrutiny.

Have we been too tough on Rice? Too easy on Rousey?

"I fully accept my bias," Pentico said.

"A well-trained, well-toned, football player cold-cocked his fiancé and dragged her out of an elevator without any emotion. It was an assault. It was a violent, blood-curdling assault. If that was my daughter, I would lose my mind.

"I own that there's a double standard here," Pentico continued. "Until the tables turn in our society, it is going to be that way."

Pentico explained, "a woman's fear of a man is different from a man's fear of a woman."

And that is true in almost all cases. Men don't fear being sexually assaulted, or attacked as they walk down the street at night, or drugged in a bar. Physical violence and sexual violence are closely linked for women, and not nearly as much for men.

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