Connecting country music, domestic violence

A law professor led an audience in a sing-a-long while discussing domestic violence in country music Friday afternoon.

Sheila Simon of Southern Illinois University, and a member from her all-female band, "Loose Gravel," put on lead students and faculty into her discussion: "Greatest Hits: Domestic Violence in Country Music."

Simon used the song "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks as a premise to connect the topics of domestic violence and country music.

"[Music] is the modern stage, and it’s where we see country music and domestic violence," Simon said. The song "Goodbye Earl" represents that sometimes society and the law don’t work together and people have to take it into their hands to protect themselves, she said.

Country music often is seen as backward-looking, according to Simon.

"Country music provides us with where we have been and where we are at [as a society]," she said.
The progressive movements of our society toward making domestic violence an issue and topic of discussion are not that old, according to Simon.

Only in the past 30 years were laws created to make domestic abuse a criminal charge, Simon said.
Courts also have taken steps to make improvements in the judicial system to counteract domestic violence.

Simon said regardless of increased awareness and punishment, domestic violence still is around.

The only category for measuring the success of domestic violence prevention is if a woman is dead or alive, according to Simon.

Ann Morey, dean of the college of arts and letters, was a refuted the notion that domestic violence was strictly a subject for intellectual discussion.

Morey said that the stats are blurred. "If you go to the Holiday Inn for the night instead of a shelter or go to your general physician instead of the hospital you don’t get reported as a statistic," she said.
Simon said, "We need to move toward fewer people accepting domestic violence."

Junior Tiffanie Wilson, "I think for progress to take place, men have to play their part to by standing up to other men about what they are doing."

The guest lecture was hosted by the justice studies program, which will be a new major that will begin this coming spring semester.