Entertainment

Whoopi Has An Opinion On Solange Too

by Lia Beck

Everyone has their own thoughts on the Solange Knowles elevator fight and most people's thoughts are something like, "Whoa, girl. What was that about?" Always one to express her opinion (she does sit in the leader's seat on The View after all), Whoopi Goldberg thinks Jay Z had the right to hit Solange back. "The right" is a strange phrase here. Neither of them really have "the right" to hit each other because technically they could press charges for assault, but what Whoopi means is that if you hit someone, you're opening up the door for them to hit you back regardless of your gender or their's. This is a pretty controversial opinion, but it's problematic aside from the widely held belief that a man should never hit a woman.

On Tuesday morning's episode of The View Whoopi said,

I think Solange was quite ready for him to do whatever he was going to do. This is the thing: If anybody hits you, you have the right – I know that many people are raised in a different way – but if a woman hits you, to me, you have the right to hit her back ... If I slap a man, he has every right to slap me back.

Whoopi is right that many people don't believe that hitting a woman back is okay and this isn't just an outdated rule about interactions between the sexes. Jay Z is a much bigger person than Solange and the harm he could inflict by fighting her would be greater that the harm she could cause to him. In fact, even with the hits thrown in the video, Jay Z had no noticeable physical injuries.

Whoopi is also right in that if you start a fight, you should assume that the person will hit you back. This is a great reason to not start fights in the first place. The issue is, when you do start a fight, you probably aren't thinking. Your anger builds up about something someone said or did and comes out physically. Based on what is seen in the video, I seriously doubt that Solange even took an instant to consider Jay Z hitting her back. She was just enraged.

Even if Solange did take a moment to think about it first, whether Whoopi likes it or not, many people do assume that a man will not hit a woman back in a fight, so it's possible Solange went in knowing this and decided to continue under that idea. And obviously, she was right because Jay Z didn't fight back.

Whether you think Whoopi's idea is ridiculous or progressive, the truth is most people are living under the belief that, either for concerns of physical harm or for some other reason, a man should not hit a woman under any circumstances. Expecting that Solange considered Jay Z hitting her back as an option is pretty far-fetched.