Have you thanked a feminist for your abuse?

Where were the bra-burning, old-guard feminists this week in the Ray Rice abuse controversy?

If women and men are truly the same as they claim, then why weren't they screaming in protest of his punishment? If women are the same as men, then how can they argue that a woman beaten by her boyfriend deserves special protection? Were they consistent, the feminist hypocrites would be decrying the NFL for extending protection to women that they do not need (by their own standards).

Feminists demand that training be "equalized" to facilitate women becoming firefighters and combat troops (in mixed-gender units), but on the other hand, they sit quietly when special protections are extended to women. Is there one intellectually honest liberal who will point to this hypocrisy?

Lou Dobbs stated on his show this week considering the subject of the NFL punishment of Rice, "I think we can say that we know one thing very clearly. A man should never strike a woman, period." Yes, Lou, yes we can all say that. All of us, except the old-guard feminists.

Unfortunately, many women and men who are in similar abusive situations are watching this case closely.

The nation is responding to a conversation that is way overdue regarding domestic violence.

Most women know that men and women are far from the same, but it is true that some women abuse men. An abusive woman may not be able to knock a man out with her bare fist, but there are situations where men suffer abuse at the hand of a woman.

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Although one in four women will likely be assaulted by a partner in her lifetime, the numbers of men assaulted in relationships is estimated by some experts to be about equal to that of women. I guest hosted "The Steve Deace Show" this week and fielded just such dramatic calls from real people suffering through real situations. My advice: Get out.

The difficult part is that for so long, feminists have said there is no difference between men and women, and the American Psychological Association has backed them up. If that's true, then you can't say that male abusers are more at fault than female abusers. That muddies the waters in cases like the Ray Rice controversy. The feminists have not done women a favor here. Clearly, Rice is at least double the size of his now wife. That is a clear difference that should not be overlooked. Despite old feminists' fantasies, women and men are not the same.

American women are waking up to that fact, and as the co-author of a new book, "What Women Really Want," I am hearing it everywhere I go – from women, to men, to girls, to boys, working, stay at home, educated and simple.

A new Washington Post/ABC poll proves precisely what we are hearing: Women are waking up to statist lies about what they really want, and they are pushing back. Obama is at a new low in popularity with women, almost a direct about-face from the numbers he had with women for his election. About 50 percent of women disapprove of the job Obama and his cronies have done, and many feel they bought a bill of goods. Nowhere is that more evident than in the Ray Rice/Janay Palmer case that played out like Spanish soap opera for the world to watch this week.

American culture used to value the special protection of women, and now it doesn't. Feminists burned bras and emasculated men to reach "sameness." Now they have it, but real women are waking up and asking, "Do we really want to be the same as men?" Less than 20 percent of women today want to call themselves feminists. The old-school feminists wanted military equality (front-line combat), gender neutrality and partnerships instead of the protections for women and children in marriage.

I believe it is that shift to sameness over the past 50 years that has led to more abuse of women (and men). Now taxpayers are forced to fund these myths (that there is no difference between men and women) through "feminist studies" programs in our schools and universities.

The reality is that most abusers, male or female, will re-offend. The infamous O.J. Simpson case back in the '90s is not unusual. According to the Violence Research Foundation, about 40 percent of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner or family member. But the tragedy doesn't stop there. Up to 75 percent of children with intimate partner abuse in the home are also battered. Those children are significantly more likely to grow up to become abusers, or to be abused.

All of society pays the cost of this abuse in terms of medical costs, law-enforcement resources, incarceration, lost wages and productivity, etc. A child's exposure to intimate partner violence is the single most significant determinant of transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next.

The dirty little secret is that, like so many other things, neither the criminal justice nor mental health fields really know what to do about it. A National Institute of Justice review of California's treatment program showed very little efficacy for the treatment of abusers.

Some are looking into chemical and even nutritional answers for these problems that seem to evade real solution-oriented therapies and programs. But the American Medical Association, in conjunction with the American Psychological Association, is fighting that every step of the way because it doesn't fit well in their controlled, Western model.

It is wholly typical for women who are abused to defend their abusers, just as Janay Palmer (Ray Rice's wife) has. Think about it from her perspective: She has been abused, and now the world is coming down on the one who (although he allegedly abuses her) controls every other bit of security she has. Rice is her breadwinner, the father of her child, and now all of that is threatened, too. It is only natural for her to fight for what she has left.

Think of it like Stockholm Syndrome, only worse.

For the abuser, this has always only been about control. So the loss of even more control insofar as his endorsements, career, friends and image only makes him more of a ticking time bomb.

According to Nicole Brown's sister, Simpson abused her for almost two decades before killing her. Women and men need to wake up and realize that physical abuse very rarely stops, even with deep desire, counseling and all the money you can throw at it. If abuse happened once, it will likely happen again, and it will likely only exacerbate.

The Rice case is critical to the fiber of our culture, and to those one in four women (and men) out there who understand Palmer's plight all too well. We can thank the old feminists for putting us here. The question is, can we be honest enough to look at the opposite sex, and admit that equal does not mean same?

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