Well, nobody has hit me in a long time but I would hit back anybody who isn’t a child.
Of course I can claim that, as a weak old man I was fearful for my life.
If a woman came after me with a weapon (e.g. a knife), I’d keep myself from harm by whatever means came to hand. But absent weapons, there aren’t too many women in my world whose blows I couldn’t safely block, evade, or simply run away from. (And I’m not all that strong, or all that fast, or all that agile, for a guy.)
Few women could say the same about the men in their lives.
All other things being equal, it is not worse for a man to hit a woman. Under most circumstances, all other things are not equal: knowing only the sex diff, I can predict that he’s taller, he’s heavier, and he’s stronger per pound than she is. And it’s worse for a person to hit someone significantly smaller and less robust than they are than the other way around. (If I’m in a bar and some short lightweight person is belligerently drunk and threatening, I’m going to try to handle it without hitting him lest I hurt him unnecessarily. If I’m confronted by someone more or less my own size that’s going to be less of a consideration although I’d still avoid hitting him unless I felt immediately threatened and in danger if I didn’t.)
Unofrtunately, option on is stated in such a way that I can’t agree with it.
I agree that it is equally bad for a woman to hit a man as for a man to hit a woman. Both should be investigated and prosecuted in an equal manner.
I do not agree that one person hitting another necessarily makes it OK for them to hit back. And in the few examples of this I have observed, the second “excused” hit has always been orders of magnitude worse than the hit that started it. (Regardless of the genders involved.)
“Thoughts?” Only that this is a fruitless discussion. Even raising the topic suggests that one is looking for SOME justifiction for men hitting women.
“Men should never hit women” is a sound guideline, and it’s rarely a dificult one to follow. If your wife or girlfriend is drunk or belligerent, I’d say to get the heck away from her. If that’s becoming a regular thing, my advice is the STAY away permanently.
The instances where it’s all right for a man to hit a woman are so rare that they’re not worth discussing.
Rerp
Domestic violence is a fairly common occurrence in my family, and the women are no better than the men. Those saying that there is bias against the men when it comes to domestic disputes are absolutely right. Women can do serious damage in these situations, but society is hesitant to accept that fact.
To reiterate what others have said, nobody should be hitting anybody. The correct response to being hit is not to hit back, it is to get out of the situation. If you physically can’t, if your life is truly in danger, then of course do what you have to do to defend yourself.
I view domestic violence between men and women as equally reprehensible. I acknowledge that in most circumstances, men can do more physical damage because of their size/strength advantage, but both men and women are equally morally accountable for their actions. An abuser is an abuser.
A woman hitting a man is wrong. A man hitting a woman is really wrong.
Interestingly, it seems there’s a trend here where women are saying it’s as bad for a woman to hit a man as the reverse but men are saying it’s worse for a man to hit a woman than the reverse. Maybe we should have a new poll with the responses divided by gender.
This is exactly what I was talking about earlier. Sometimes, men feel like it’s really, really necessary to point out that a woman hitting them doesn’t hurt, isn’t scary, is, at most annoying. When you grow up hearing that, it’s really hard to see hitting a man as even the same category as hitting a woman.
You know what? If you really weren’t being hurt, or felt threatened, or had any reason to believe the situation would escalate–if it really was just a matter of being pissed off and wanting to leave–then I think it was wrong to grab her with enough force to leave bruises. That doesn’t mean she was right to hit you. But it wasn’t defending yourself if you weren’t being hurt or threatened.
Exactly. You have a right to defend yourself. You don’t have a right to “defend yourself” as a sort of blank check.
This. Let’s not kid ourselves.
Regards,
Shodan
I started another poll.
I voted for the second option. I believe in the full legal and social equality of women, but the fact remains that men are usually bigger and stronger than them, and I was raised that a gentleman does not ever hit a woman. It stuck with me. There have been times when I’ve been sorely tempted to punch women (maybe three in my whole life), I confess, but other than some tussles with my overbearing older sister when we were both kids, I never have. There is far too much violence against women already, throughout the world; I refuse to be part of the problem.
WTF? Who does that? Why would you do that? How is that an acceptable way to behave with one’s SO?
Put me in the “hitting people in general is wrong, but you should do what you have to do in self-defense” camp.
No sorry. She’s an adult. This means she has to accept consequences for her actions. She had no right to hold me captive if I wanted to leave. The whole reason for me wanting to leave is because things were escalating out of control.
As far as the bruises go; she’s a redhead, if the wind blows in the wrong direction she will get a bruise. This never went to court because the PA realized how ridiculous it was after he heard all the details.
I was raised with the idea that a man should never hit a woman, and I believe that, but as part of a “you should never hit anyone” idea. There shouldn’t be anything special about a woman that prevents her from being hit, it should be the circumstances of the situation. If I can avoid hitting someone back, man or woman, I will. If I need to use physical force, I will, man or woman, but I’ll also try to only use what I need to. The difference comes in that, generally, women aren’t as strong as men and are less likely to start a physical confrontation, especially with a man, so the need for physical force is quite rare.
In my case specifically, I’m considerably stronger than most men so, actually, I’ve only ever had to result to actually hit someone once when I was attacked by several people at once. In fact, I had an ex who insisted that because men couldn’t hit women, she could hit me and it wasn’t bad, and she hit me on several ocassions, whereas I would only respond by stopping her, and it was part of what led to our breakup.
In fact, there are some pretty terrible things that go along with women hitting men. We all know how it goes the other way, but a lot of times men won’t be believed or, worse, if she attacks him and defends himself, he may get blamed as instigating. And sure, as with my case, she really couldn’t do any physical harm, but the same mental and emotional turmoil of the idea that someone that I care about and supposedly cares about me would want to harm me… yeah, that sucked.
So, despite that I think a man should never hit a woman, it’s really only part of what I think the right answer is, and the part it’s silent about has the potential to lead to bad things, so I really wish the idea would just kind of go away and we could just go with the idea that violence is an asbolute last resort.
ETA: I didn’t vote, I think both responses are bad.
I’m a big believer in equality. I’m also not a big fan of our legal systems reliance on “greater potential for harm” as a guiding principle for arrests in situations involving domestic violence.
Then again, I’m more than a little biased in this case since my ex-wife was abusive and even taunted me that I couldn’t respond without her calling the cops and me going to jail.
She knew I would never hit her back and that just encouraged her behavior.
When she put on the gloves and stepped into the ring I thought she was asking for it but I still couldn’t bring myself to hit a girl. When she started flailing at me as hard as she could go I figured she needed to learn about keeping her guard up. So I was just being helpful.
I dunno. I suppose that’s part of the mores of some people. A kind of horseplay+. Over here:
there’s a poster who says:
“my friend got mad at her husband for being a smartass while she was cooking and hit him very hard with a hot spatula. He retaliated by pinching her so hard on her arm she had a black bruise for a week. For their next wedding anniversary she had an artist friend paint a picture of the incident (her abusing him with the spatula, specifically), which is now hanging in their bedroom. They are 33 and have been together for over a decade. I find this rather adorable…”
so apparently some people act like that.