# Gender Equality vs "You hit like a girl" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718 "2016-11-05T17:23:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/163 "2016-11-08T19:24:33Z")
There are lots of legal actions that are still probably best avoided, like taunting and insulting drunken party-goers. It may be legal, but it’s foolish and likely to needlessly complicate your life, as it did for this young man who’s being sought by the police. There are additional actions, like punching a grown man while you’re an inebriated woman, that are both foolish and clearly illegal. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/164 "2016-11-08T20:56:23Z")
Booze. Helping keep policemen employed since time immemorial. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/165 "2016-11-08T21:17:25Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > She is not a girl, she is an adult woman. She has a moral responsibility to not start a fight, and it’s entirely her own fault that she attacked somebody both able and willing to defend himself. Wouldn’t it be worse if they aren’t able and willing to defend themselves? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/166 "2016-11-08T21:39:53Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Booze. Helping keep policemen employed since time immemorial. Booze also let’s the ugly breed … @ **Atomic Alex** — I think you’re being over-sensitive and I’m being over-graphic … I’ll go ahead and apologize so you don’t have to … I just would like you to agree that boozed-up linebacker-sized men need to be proportional when defending themselves from lil’ slips of women … I was in grammering school when at the local high school a scuffle broke out in the locker room and one of the boys died … back when “boys will be boys” was still the social norm … I’m so old that I remember juries acquitting men for killing their wife because what a man does with his property is his own affair … maybe it was just the one case in my memory but it does speak to how society used to be … so we as a society are trying to correct a very long-standing injustice … we have here locally a law that says for any act of domestic violence witnessed by a child is a felony … … honestly … I hammered into my sons “boys don’t hit girls” as to be part of the solution … maybe you folk are too young to remember just how many women “ran their face into a doorknob” … so I have been being graphic, this is that important to me … ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/167 "2016-11-08T21:45:46Z")
> [@Atomic\_Alex](#): > > Perhaps, it was rather unpleasantly descriptive, though I may just be being overly sensitive. > > On a sidenote I was reading the user comments on the youtube video linked to _(yes, I know)_ and several people were stating that the incident started when the man and his friends were taunting and insulting the woman and her friends because of the revealing outfits there were wearing. Not an excuse but perhaps an explanation for what happened, and while it doesn’t justify physical violence if this is indeed an accurate description of events then he has some responsibility for what occurred by starting the incident in the first place. I realise this is an unpopular opinion but I believe ‘s/he started it’ should be taken into consideration, if someone didn’t start things there would be no incident to discuss in the first place and the world would be a much more pleasant place. > > This thread has also reminded me of an incident I saw which occurred on the road outside a night-club a few years ago. The club was closing for the night and people were exiting, one man was standing with his back to the road cupping his hands trying to light a cigarette, another man with a group of friends were walking past when without any provocation at all he turned and struck the first man with a straight punch to his head, he fell backwards like a log onto the road, very nearly having his head run over by a passing car. The assailant just casually walked off into the crowd. It was completely and totally unprovoked and I could barely believe what I had just seen. The smoking man was not badly injured but he could quite easily have been killed, he was knocked unconcious by the blow and couldn’t remember anything about the incident at all. You hear about unprovoked attacks, they really do happen. I know. I was mugged and hit in the jaw by a group of ne’er do wells before. There were too many to fight so I let them take my stuff. And there is the knock out game of course which is cowards sucker punching people and yelling WorldStar!. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/168 "2016-11-08T22:11:53Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Booze also let’s the ugly breed … > > @ **Atomic Alex** — I think you’re being over-sensitive and I’m being over-graphic … I’ll go ahead and apologize so you don’t have to … I just would like you to agree that boozed-up linebacker-sized men need to be proportional when defending themselves from lil’ slips of women … I was in grammering school when at the local high school a scuffle broke out in the locker room and one of the boys died … back when “boys will be boys” was still the social norm … > > I’m so old that I remember juries acquitting men for killing their wife because what a man does with his property is his own affair … maybe it was just the one case in my memory but it does speak to how society used to be … so we as a society are trying to correct a very long-standing injustice … we have here locally a law that says for any act of domestic violence witnessed by a child is a felony … > > … honestly … > > I hammered into my sons “boys don’t hit girls” as to be part of the solution … maybe you folk are too young to remember just how many women “ran their face into a doorknob” … so I have been being graphic, this is that important to me … Sure, my very first post in this thread was that a response needs to be proportinate, but I don’t think its as simple as ‘men should never hit women’, preferably of course it should be ‘people shouldn’t hit other people’ regardless of gender. As you yourself point out plenty of men have been killed in fights with other men, I think an evenly matched fight is something of a mirage, in almost every case one of the opponents is going to be larger, stronger, more aggressive or simply a better fighter than the other. I mentioned an example above where in a confrontation between two fit and well-trained young men one killed the other with a single punch. I simply don’t think this should be framed as a ‘Men VS Women’ thing, a lot more men are seriously injured or killed than women, just because its violence from one male to another doesn’t mean its any less tragic. > [@octopus](#): > > I know. I was mugged and hit in the jaw by a group of ne’er do wells before. There were too many to fight so I let them take my stuff. And there is the knock out game of course which is cowards sucker punching people and yelling WorldStar!. Sorry to hear that 😕 As for the latter perhaps what I saw was an example of that? SMH ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/169 "2016-11-08T23:42:50Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Put someone of your own gender in a coma and see how much “no debate” is there from the police or Courts, regardless of who put who started it. I actually know a man who put another man into a coma, and it was all caught on tape. The man who put the other guy into a coma was not charged and his actions ruled as self-defense based on what was on that tape. The facts and details count. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > Let’s look at the OP’s video again … the fella threw a right cross and it doesn’t look like he planted his feet. So, pretty much the force of the punch was just his arm strength. Upon impact, the force of the punch is divided between the girl’s skull and the boy’s fist. If we assume the mass of his arm is the same as the mass of her head, then we have the force being equally divided between the two … > > … and this broke her skull … No, it didn’t. I’m reasonably sure it was _impact with the ground_ that broke her skull. The most that punch did was knock her out. > [@](#): > > … so just how much can one break a skull and not cause death? People have had chunks of skull bone _removed_ by violence and survived. What really counts is the extent of brain damage. Even then, people have survived surprising amounts of damage. ---
**Author:** ![nofloyd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nofloyd/32/2870_2.png) [@nofloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nofloyd)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/170 "2016-11-09T20:22:02Z")
Update on this story. No charges for man who punched woman, 19, near Rutgers, cops say “She was the aggressor” > **[No charges for man who punched woman, 19, near Rutgers](https://www.nj.com/middlesex/2016/11/no_charges_for_man_who_punched_woman_19_near_rutge.html)** > > Police said they determined Emily Rand was the aggressor in the altercation. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718/171 "2016-11-09T20:22:42Z")
Thanks for the update! ETA: anyone know the condition of the young woman? ETA2: the article says she “remains hospitalized, but she is able to breathe on her own and will begin physical therapy” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-equality-vs-you-hit-like-a-girl/770718.md?page=8)