(I swear I’ll give it a rest after this, but when one is handed such material, the temptation is too great.)
MOIDALIZE, I’d like to turn this around on you.
*Let me ask you, is there a point another person can reach, when they have violated my dignity as a woman? Are there actions that represent such a challenge to my femininity that I have to respond? If the answer is ‘no’, then I’m either a saint or a complete pushover. If the answer is ‘yes’, then isn’t it conceivable that a man could mount such a challenge?
Everyone cites “self defense” as acceptable. If a man were to attack a woman, without any type of dangerous weapon, and the woman fought back, would that really be self defense? Would it really be answering the challenge to my femininity?*
Seriously, can you see this as equivalent to the questions you posed?
Because, after all, if a man can slap or cuff a woman for perceived misbehavior, then, by rights, a woman should be able to answer that as a violation of her dignity as a woman and a challenge to her femininity.
So you’re saying if a woman attacks a man in the manner I’ve described, and the man responds in the way I’ve described, the woman has suffered an affront to her dignity?
So why is it impossible for you to say those words? I think your message would be a lot clearer if you, you know, say what you mean instead of slapping someone across the face. I think the message received by a slap across the face is “this guy who slapped me is an asshole.” Which is, perhaps, not exactly what you intended to put across.
Having a conversation isn’t passive aggressive. Balls up and say what you mean, directly, rather than using the rather more ambiguous message of a fist to the face. If anything, a punch is far less direct in accomplishing what you want.
Another vote for self-defense, and mutually consensual BDSM – as long as everyone involved is keeping to the principle of “hurt, but not harm” – and that the sex of either party is irrelevant.
I’m not saying such behavior should ALWAYS and NECESSARILY result in striking somebody. I have never hit a woman, not because society frowns on it, but because no woman has ever angered or upset me to the point of lashing out. I can tolerate a lot. But if a woman ever brought me to that point, I would like to think that whatever she did was egregious enough to merit it and that my reaction was conceivably reasonable.
I (and others in this thread) am not ready to definitively conclude that hitting a woman is inherently and always wrong.
I haven’t heard anyone say that it’s always and inherently wrong. Pretty much everyone has cited self-defense as a valid reason. Some have cited consensual BDSM.
But striking someone to “teach them a lesson” (as opposed to honestly being in fear of physical harm) is cowardly, speaks poorly of one’s ability to act like an adult, control himself and behave rationally and, as I pointed out, is ineffective in sending the message you intend to send anyway.
I also find it rather amusing that you advocate responding to a “violation of dignity” with about the most undignified action humans are capable of.
So acting in a vile, inconsiderate, and provocative manner is fine, so long as you’re a woman, but responding with contact is “the most undignified action humans are capable of?”
Dude, the fact that I am a man has exactly nothing to do with whatever dignity I may have. ‘Saint’ or ‘pushover’ is a false dichotomy that fails to recognize ‘don’t give a damn about what people say’, among other possibilities. Words are incapable of causing real injury, and one’s own ‘hurt feelings’ are not a suitable justification to give someone else a very real ‘hurt body’. The right to speech and the societal obligation to not smack other people around have nothing to do with gender.
If I understand your second paragraph, you are suggesting that any unarmed woman does not represent a credible threat to any man, and that if any man chooses to hit any unarmed woman who is attacking him, then the man is reacting in defense of his masculinity. Bull.
People come in different sizes and strengths, and not all attacks are equally threatening. If a small weak woman (like Dr. Ruth, when she was younger) ineffectively punches a large strong man (like a linebacker) in the chest, then the man should ignore it, or tell her to cut it out, or seek to retreat. If there’s nowhere to go (or he’s in his house already) anything more than pushing her away is out of line and he should know better. If a large strong woman (like a lady powerlifter I know), were to batter a small weak man (like me) about the head, then I can assure you the man’s motivation to fight back would be based on the desire to defend the brain, eyes, and teeth, not the entirely notional masculinity. The sexes of the people involved do not enter into self-defense in the modern western world. It’s a calculation of threat vs. proportional response vs. flight.
Clurican:
You fail to recognize that your personal code of conduct does not apply to the rest of the world. Respect, honor, and boundaries are not universally recognized concepts and where they are recognized, they can have vastly different definitions. Your imaginary line is invisible to everyone except you. We don’t care about your feelings. The idea that certain, unspecified topics of discussion will propel you into a violent act must make your coworkers extraordinarily polite. Insults do not have the power to injure, reacting with force does. Furthermore, none of this crap has any bearing on the laws or standards of behavior that permeate the modern world.
Your cult of exceptionalism, the conceit that only certain real men have the ‘stomach’ for violence is ludicrous. Nearly all people, when in fear for their lives, behave like frightened animals, with violence and flight. A dismayingly large number of people will act violently towards others, without any provocation, if they believe they can get away with it.
In the war of ideas, your side lost. You should hire better philosophers next time. Get used to the judicial system that us civilized folks put in place to protect ourselves and our society from you guys. If you keep poking people in jaw for saying nasty things, you’re going to see a lot of it. Be glad it’s the way it is, we used to hang incorrigibles. And we don’t need anybody to do the ‘heavy lifting’ of beating those who say things we don’t like, we just yell right back at them and nobody gets hurt.
Cosmic Relief:
Why not go a step further and say that a bitch-slap is never an acceptable response to provocation consisting only of words, regardless of sex?
Read for comprehension dude. Being vile and inconsiderate is a crap way to behave regardless whether you do it with words or with fists and regardless of gender. But grown-ups are not in the habit of sinking to that level. All it does is prove that one lacks self-control.
Dude, the fact that I am a man has exactly nothing to do with whatever dignity I may have. ‘Saint’ or ‘pushover’ is a false dichotomy that fails to recognize ‘don’t give a damn about what people say’, among other possibilities. Words are incapable of causing real injury, and one’s own ‘hurt feelings’ are not a suitable justification to give someone else a very real ‘hurt body’. The right to speech and the societal obligation to not smack other people around have nothing to do with gender.
So you have no breaking point? You remain stoic in the face of all adversity? No situations exist where any person, man or woman, could do or say something that would explicitly call into question your manhood, your dignity, or whatever it is that you personally value as important?
As for my second point, you…pretty much overanalyzed it.
If a person would treat me like that, I’d write them off as a waste of carbon and not care anymore. My manhood doesn’t enter into it. If you are so unsure of your own worth as a person or a man that someone saying nasty things do you makes you question it then perhaps you should look at your problem, not theirs. Hitting them merely means your worth as a man is less then you think it is.
Remove my mother from the scene. Assist my mother if she wanted to press charges, or support her if she chose not to. My mother wouldn’t want me to hit this hypothetical person, why would I disappoint her?
Our point is that it’s not an optimal reaction; it’s a breaking point. Your “breaking point” is the point at which you’re too offended or wrapped up in your own ego to behave like a rational adult. You’re broken, at that point- whoever has offended you has won.
Now let’s look at the consequences, shall we? The person who so mortally offended your manhood may get a ticket for some kind of verbal assault. You get arrested for actual assault, and open yourself up to prison time and a lawsuit. To me, someone who would hit someone else over words is in one of a few situations: either they lost their temper which means they lost control of themselves, their life is so crappy that they have nothing to lose by hitting another person, or they made the conscious decision that the risk of getting arrested and sued was worth it to them because someone needed to be taught a lesson. Why would you hold yourself responsible for stranger’s social education at such a price?
Hitting someone who hasn’t hit you first is a sign of weakness, not strength. It’s a demonstration that you’re willing to undergo what most people consider unacceptable risks to satisfy your ego or indulge your temper. The thing that surprises me is that anyone would paint this as a virtue.
The reality of the world is that there exist people who need to be punched in the face. Adult bullies who have a nose for the civil-tempered, and take advantage of the fact that most responsible adults are too civil to actually stoop to using violence. These bullies care not one whit what you have to say, or what your opinion of them are. They hide behind the fact that the one recourse that will actually penetrate their feeble brains is one that most civilized people won’t stoop to employing, and use that shield made of your civility to disrespect you, impinge on your rights as a human being, and take advantage of you. Every once in a while, a bully like this needs a good old-fashioned poke in the eye, to remind them that the shield of civility only exists by the choice of their would-be victims. In almost every case, just one shot is enough to send them scurrying away, utterly shocked that you were actually willing to cross that line they were certain you wouldn’t.
Some of those bullies are women, and often those women have that invisible line of civility greatly bolstered by society’s (much justified) taboo against violence against women, and accordingly escalate their bullying to match. A guy who hits such a women is no hero, and has nothing to be proud of, but you have to accept that she probably had it coming.
These situations are rare - I’d guess less than 1% of women who’ve ever been hit by a man fall into this bullying category, making almost every case of man-on-woman violence utterly despicable, but to answer the OP: yes, there is a rare situation, where you just have to accept that she deserved it.
Don’t get me wrong - I haven’t personally been in anything close to a fistfight in over 15 years, and I’ve never fought anyone that wasn’t a man bigger and stronger than myself. God willing I won’t have the need to fight again for as long as I live, as the thought of putting forth so much effort just trying to physically hurt someone just makes me sick inside, but I’m not going to pretend I live in a fantasy world where nobody ever needs to fight outside of defense of life and limb.
Just jumping in here to mention some trivia relevant to your example: Dr Ruth was a sniper in the Israeli military in the 1940’s (checked this against Snopes and Dr. Ruth’s own website). Seems she was quite capable with both a rifle and hand grenades, so under the right circumstances, she’d be more formidable an opponent than most guys.
That said, from what I understand, even she never killed anyone. She left the army after an artillery attack on her dormitory nearly killed her in 1948.
Oh, and being a member of the US military and a graduate of the US Air Force’s Basic Military Training program at Lackland AFB, I can tell you two things from observing the instructors there:
No, violence does not seem to be necessary for dealing with a great many confrontations, at least when dealing with younger, weaker people who did volunteer to be in the situation that lead to you dealing with them.