I disagree. And the answer to the hypothetical posed in your post is, “yes, more likely to be, if you by ‘slut’ mean inclined to sexual promiscuity, as a person who is not so inclined to promiscuity will be less likely to wear revealing clothing most of the time”.
In the same vein, people who are violent often have certain underlying frustrations which causes them to lash out, very few people are violent without (what they perceive to be) adequate reason. Sexual inadequacy is one such underlying issue. A partner is any case going to be a target, especially as they are so intimately linked with said frustration.
You are really milking this, just digging for a reason to be offended. Why don’t you give it a try and see what happens? “Are women who dress provocatively more likely to be promiscuous?” You could even set up an anonymous poll.
The only thing wrong with the OP is the clumsy phrasing. He might have asked “Are abusive men more likely to be big, strong, macho types or small, weak, and meek?” I’m certain he didn’t intend to imply that all big, strong, macho types are prone to abuse.
No I’m not. Just pointing out the double standard.
I know a small crew of women would be offended, so I’m not going to even bother.
You should note, you we’re the only one out of a vocal minority of women that didn’t find one of my posts offensive in the past, but others considered it misogynistic.
It is good you got out when you did, there was going to be tons of tension in that relationship. I used to feel bad that I could rarely get a date, but as I get older I realize ‘this isn’t so bad, it could be worse’.
Men who hit their female companions have any number of problems. While it could stem from feelings of sexual inadequacy I think that may be less frequent than other things.
The ability to deal in socially acceptable ways with uncomfortable feelings is certainly high.
Mental illness
Chemical dependency
A background of violence
A need to control one’s surroundings
A difficulty taking responsibility for his behavior and so blaming others
Poor impulse control
Even possibly physically health issues.
Others and any combination of the above.
The OP isn’t sexist per se. Interpreted as written it belies a typical mistaken belief that physical strength equals mental and emotional health. The focus of the sentence is about men and why they may hit women.
Spin a mention of macho through the filter of extreme feminism and individual experience and you can get offended by the term mailman.
I should say the OP is correct in that there is research arguing something akin to that position, based on attachment theory and how it plays out with DV. I did my postgrad in this area. Dutton is one of the major supports of this perspective.
Ie that men with ‘secure’ attachment styles are far less likely to be abusive, with the anxiety based attachment styles connected with abuse. Or more correctly that secure is uncorrelated with abuse, and somewhat protective. However I think it could be argued that a secure attachment style as a measure is just a more likely outcome of not being abusive - correlation and causation is a bit messy in this situation.
Quick google that has a small table of the kinds of attachment styles examined.
But this is by no means the only or even dominant view in the field.
How does avoidant personality factor into domestic violence? I’d assume they either wouldn’t get into a relationship, or would walk away at the first sign of trouble.
Otara, I’m glad you mentioned attachment issues. I had meant to include it in my post as dependency.
It’s not uncommon for male abusers to self-destruct when they lose the object of their abuse. Hardly indicates that he’s dealing from a position of inner strength.
One of the most intractable cases of depression in an abused women I’ve ever seen was a woman who finally managed to escape from her home and get help. Her husband killed himself and left a note blaming her for his suicide. It was the ultimate act of abuse.
That was not my objective at all. In fact, the long-forgotten article went on to say that an aggressive, dominant, frigid woman is, so the writer claimed, more likely to be the target of domestic violence (especially if her husband is something of the Caspar Milquetoast type). The woman I had been seeing for a while was like that, but I would never think to strike her–then again, I am not married to her.
I don’t think a bullying woman would get anywhere with a macho man as heretofore described.
I created a character–who appeared in some of the fiction thread in MPSIMS–a petite woman bearing as strong resemblance to Velma of Scooby-Doo: 5 feet tall, wearing glasses. She has a husband who is 6’8", as macho as any man needs to be–and he treats her like a queen. They have three teenage boys, big strapping fellows…who will not dare to cross their mother. (She does not raise her voice or use an angry tone; she doles out criticism and praise all in the same tone of voice, which can hurt as much sometimes.)
Granted this is an ideal, but I like role models which are positive, something to shoot for.
