Before I say anything else, I want to say that I’m not talking about beating up your girlfriend, or your wife (or your boyfriend, or your husband) You should never hit people you love, period. But what about strangers?
The other day, I went with a bunch of friends to see a movie (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Highly recommended.) While we were waiting for it to start, a woman in the row behind us tried to get her boyfriend to pick a fight with my friend, Charles. Charles is a big guy: he’s often mistaken for a geological feature, until he moves. This woman apparently took exception to the fact that Chuck’s head was blocking out the subtitles. When he said he didn’t want to move (he was sitting with a group of friends in a crowded theatre, and didn’t want to be seperated) she started calling him names. The exchange ended something like this:
Her: Asshole!
Charles: Bitch.
Her: (to boyfriend) Are you going to let him talk to me like that?
Boyfriend: (taking a good look at Charles) Umm, why don’t we switch seats, honey?
Now, I’m generally pretty pacifistic, and am glad that the whole thing ended without bloodshed. But the thing that gripped me was, if anyone in that situation deserved to be spitting out teeth, it was the woman, not her unfortunate beau. I’m not saying that Charles should have swung on her, but if we’re going to treat men and women equally, shouldn’t women face the same risk of getting an ass-kicking as men if they mouth off to someone twice their size?
Well, in general, I don’t think theater seats are worth bloodshed. To get at the essence of the question though, if a woman acts like that and then expects to be thought of and respected as an individual and not as a man’s chattle, then yes, she’s a hypocrite.
Just my two cents here… if you don’t want to get hit, then don’t act in such an impolite manner that people want to hit you. Of course, I personally can’t envision myself throwing the first punch at someone given “normal” circumstances… however, if a woman were to - for some reason - find the need to hit me with the intent of actually causing harm, then she damn well better expect to get popped right back. If you don’t want to get hit back, don’t go hitting people - a simple rule which should work for everyone.
My opinion: Never hit ANYONE, male or female, if you can help it.
However a woman who picks a fight should expect to get the same treatment as a man. Be that verbal (preferable no matter what the gender of the jerk), or physical (If they insist on making it physical, they insist on making it physical).
Nimune: The young woman in question was undeniably a jerk, and her boyfriend showed a lot of class, both in not hitting your buddy, and in not calling his GF the bitch she was.
It’s a difficult situation, Nimune. Either the unfortunate beau showed class, or simply thought better of fighting with behemoth. Clearly, the woman was the instigator. In a perfect world, she would be the one spitting teeth.
9 times out of 10 though, the beau would escalate the confrontation, if only to save face.(I’m assuming the couple were late teens, early twenties) She realizes she can act with impunity. She knows that violence will not be directed at her. If it is, her beau has to step in(again, to save face, if nothing else). And if Charles hits the trollop, he gets dragged away in handcuffs and would be the target of a civil suit.
A no-win situation for everyone but the instigator.
My rule for myself is to never hit a woman unless it’s the only way to avoid physical harm for myself or somebody I care about. Since I am 6’5" and 275 lbs., there aren’t many violent women I couldn’t restrain without having to throw a punch. But that’s just my rule for myself, I haven’t had problems with my friends when they returned a slap or a smack. I would have to try to stop a man who hit a woman first.
I avoid hitting people in general, for the very good reason that I happen to be a big sissy, but I think the general way to think about this is that men shouldn’t hit women not because they’re women but because they’re smaller than men are. It would be a bully tactic. I also don’t think that men ought to hit men who are much smaller than they are, and I wouldn’t be as opposed to hitting a large, muscular woman, or a woman who’s already proven herself a fair fight (except to the extent that it would be likely to get your ass whupped).
It’s sort of like dancing, if I can insert a clumsy analogy. The man usually leads, but that’s because the man is usually taller. If the woman were taller, it would be more convenient that she lead.
If I had to fight someone, I’d probably try not to hit them at all, but rather to restrain them. (I’m 6’1" and rather stocky, so this usually works pretty well, at least on my brother who is only slightly smaller than me.)
You know, come to think of it-is size really a factor?
A big guy could pick on a woman who just happens to be a black belt. You never know.
I’ve only gotten in one real physical fight-a cat fight with my best friend in high school. And a couple of scuffles with my cousins. Hmmm…(he slammed my head against a wall and I kicked him in the balls…
(but we both got in trouble with my gramma.)
Although, in high school, about 10 people wanted to kick my ass-I may be a physical klutz and a lightweight, but my smartass mouth makes a habit of getting me into trouble.
This reminds me of a friend-of-a-friend story (no, not an urban legend, a real friend of a friend).
This woman, let’s call her Julie, was married to a guy, call him Joe, who was in prison for a crime he said he didn’t commit. They had a son but had spent most (if not all) of their married life separated by bars. He made the most of his time in jail and got a degree in computers. When he got out, it looked like he would be getting a good job and making a respectable life for himself.
At some point, they started fighting (as most married couples do) and she escalated things by hitting him. He pushed her away and she fell into the bathtub. She immediately threatened him with calling his parole officer for abusing her.
Mind you, this description is all coming FROM Julie, not Joe. She admitted to hitting him first. But then she acted like she was in the right to make this threat when he pushed her away.
I almost hesitate to bring this up because I’ve been accused of defending wife beating in the past. Most people would agree that human beings can only take so much abuse before something snaps. I’m sure we’ve all heard of Battered Wife Syndrom. Basically after years of abuse it is possible for someone to snap and do something violent. Anyone here see “The Burning Bed?”
I don’t see why it isn’t possible for men to snap after years of emotional abuse. If a man came home to a hostile wife every day I could see him hauling off and slapping her.
I know some people might think I’ve given men an excuse to hit women. But no more so then Battered Wife Syndrom giving women an excuse to kill or maim their signifigant others.
Violence, I must say, is gender neutral. Anyone who mouths off hoping to achieve violent effects better be prepared to get a fist in their mouth. As well, anyone who doesn’t want a fist in their mouth shouldn’t be quick to mouth off.
It would be moral to use violence against a woman in exactly the same circumstances it would be moral to use violence against a man.
RE: The OP. It would not have been legal for your friend to punch a man who said and did the same things the obnoxious woman did. So, it would have been wrong for him to hit her, obviously, since it would have been wrong for him to hit a man in the same situation. It is NOT right to punch someone who yells at you or insults you.
You only have a right to use physical violence against someone if your safety is in danger. If this woman were waving a gun around, then yes, it would be moral and legal to punch her. However, in this case running away or de-escalation might be a better choice. That is, rather than insulting someone who insults you, ignore them. If they threaten you with physical violence, leave the area.
Doesn’t that make more sense than punching someone? It has nothing to do with bullying, it has nothing to do with abuse. Violence is sometimes ethically justified. But it is justified FAR less often than men in their teens and twenties imagine it is. I’ve somehow managed to avoid physical violence since I graduated from high school. Y’know, it IS possible.
I’ve often wondered how many men charged with wifebeating or domestic violence were simply reacting to months or years of verbal and emotional abuse from women. I once worked under a librarian who said the most incredibly abusive and insulting things to me, screamed at me, wrote me up for trivial or imaginary offenses, gave me undeserved bad evaluations and eventually destroyed any chance I might have had for a decent career at that library system. There were any number of times when I was within a hair’s breadth of breaking her scrawny neck. At one time after throwing one of her tantrums, she had just turned away and I was raising my hands to grab her when a co-worker grabbed my arm and whispered “No!” in a very urgent tone. (Thank God for that woman. I might well have killed the bitch if that co-worker hadn’t stopped me.) The thing that really scares me, though, is that this woman had NO IDEA that she was pushing me dangerously near the limit. Yes, part of it was my own fault. I shouldn’t have stayed. I shouldn’t have been so unwilling to accept the financial hardship of starting all over some place else, or of accepting a demotion to get transferred to another unit. And plain old redneck stubbornness was part of it as well–instead of cutting my losses and getting out, I stayed because I was NOT going to let this woman get away with doing that to me. And I should have retained an attorney when it became obvious that the administration was not going to do anything to control her (lots of other people in the branch had suffered her abuse as well, so it’s not like they didn’t know what was going on).
And they wonder why workers go postal!
The simple fact is that women sometimes provoke violence against themselves or others. (Consider the OP’s example: this jerk thought nothing of getting her date into a slugfest with a guy much bigger than he was.) I suspect they’d be a lot less likely to do it if they knew they were likely to collect some bruises themselves. Of course, this shouldn’t be construed as an excuse or justification for those men who are simply in the habit of slapping women around.
I should ahve been clearer about a few things. I agree that violence is never a good thing (although it is occasionaly a necessary thing). Obviously, in the situation I was in, reacting to the woman’s provocation with violence would have been wrong no matter what the level of verbal abuse. I would have left the theater rather than start an actual fight. The point I was trying to make (and LonesomePolecat hit it right on the head) was that no guy would have acted the way she did without a reasonable expectation that he was going to get in a fight. This woman, however, acted like that with the surety that SHE wasn’t going to get hurt, and not a care in the world about anyone else. Which is obviously insenstive and maybe just a bit evil. So I guess I didn’t really have a question after all, I just wanted to gripe about this rotten person I met last Friday.
Lemure: Just for the record, I’ve only ever been in one fight. In the seventh grade. He punched me in the shoulder, I kicked him in the shin. We both got detention. I’ve been a devoted pacificist ever since.
Feel free to assault her, but remember to sync your lips with your words. There’s nothing worse than out-of-sync voice-overs when martial arts movie-goers start wailing and whacking on each other in the cheap seats. I mean, if you’re going to start a public brawl, at least do it right.
For the most part if there are a lot of people around women are immune to getting hit by a guy. At least that’s a theory of mine. I’ll outline it as follows. Heh heh heh
In a public setting males might argue and call one another names. Both sides are generally hesitant to fight because there is a risk of losing. Even if there is no bodily injury a lost fight can result a loss of face. For the most part the name calling doesn’t go beyond vauge insults such as “asshole” or “your mama” jokes.
In a public setting women are free to insult a male in far more creative ways. A male cannot gain status by beating a female in public. (In most circles anyway.) A female can hurl insults with such interesting phrases and have very little fear of reprisal. Beating up a female in public will most likely result in a loss of face as the male will automatically be looked upon as a brute.
At least that’s been my experience. I don’t fight with many males or females especially since puberty hit. But in the past I’ve noticed that girls would deliver a far more damaging verbal assault then their male counterparts.
Marc
(I’m telling you, its this cheap-ass keyboard’s fault.)