I was just noticing this while watching COPS, then later a news magazine show with an item about a female PETA protester with footage of her getting arrested. I’ve seen dozens of women arrested on TV over the years and almost without exception if a women takes it into her mind to resist arrest and a scrum ensues she is either yelling absolute bloody murder about how the police are “hurting her” as they try to restrain or control her, or in the case of female protesters who are generally middle class and upper middle class white women, there is this look of intense shock that someone is daring to lay hands on them while they scream “What are you doing?! What are your doing?! Don’t touch me!!” as the police hoist them into the paddy wagons.
On the other hand most men (both suspected criminals and protesters) will usually submit much less noisely to police control.
Why is this? What is the mental disconnect for women, especially the middle and upper class protesters, to not realize that if they keep on disobeying the cops, that at some point grappling will ensue? Why are women so stunned by being manhandled in these situations? What the heck do they expect the cops to do?
Having arrested a few ladies (to use the term loosesly) working security I have an opinon.
In our society women expect that contact with their bodies is a purely “permission only” type of thing and that men will back off if they protest for fear of criminal repercussions. So These women are trying to default “dont touch me” defense and are violently outraged that the “polite” methods of day to day society are being tossed aside because of their “under arrest” status.
Men go quietly because cops, who are mostly men, are going to be far less gentle with a man who on average is far more capable of resisting.
So I guess my POV boils down to that women fight because they are outraged that the cops have intruded on her bubble, men go quietly to avoid getting seriously hurt by a cop who sees you as a serious threat.
Long story short: I was once arrested by a cop while another pointed a gun at my head. I did not fight or resist arrest. The whole thing was really a mistaken identity thing. I was more concerned with the guy holding the gun and slipping up, if you get my drift…
Men go quietly? Hmm, I’ve seen many episodes of Cops where that is not the case.
Oh, wait, let me see…women mostly get fight getting arrested because they are women, who are irrational, whereas men sometimes fight getting arrested, but only when they’re being irrational. Of course.
Women are, generally speaking, much less use to physical force being imposed on them. Men, on the otherhand, spend most of their childhood doing nothing but learning skills in being the “forcer” or “forcee”, whether they like it or not. So they’re not so shocked and much more adept at recognising when struggling is going to counter-productive.
Practically stereo-types, I know. But you show me the number of girls who spend an entire summer holding each other down in the dirt or having “dead arm” contests.
Woman are just plain nuts. Woman criminals being placed under arrest are even nuttier!
I’d fight a pissed of Mike Tyson before I’d fight any hostile woman!
Seriously…
I think it’s how we are reared: Men are supposed to take a beating, and not cry, whereas it is much more socially acceptable for a woman to get boo-boos and go “Ouch! You’re hurting me!”
Another possible suggestion in this case is that she wanted to gain symptathy by kicking up a fuss.
Another is that the majority of cops are male, and a woman feels more uncomfortable being handled like that by a man, than by a woman, or a man by either. (Can I make this generalisation?)
Few women feel capable of fighting a man, even if they actually could. They tend to see the “don’t touch me” defense as their only (maybe even automatic) option.
Maybe they’re more scared of being muscled around than a man would be, because they associate it with attempted rape, while most men don’t have that worry.
Astro mentioned the middle-and-upper-class types making the most fuss. That’s probably because these types are accustomed to thinking of police (when they think of them at all) as servants. Sort of the old “My taxes pay your salary!” bit.
I imagine the cops get a lot of the same attitude from middle-and-upper-class men, too, even if the man IS more likely to realize that he’s lucky not to be getting the baton upside the head.
I’ll certainly agree that the PETA assholes and their ilk are generally of the privileged classes, and they regard police officers as part of the servant class. They (the PETA idiots) love to think of themselves as victims, and they’d rather turn what would simply be a matter of being issued a desk appearance ticket into a major case of "police brutality, even though they are usually the ones who create a situation where force is necessary. They are so fucking self-righteous about their moronic “cause” that they think nothing of assaulting elderly women wearing fur coats with spray paint, but when the police quite reasonably attempt to put a halt to their nastiness, they act as if the jack-booted storm troopers of facism are hauling them off to the re-education camps or something.
I’ll hear no words against PETA! They have attractive female protesters protest in the nude, sometimes in the nude and in chains and sometimes in the nude and in cages! These are MY KIND OF PROTESTERS!
I’ll bet the nekkid protesters don’t raise much of a fuss …
I’ll hear no words against PETA! They have attractive female protesters protest in the nude, sometimes in the nude and in chains and sometimes in the nude and in cages! These are MY KIND OF PROTESTERS!
I’ll bet the nekkid protesters don’t raise much of a fuss …
In another episode of COPS, I saw a woman slap a police officer because he was “mouthing off” to her.
Then she was screaming and threatening him because he was arresting her for assaulting a police officer. The officer called for backup, including a female officer, to subdue her.
I’m betting she was rich (I think she was driving a beemer) and thought she was above the law.
I think that the “You’re hurting me!” ladies think that somehow that protest will cause the cop to go easier on them.
It’s not just women who try playing games with cops; I’ve had a few cop friends and have heard some interesting stories from them. One concerned an African-American fellow who ran from and fought with the cop and then claimed he was roughed up because the cop was racist. Riiiiight.
I don’t think this has anything to do with gender. I think that protestors as a group tend to be more idealistic, and thus under the belief that their right to peaceful protest and free assembly is not to be cast aside lightly. So even after an officer first confronts them, I think they believe they will get to explain why they believe they have the right to do what they’re doing before being wrestled to the ground. Once the police officer uses force, I think they’re just shocked and reacting instinctively.
I think it’s because most of the fighters think They Have Done Nothing Wrong, so why are the cops arresting them? They don’t need to be arrested! HEY! QUIT BEING SO MEAN! YOU BASTARDS!..etc.
Cops is a TV show, they pick the scenes that will score ratings, it is little more than a caricature of actual arrest situations.
Care to expand on this a bit? I am speaking from making many arrests as security and or park operations in an amusement park. I have never seen a female (in my experience) who went along quietly.
Many of the men submitted rather than face being forcefully cuffed and detained. The ones who did not were usually involved in fights, or intoxicated.
A similar scene on one of the police chase shows: a woman had just run three stop signs. THREE. Claims she didn’t see any of them.
Ooooooohhh-kay.
Police officer decides to cut her some slack since it was late at night and there was no cross traffic. He’s going to give a ticket for running just one sign. At first, she agrees to this. Then the wire snaps and she starts screaming at the poor cop. Screaming about how she just can’t get a ticket. The cop tries to calm her down, but she’s gone way over the edge. She’s yelling, swearing, the whole nine yards. Now he has to arrest her. She puts up quite a fight. He ends up slamming her against the trunk of her car. Not hard, but hard enough to let her know he’s tired of her crap. What would have been a sub-$100 ticket ends up costing her hundreds of dollars and an arrest record for verbally abusing a police officer.