After watching tonights Grey's Anatomy. Is a man allowed to defend himself against a woman?

[Jenvas1306]

defend himself? yes
get into a fight with her? no

Hey, I know girls who could beat up a lot of guys, its not like women are made of glass or something. If I hit a guy I would have to assume he will hit me back.
Dont hit someone who is stronger and maybe more violent than you, little boys learn that quick and I see no reason women should get a different treatment there.

If I get hit by a woman who is smaller than me (lots of them are), then I would probably hit her back if thats needed to stop her, and yeah, I am stronger just due to having more mass, but she chose to start it and thats no different no matter what gender you have.

I believe that true equality between men and women has to mean that noone gets and extra treatment.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

In last nights episode one guy tells another guy that if a woman punches you (real violence, not a friendly punch on the shoulder) you either take it, or you walk away, but you are never allowed to hit her back and if you do hit her back and you end up in the hospital almost losing your life (as was the case in the episode) it's all your own fault.

I'm not gonna bore you with all the details of the episode that lead up to this, but suffice it to say this sort of double standard and, in my opinion, blatant misandry just makes me sick.

Am I wrong in feeling this way?

You're not wrong, but it would take pretty remarkable circumstances for me to be willing to hit ANYONE, especially someone who was smaller or slighter or demonstrably weaker than me. Like, say, a woman. Or a child. Or an elderly man. It never really occurred to me to be outraged at the inequality of this.

Obviously there will always be outlier situations. If someone is coming at you with a knife, you needn't lie there and shout "Chivalry or death!" as they stab you, but I'll never understand this mopey recalcitrance towards the suggestion that you shouldn't hit women. It's always "BOOOO I'll hit who I want!", as if they were all jostling to be the Rosa Parks of fisticuffs.

 

[Gavmando]

Well, many moons ago when I trained for and got my black belt, of the eight of us going for it, six were women. And if those girls attacked you, you hit back, or you were going down. And not in the good way.
They were vicious. We once had to carry a guy off the mat because one of the girls kicked him in the nuts. And he was down for a while. Poor bastard was crying too. It was a bad one...
...And then the girls wore out the video tape watching it over and over laughing the whole time.

A mate of mine was in a night club a while ago, and a woman tried to glass him. She grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around whilst bringing her other hand in for the glassing. My mate is in the military. His first reaction was to start throwing a punch as he saw the glass and without knowing she was female. He hit her before she could stab him, and he knocked her out.
The music went down and everyone standing around him went quiet. His first words upon seeing that he'd just hit a woman were, "Oooooh shit." Both the bouncers and the cops roughed him up on the way out.
So whilst he was more than justified in laying her out, the social reaction was not positive.

Personally, if it came down to it, I would hit a woman if I had to. Just like with a man. Though it would take me longer to get to that point. But then, as the "rule" goes, if the other person gets hurt when you're blocking, then too bad. They shouldnt have tried to hit you in the first place. And this ties in with a quote about Karate I once heard, that if you know how to block properly, then you never need to throw a punch.

 

[CaptainKoala]

If you want gender equality, part of that means you get hit when you hit someone first. Deal with it.

 

[Mordekaien]

If someone raises his fists on me, I tell them to chill out, that it's not worth it. If that is not working, they're going down, male or female. They're going down hard.
I don't see any reason why some gets to act like a jerk or bully someone with physical force while thinking that since they are not male, they can get away with it.

 

[purplecactus]

...seriously?

If someone hits you, hit back. If someone attacks you, defend yourself. Not defending yourself because your assailant is female is nothing short of ridiculous.

I feel like I should clarify that I am female, and if I hit a guy with any violent intent I would fully expect him to hit me back. Expecting him to let me get away with it/not defend himself/whatever else just because of my gender really is stupid.

This whole ridiculous idea that women are fragile little creatures who need special treatment is outdated to say the least. Yes, we are different from men. So what? I'm all for gender equality, just not ridiculousness.

/rant

 

[CardinalPiggles]

If a women hits me I'm gonna hit her back, no question.

A lot of women seem to think they can abuse their social standing but it's wrong to do so.

 

[Tombsite]

Yes a man is allowed to defend himself. Even if the attacker is a woman. What he is not allowed to do is to use an attack as an excuse to hurt someone back. This goes for both male and female attackers.

Yes if punching a woman in the face is the only way to stop a woman attacking you then it is ok. But in most cases the man will be bigger and stronger than the woman and thus be able to defend himself with minimal use of force. The amount of people who will happily hit a weaker person in the face while calming self defence is a little worrying though.

 

[Comocat]

Yes a man is allowed to defend himself. Even if the attacker is a woman. What he is not allowed to do is to use an attack as an excuse to hurt someone back. This goes for both male and female attackers.

Yes if punching a woman in the face is the only way to stop a woman attacking you then it is ok. But in most cases the man will be bigger and stronger than the woman and thus be able to defend himself with minimal use of force. The amount of people who will happily hit a weaker person in the face while calming self defence is a little worrying though.

I agree- it's about a reasonable response. I have about 50 pounds on my wife and a lot more upper body strength. She is really fit but I have testosterone and anatomy on my side. Sure if she punched me in the face it might hurt, but if I punched her back it would be a fairly unreasonable counter.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

I agree- it's about a reasonable response. I have about 50 pounds on my wife and a lot more upper body strength. She is really fit but I have testosterone and anatomy on my side. Sure if she punched me in the face it might hurt, but if I punched her back it would be a fairly unreasonable counter.

I disagree. I'm taught only one way to fight, and it doesn't matter how strong my attacker is, their gender or their size is irrelevant. If attacked, I will hit them back as hard as I can. Underestimating your enemy is never a good idea. Because I lack this escalation meter, I tend not to get into fights, at least not ones where there's actually a decent chance of being hurt. If you think a fight with the average woman would be under a decent chance of being hurt, give her some credit. She's got teeth and nails and I have eyes she can scratch and balls she can knee or kick.

I'm not talking about someone you know though. Even I restrain myself in those situations since I usually don't want to hurt them.

 

[Strazdas]

Legaly - yes.
In our society - no. The society will cling and claim that you attacked her regardless of anything else, because they are blind to woman ability to attack first just like they are blind to woman being able to rape someone.

I couldn't care less what society thinks, if a woman is attacking me with her full force, i'm going to punch her in the head full force.

Everyone is for "equal rights for women", so I will treat her like shes a man attacking me.

do you live alone outside of any city borders making your own food and clothes without the need to "go shopping"? if the asnwer is no then you DO care what society thinks.

What? I don't even understand.

Do I need to clarify?

I don't care what society thinks about me PUNCHING A WOMAN IN SELF DEFENCE, not "I don't care what society thinks" in general.

Just because I don't care about what everyone thinks on a single thing, doesn't mean "FUCK SOCIETY, I'M OUTTA HERE TIME TO LIVE IN A CAVE".

I am not joking, I don't understand why you responded with that.

You will see what i mean when you wont be able to buy things like food because the seller will decide that "you are socially unacceptable therefore gtfo". as long as you live inside a society you care about what it thinks about you to a certain extent.

 

[Echopunk]

This doesn't come up that much in my life. I don't spend a lot of time around drunks, so spontaneous "I'ma fights you" outbursts don't come around as much as they used to.

Chances are, I'm not going to do anything to provoke a woman into hitting me unless she is absolutely batshit crazy and decides she doesn't like the way I'm breathing and tries to rectify the situation with lung removal.

That said, I was confronted with this situation a couple of times when I was younger. In some cases, it was the girl being playful or stubborn. I would demonstrate a self defense technique or takedown at slow speed and the girl would say that if I move that slow anyone could get out of it. I'd get a wild punch thrown at me during mid demonstration (don't teach martial arts to drunken peers) and I would react accordingly. With my skillset, I don't need to "hit" anyone to prevent them from harming me. I was also very good at stopping a straight punch a centimeter away from someone's face. That took a lot of the stubborn out of the equation, without doing actual damage.

The only other times I've had women become violent towards me involved alcohol or mental illness, both on their behalf, and sometimes both at once. I guess if I were drunk or crazy at the same time, bad things would have occurred. Thankfully, I wasn't. That is part of my philosophy. The best I can hope to do is to control myself. If I'm drunk or fucked up, I can't even do that.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

This whole ridiculous idea that women are fragile little creatures who need special treatment is outdated to say the least.

Human BEINGS are "fragile little creatures". Do you have any idea how easy it is to concuss someone? Or accidentally put them in a coma? Or kill them? Or if you just want a less dramatic result, maybe break a jaw or shatter an orbital bone and blind them in one eye. Especially if you have >50 lbs on them.

It's idiotic to hit anyone, really. Hitting should be an absolute last resort. And the bigger the size disparity between you and your target, the more aware you should be of the danger involved, and the more hesitant you should be to go wading in.

The amount of people who will happily hit a weaker person in the face while calming self defence is a little worrying though.

No kidding eh? The number of "I'd hit that woman back as hard as I possibly could!" posts that always float to the surface during these threads are a little disconcerting, to say the least. You get the sense there are some people who are just waiting for a reason.

 

[tahrey]

If someone physically attacks you, you're well within your rights to a proportionate defence. End of.

Jeez, if you thought that any other rule applied, the earth would already have been overrun by whichever clever despot was the first to think up the "army composed entirely of women" idea.

 

[Avaholic03]

I voted "maybe, depends on the situation" because the term "defend himself" is vague. If a guy could easily overpower/restrain the woman, then he should do that rather than simply hitting her back. It's not like being attacked by a woman is a blank check to knock her out or anything, which is something that some guys would do unfortunately.

So, I think a better answer would be "yes, but only within reason".

 

[purplecactus]

This whole ridiculous idea that women are fragile little creatures who need special treatment is outdated to say the least.

Human BEINGS are "fragile little creatures". Do you have any idea how easy it is to concuss someone? Or accidentally put them in a coma? Or kill them? Or if you just want a less dramatic result, maybe break a jaw or shatter an orbital bone and blind them in one eye. Especially if you have >50 lbs on them.

It's idiotic to hit anyone, really. Hitting should be an absolute last resort. And the bigger the size disparity between you and your target, the more aware you should be of the danger involved, and the more hesitant you should be to go wading in.

Believe me, I know just how easy it is to cause serious injury to someone. And I completely agree with violence being a last resort. Thing is, in my experience the world doesn't tend to work like that. My prior point was (aside from potentially being badly worded) as much about the general treatment of women (again, in my experience. Hopefully most places have left it behind) as it was about the given context.

I still stand by it though. If a woman attacks a man, the man should defend himself.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

self defence is self defence.
The gender of the person attacking you is not really relevant factor when it come to defending your self and how much force is required.
If the person assaulting you(gender is irrelevant) is weak, and not using a weapon then a strong person should not defend him/herself in a way that is overkill.
it goes without saying if you can get the person to calm down before they start the fight or avoid having to fight then you should.