Hitting... Women

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Nathaniel Grey said:
Recently I went to see The Wolf of Wall Street. Easily one of the most hilarious movies I've seen in a long time. I was completely engrossed in the movie until one specific point. It was the scene where Nyomi tells Jordan that she is divorcing him and plans to take the kids. Jordan then reacts as we expect him to and the couple begins to argue. But then Nyomi slaps Jordan. Jordan in turn slaps her and entire audience did a deep *inhale. Immediately, in my mind, I understood what people were bothered by, but I could not comprehend the why. I've been raised from two schools of thought. The first, from my grandmother who gave me explicit directions that if anyone ever messed with me I was allowed to knock them out. The second is from my step-mother who told me I'm allowed to do the same thing, as in the first school, but not with women. I asked her, "why?" She responded "Because I said so". Back then I simply had to accept that answer, but I'm older now.

Now before you go posting this is NOT a debate about whether it is right or wrong to hit women. I don't care about your opinions in that regard since I already know how I feel about the issue. What I'm looking for, explicity might I add, is a reason not to do it. Those of you who deem it wrong please tell me why. I want to know the logic behind this train of thought. Don't simply tell me "Because." Don't tell me about how you personally don't do it. Or how it irks you the wrong way. I'm looking for a logical argument. (And no, just because I wish to hear the reasons behind the second school of thought doesn't mean there is something inherently wrong with the first school.) One thing though, whatever your reason may be, if it does not follow the above requirements or is in any way demeaning to women I will not accept it.
The basic logic seems to be that women are inherently weaker than men, so it is wrong for guys to exploit their physical superiority when dealing with them. Theoretically a girl isn't able to do much damage to a guy, but a guy can really mess up a girl with very little effort.

For the most part there is a lot of truth to this, fantasy aside, women generally can't handle men in fights. Men top out higher in their physical abilities, and given an equivalent amount of exercise and physical training a man will pretty much always win against a girl simply due to sheer size and the way the bodies are structured.

Some 6' dude beating the crap out of a 5' 2" girl that's like 100 or more pounds lighter than him tends to be pretty nasty and vicious, and really when that girl slaps a dude she is generally going to make his cheek a bit sore, a guy turns around and slaps a girl he can do some serious damage.

Having dealt with self defense issues in the past, done escorts through dark parking lots, and other assorted stuff in my time working Casino Security I will say that the question your asking has become a lot more valid in the last few decades than it was before. The thing is a lot of women are taught that they can fight dudes toe to toe, something reinforced by the media, and there are self defense classes that teach this. For the most part this tends to get women into a lot of trouble because the best thing they can do if confronted by some dude in say a dark parking garage is run away, in general a few self defense lessons aren't going to do much to a guy a foot taller than you and 50 pounds or more heavier other than slow him down a bit and piss him off. A lot of problems I've dealt with the aftermath of have occurred because of women dumb enough to think they could act like "Xena: Warrior Princess" or some anime tough girl in real life because they had a few years of karate, only to learn the hard way that skill only compensates for size and physical ability to a certain extent.

The problem that occurs in most less drastic situations is that in a lot of cases when some girl gets violent nowadays, she's actually learned enough to do a bit of damage, but still is obviously not going to be able to win a real fight. After all a lot of it is where and how you hit someone, as opposed to how hard.

In general if some girl slaps a dude and doesn't do any real damage, the right thing for him to do is let it go. The situation changes if she hauls off and slams some guy hard enough to break his nose, fatten the lip, leave a black eye, or potentially worse. That's where things start getting a little bit ambigious, since ultimately if the guy basically goes back at her full tilt it's going to result in a rather brutal beating, still one sided enough where it's going to seem rather monsterous and bullying by any objective standard. Pop culture where a girl brutalizing a guy is considered "fun", "cool", or "funny" but still frowns on the idea of guys seriously fighting back against girls doesn't help the situation either. I mean heck, we've seen an outcry when "Agent 47" took out a bunch of heavily armed grindhouse-type assassin-nuns in a famous video game trailer, the ladies were heavily armed and trying to kill him and people got all upset because you know, as a dude he shouldn't have been shown as fighting back seriously.

My personal guideline is simply to keep your cool and handle the situations as they come, even if that can be rather hard. For the most part if it's just some quick thing, as much as it hurts, you can let it go. If a girl is being rather persistant in trying to do you harm, well, then you do what you need to do. Chances are I wouldn't beat a girl down for slapping me, and I probably wouldn't do it either if she gave me a black eye, but if I'm dealing with a persistant attack or a situation where I feel threatened, I'll deal with the social scorn and let the court settle it once I've done what I need to do in order to end the threat and protect myself. I am not going to let some girl beat on me when she's doing damage, or claw my eyes out (as sexist as that sounds, it's how girls come at guys surprisingly often).

That said I haven't generally been hit by or attacked by many people of either gender, I did the job I did because of my ability to defuse, calm, and control situations including some rather intense ones, most of my "incidents" came about because I got between other people to break things up rather than anyone coming after me, of course I've been threatened loads of times and insulted pretty much every way you can think of, and a few you probably can't. My "guideline" is mostly hypothetical because for the most part I don't get into fights, then again for most of my life I've been a shall we say... substantial... enough guy where most people don't want to try their luck over something stupid so I might not represent the best example. Despite how it might sound online, I also HAD a tendency to also be very thick skinned and even tempered.
 

King Aragorn

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Mar 15, 2013
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Zachary@ It mostly has to do with when it's even implied/brought up on other forums, someone has to go ''MEN ARE BEING OVERTAKEN AND OPPRESSED'' or whatever, so it's more of a safety net in a way to avoid such misconceptions.
It is a fairly stupid strawman, I agree.
 

Sansha

There's a principle in business
Nov 16, 2008
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A slap isn't a threatening gesture. More of an insult and forceful dismissal, so I don't believe it warrants retaliation.

My rules for self-defense apply to both men and women; I'll defend myself against whatever's threatening me. I once beat up a woman because she wouldn't stop attacking me. I'm neither ashamed nor proud of it, I just needed to use force to defend myself from harm.

I think it's fair enough. You shouldn't go around assaulting anyone and should have the right to defend yourself against anyone, no matter their gender.
 

NSGrendel

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Jul 1, 2010
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It's never right to hit anyone. End of story.

Otherwise, one thing leads to another and before you know it, we're invading a foreign country or two and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

The correct response is to walk away and if appropriate, report the person to the relevant authorities. My daughter has been taught karate from the age of four, but she constantly has it drummed into her that she should never use it apart from exceptional circumstances and her end goal should still be leaving the situation, not escalating it.

I grew up in a violent home and for a time was quite a violent person, so I'm not theorising here, I'm talking from personal experience.

But people will do what they are conditioned to do, so this is just another dumb post on an internet forum.
 

Lieju

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Jan 4, 2009
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Therumancer said:
Pop culture where a girl brutalizing a guy is considered "fun", "cool", or "funny" but still frowns on the idea of guys seriously fighting back against girls doesn't help the situation either. I mean heck, we've seen an outcry when "Agent 47" took out a bunch of heavily armed grindhouse-type assassin-nuns in a famous video game trailer, the ladies were heavily armed and trying to kill him and people got all upset because you know, as a dude he shouldn't have been shown as fighting back seriously.
There were a lot of reasons why people were upset at that trailer. Not hitting women WAS the objection some people had, for some it was that it didn't fit a Hitman-game.

And some people (like me although I didn't have a massive issue with it because it was far from the worst offender) was that the women were dressed up in fetish outfits and there was quite a bit of sexualisation going on, making some people uncomfortable because it felt like the trailer wanted you to get off on women being hurt.
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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Aug 30, 2011
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riotAlice said:
It's never alright to cause another human pain.
Are you sure there are absolutely no situations where it's alright to cause another human pain? Like when binding a wound, or pushing someone away from an unseen hazard?

I get what you're saying, although the 'king-hitting' occurs generally through drunk males doing something stupid unprovoked rather than self defence or back and forth, but that's a bit much hyperbole.
 

Mobax

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Oct 10, 2012
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A better rule is you shouldn't hit anyone. That being said, I fully understand how passionate emotional moments can make physical confrontation seem like a good idea. My brother and I have certainly hit each other as kids many times. But we never hit my sister, maybe the odd push, but it was very clear, you don't strike a girl. That was a sensible rule for a child, when boys are often stronger then girls of similar size and ages.

When you get to be an adult, you should be able to restrain yourself from hitting anyone, regardless of gender. That being said, physically men are on average stronger then women of equal size, so I think that calls for additional restraint on the male's part. I compare it to the idea that if you are a trained fighter, martial artist, etc. you can be held to a higher legal standard if you engage in fight with a random person, regardless of who started it. Showing restraint is commendable, and the only instance anyone should hit back is if it is self-defense; where if possible the focus should be on restraining the aggressor, not inflicting damage.
 

Sansha

There's a principle in business
Nov 16, 2008
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NSGrendel said:
It's never right to hit anyone. End of story.

Otherwise, one thing leads to another and before you know it, we're invading a foreign country or two and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

The correct response is to walk away and if appropriate, report the person to the relevant authorities. My daughter has been taught karate from the age of four, but she constantly has it drummed into her that she should never use it apart from exceptional circumstances and her end goal should still be leaving the situation, not escalating it.

I grew up in a violent home and for a time was quite a violent person, so I'm not theorising here, I'm talking from personal experience.

But people will do what they are conditioned to do, so this is just another dumb post on an internet forum.
I hate hurting people, but I hate getting hurt even more, so if my escape is blocked and a fight is the only way out, then so be it, but even then it's a fight to disarm. The only person who I've had to actually put down was a girl my own age.

You're raising your daughter right. That's really good to see.
 

ashleymore

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Jan 30, 2014
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Amethyst Wind said:
If I get slapped, it'll sting but won't cause lasting harm.

I won't retaliate after the first slap, but I will warn whoever it was that that is the only free shot they get. If they do it again, I will move to ensure that they do not attempt it a third time.

That's the thing about violence. It should be used to end a physical confrontation, not for superiority or the like. Make it so the attacker can no longer attack/is no longer willing to attack, then stop.

This is all conjecture, as I haven't been in this situation since high school, and make an effort not to associate with those who believe violence to be the correct course of action, but that's probably how I'll handle it.
You shouldn't wait for the third time.
 

Amethyst Wind

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Apr 1, 2009
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ashleymore said:
Amethyst Wind said:
If I get slapped, it'll sting but won't cause lasting harm.

I won't retaliate after the first slap, but I will warn whoever it was that that is the only free shot they get. If they do it again, I will move to ensure that they do not attempt it a third time.

That's the thing about violence. It should be used to end a physical confrontation, not for superiority or the like. Make it so the attacker can no longer attack/is no longer willing to attack, then stop.

This is all conjecture, as I haven't been in this situation since high school, and make an effort not to associate with those who believe violence to be the correct course of action, but that's probably how I'll handle it.
You shouldn't wait for the third time.
In the scenario I presented, I will have struck back if they even attempt a second attack. There is no waiting for the 3rd time. They get one warning, assuming it is a slap or something else that can be brushed off. If they take a full swing, then all bets are off.