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The Double-Standard: Is Women Hitting Men Ever Okay?
New York, 6:47 AM
Mon Dec 7
18 posts in the last 24 hours
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The Double-Standard: Is Women Hitting Men Ever Okay? |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
03/18/09
Is it ever OK for anyone to hit anyone else regardless of gender? No. But I've recently begun to be OK with the fact that I beat the crap out of a guy who tried to mug me this past December.
03/18/09
For me, abuse is not about the abusers ability to create great or longterm suffering, so much as it is about the act of attempting to deliberately hurt someone. The notion that women can hit "cause it doesn't really hurt the guy" is foolish. As Sadie said, what if it were a 5'4 man hitting a big woman? No one would point to the fact that it may not have hurt so bad or that she could have maybe hurt him more.
I also hate that our society believes in some sort of feminine frailty, that we are unable to control our emotions and should be allowed to hit and curse and say what we want. And that men are supposed to have superhuman restraint in the face of said behavior. It's dehumanizing to both parties.
If I had a son, I would be horrified if he were letting some girl hit on him. It seems like moms don't explain to our boys and girls that girls hitting boys is also BAD! BIG BAD, not small bad.
03/18/09
My male friend dated a physically abusive girl (I say girl because most of their relationship was in their teen years). She would hit and smack him and when provoked or when she would break into psychotic episodes, she would punch him. Once my other friends had to restrain her from him and she stomped my friend's foot and broke it. She even gave her best friend a black eye when she was trying help us restrain her.
When they broke up, my friend had scratches and marks all over his neck. We told him to press charges but her parents are lawyers.
03/18/09
03/18/09
A man is permitted to take a woman by the shoulders, shake her a bit, and holler "CALM DOWN", or grab her arm roughly to turn her around to look at something, no more.
Both sides are permitted to throw small, non-dangerous objects at one another (slippers, rolled-up socks, and paperback books, hard-boiled eggs, for example)
I stand by these rules for physical interaction. Anything more from either side and it's trouble.
03/18/09
03/18/09
I WILL bite people if they tickle me. And pull hair. Every time.
I also physically threw my sister out of my house this summer (she's 80 pounds so it was super easy and not that painful for her, but still).
Maybe I should look into kickboxing.
03/18/09
03/18/09
I feel bad about it to this day! Eeeek.
03/18/09
That being said, I feel the same way about violence against anyone who is not your physical match, regardless of sex. Still it is disconcerting to know that as a woman a majority of men are stronger than you, even if this is NOT true, the perception of it creates the threat of physical intimidation and domination. Guys don't walk around with this same threat. Socially, it's just not the same thing.
03/18/09
03/18/09
That's the way it is.
03/18/09
03/18/09
I've been in an abusive relationship, in which he was quite larger than me and yeah, after a while I started hitting him. He'd be provoked and hit me- way harder, since he was huge compared to me. That's what people are saying is provocation but by the time I started getting like that things had gotten so bad and he'd been so violent with me that it was like war.
in my healthy relationships all physical violence has been mild, comedic, and non-threatening.
03/18/09
03/18/09
I can't imagine hauling off and hitting someone even though my temper is bad and among my friends I do have the rep of being the little Irish spitfire and while some of the guys think its cute some acknowledge I could do some damage. I have been punched in the face by a female and it certainly didnt hurt less, I shoved her to the ground and walked away.
But I am very guilty of the throwing things and even that is sometimes a dangerous thing to do ladies. I was fighting with an emotionally abusive ex, that used to push my buttons, while cleaning the kitchen. He made me so mad that I threw an empty cat food can past his head and with my horrible luck...it hit him in the chin! I was so horrified with myself and even more so that I'm sure he believed I aimed there. But I am for lack of a better word content that when 1year later in a fight that I felt that angry when I went to leave and he shoved me to the ground, over a piece of furniture I contained myself to walk away. So although I have some parts of me in check, I wish I had always had all of it in check.
03/18/09
Sloppy writting haz I after celebrating last night yes! Sheesh.
03/18/09
I'm not saying it's right, but it's reality.
03/18/09
03/18/09
03/18/09
This bf actually used to say I didn't love him because I didn't get all crazy-out-of-control angry. THAT was fucked up!
03/18/09
03/18/09
By toy guitar, they could also mean a blow up toy.