sheeeeee-ittttttt...

<shakes head and blinks eyes>

how did we come to this? and how do we get away from it? (most esp girls thinking ppl have a right to hit them if the girl makes them mad)

Carol :(((((((((((((

Maybe those young people are actually demonstrating a more subtle and complex understanding of human relationships. Maybe they are coming to recognize the massive double standard that exists with respect to violent behavior between the genders. Perhaps they realize that women have to take some responsibility for their actions...not that the violence is acceptable, but that a girl/woman cannot just behave any way she pleases...yelling, scratching, belittling, embarassing, taking or damaging personal property etc...without there being some risk involved. Society generally tolerates violence perpetrated against men by women. Why is that? Is violence wrong or not? When a movie studio feels perfectly at ease including a clip of Kate Hudson bashing Matthew McConaghey over the head with a golf club, knocking him to the ground, in the movie's advertising trailer what does that say?

don't worry Carol....I'm not planning on hanging around the XX club

I'm not surprised. I used to be a prosecutor, and we did a lot of sexual assault cases. You would think that the prosecution would benefit from having women on the jury. Not the case.

The problem is in many sex assault cases the victim exhibits extremely risky behaviors (always heavy drinking, having physical relations w/multiple guys in a night, dressing sexy, not running when she had a chance, etc....).

As the cases would spool out I could read the female jurors' faces like a book. Their eyelids got heavier, their mouths pursed into frowns, the arms crossed, etc... The message on their face was, "you idiot girl, you all but asked for it." Case closed.

Now a defense attorney would say that is a good thing, that the female jurors are not letting their gender identity cloud their reasonable doubt. I'm not saying it's good or bad, just that it is what it is (in my experience).

The best jurors for us were older well educated males with daughters. They would overlook a number of questionable choices on the part of the victim that most female jurors I spoke with afterword would never overlook.

kuruman:

Maybe those young people are actually demonstrating a more subtle and complex understanding of human relationships. Maybe they are coming to recognize the massive double standard that exists with respect to violent behavior between the genders. Perhaps they realize that women have to take some responsibility for their actions...not that the violence is acceptable, but that a girl/woman cannot just behave any way she pleases...yelling, scratching, belittling, embarassing, taking or damaging personal property etc...without there being some risk involved. Society generally tolerates violence perpetrated against men by women. Why is that? Is violence wrong or not? When a movie studio feels perfectly at ease including a clip of Kate Hudson bashing Matthew McConaghey over the head with a golf club, knocking him to the ground, in the movie's advertising trailer what does that say?

don't worry Carol....I'm not planning on hanging around the XX club

Since when is yelling, screaming, belittling, embarassing, taking or damaging personal property an acceptable reason for physical violence? Why should the risk for those things be physical violence? Walk away and/or take legal action. Even if a female hits a male I can't see the male beating the shit out of her.

Most domestic violence is not perpetrated because the female was physically violent first. My friend got the shit beat out of her because she found out that her live-in boyfriend was cheating and she attempted to kick him out. She stupidly ended up marrying him and until she finally had him arrested he continued to beat her. Once he couldn't beat her anymore because he didn't want to go back to jail he went to emotional and verbal abuse.

Everybody needs to take responsibilities for their actions but violence is never the answer on either side. I don't think that society tolerates violence against men by women so much as that when a man is abused they usually won't report it or press charges for whatever reason.

I think most reasonable people can agree that physical violence, whether men against women or women against men, is a bad thing.

It is an interesting double standard in the media that women beating on men is considered funny. The answer on that is obviously the size/strength difference. It is why a comedy in which a small child beats on a guy can be funny, but a scene of a guy whaling on a small child is not funny. At root we all realize that the big strong guy could stop the woman/child, that is what makes the scene rediculous and funny.

But there are certainly real life situations where women physically abuse men despite their physical weakness. Some women are willing to resort to violence, and some men are meek. Those guys deserve sympathy just like a female domestic abuse victim.

Regarding whether some women bear responsibility for being hit, I do not agree. But as the parent of a 6 year old girl and 4 year old boy it is interesting. My kids are constant companions, but they also get on each other's nerves sometimes. I've witnessed many instances where my daughter will want my son to do something and she is relentless, needling him, prodding him, playing mind games. He is not as verbal so he tries to ignore her, walks away, says no, etc... But she won't let up, so sometimes he snaps and pushes her or pulls her hair. Of course we intervene in those situations and punish him for hitting, but many times my wife or I will look at each other privately and say, "she had it coming."

For some grown adults that childhood dynamic still plays out.

A Dude:

I'm not surprised. I used to be a prosecutor, and we did a lot of sexual assault cases. You would think that the prosecution would benefit from having women on the jury. Not the case.

The problem is in many sex assault cases the victim exhibits extremely risky behaviors (always heavy drinking, having physical relations w/multiple guys in a night, dressing sexy, not running when she had a chance, etc....).

I see what you're saying, but this isn't really the point. We're not talking about sexual assault, just assault. And I am firmly in the camp of the first responder to this post.

The thing is, while I am inclined to believe that Chris Brown and just about any other guy who beat a woman is a douchebag who needs to be horsewhipped, I am not inclined to indict every single person who has ever hit a woman without considering the circumstances.

There is a big difference between a guy who gets pissed and starts punching because his woman "disrespected" him (this would be the aforementioned douchebag) and one who got pissed because she was punching him first, or because she bit him, or because she followed him from room to room, or even out the front door when he tried to walk away, continuing to denigrate everything from his mother to his penis size and then slapped him, basically daring him to do something.

These situations do arise, and recognizing it takes nothing away from the basic recognition that there are violent douchebags out there who need to be in jail. Sometimes, there really are two sides to the story, and women's advocates who don't recognize that are doing their cause no service by ignoring inconvenient realities.

Kuruman, I don't think that Dayo said or suggested that finding violence against young women in relationships unacceptable is the same thing as saying that young women bear NO responsibility for their actions.

I think that young people (teens through early 20s) are in most cases very very very very conservative about gender relations. By that I mean, they seem willing to accept and ENFORCE against each other the most regressive possible interpretations of the roles of women and men socially and sexually. And I think that the overall social milieu of high school magnifies those tendencies. I remember my high school as socially being brutally conformist. (Indiana, early 80s) The big midwestern college I attended shortly thereafter seemed like a Greenwich Village of tolerance, diversity, and mutual acceptance, by comparison.

So, Dayo's experience doesn't surprise me. I don't understand it, but it rings true to me, and it's not new, except for maybe in the crude permissiveness of current high school mores.

Nobody deserves to be hit, ever, unless someone has physically attacked you first. Then, you only do what you need to do to ensure your safety and get away. There's no excuse for physical abuse from men or women.

I'm shocked to see this language of provocation brought up in an attempt to justify the way that some men treat women. I was beaten and abused by a college boyfriend. I never once attacked him, and I certainly didn't destroy his possessions or bait him. In fact, he was the one who started destroying my things and throwing them at me when I asked him to leave me alone. If I did try to defend myself, he'd hit me harder. Like I said in my post above, it took me a long time to realize that the problem was his, not mine.

Sexual assault and assaults between men and women are very closely related, so I'd say my prior post about some women having a "she had it coming" attitude is on point, but whatever.

Now I do agree with you on your later point that if a woman punches/hits a guy first then she has no one but herself to blame if she gets a punch in return. Violence begets violence. It'd be no different if some little guy went up to a bigger guy and punched him. Said little guy deserves to get a beat down, regardless of the strength differential.

donamp

"Since when is yelling, screaming, belittling, embarassing, taking or damaging personal property an acceptable reason for physical violence?"

Nobody said it was did they? Why did you write such a stupid thing?

A dude:

As you allude to in a later post, size and strength disparities are not necessarily black and white. A smaller woman can also use the element of surprise or a weapon (hence my example with a golf club). Men are universally protrayed as violent hulking gorillas in these discussions, but most men are not that big or strong. Further, as I believe I have discussed with Carol before, women perpetrate more than half of all child abuse, and abuse statistics are similar in lesbian relationships. These things point to women being being just as violent as men when, and it is the size disparity between men and women that gets them off the hook for not controlling themselves.

"Nobody deserves to be hit, ever, unless someone has physically attacked you first. Then, you only do what you need to do to ensure your safety and get away."

I can't agree with this sentiment; sometimes people deserve a punch in the face. If a man severely degraded my sister/gf/mother/brother/frien­d I would punch him in the face. The idea of strictly nonviolent retribution to violence is a fairly tale. And sometimes a punch in the face is a very quick solution to a problem, such as bullying. As opposed to a protracted legal/school-affiliated battle, etc.

Semuvar, why would you ever think that the problem was you? I don't mean this in a condescending manner, I'm really curious, because it is very common for women to stay in abusive relationships. Why is this?

Davelias,

I understand if you can't agree with what I said about people not deserving to be hit. That's just my outlook after being the subject of abuse. I can't conceive of a reason that it would be justified to hit somebody who hasn't attacked you first, or made it clear that he intends to harm you. I think that there are other appropriate means for solving the problems you listed without resorting to physical violence. It just comes down to a matter of opinion and mine stems from my experience.

With regard to your other question, I think it's a matter of psychology. I look back on the way that I thought when I was stuck in that relationship and I'm unable to recognize myself. I'm convinced that victims of abuse aren't thinking rationally and have a hard time understanding that what happens to them is undeserved. I was already suffering from depression at the time, and the sense of hopelessness and worthlessness I felt was strongly reinforced by the things that were said and done to me.

I felt trapped. I was too ashamed to approach my family for help and there wasn't really anyone else I could discuss it with. I had managed to keep a part time job, although I had dropped out of school, but I didn't make enough money on my own to support myself. Things got so bad during one incident that our neighbors called the cops and I found myself there, crying and begging for them not to haul me away, while the officers looked me over for bruises and other injuries.

All that went through my mind was that if I was left on my own, there'd be no way for me to make ends meet. A lot of women find themselves in a similar position, financially or otherwise dependent on the same person who abuses them. To someone in that situation, the thought of having to solve basic problems like how you're going to pay the bills and where your next meal is going to come from is much worse than remaining with the abuser.

It took me a long time to gather up the courage to ask for help, but when I did, things started to get better very quickly. Like I said before, looking back on the time I spent in that relationship scares me, because it's like having someone else's memories.

Lori is right...children and teens ARE conservative. Just remember the tragic case of the girl who killed herself, because her boyfriend had posted her nude photos on the Internet...and then told the other GIRLS in school about it. The GIRLS were the ones who called her a slut...rather than attacking him as a cad.

Cassandra:

This also illustrates that you don't need to be muscular to be abusive doesn't it? There are plenty of ways to torture people, and girls/women are excellent at psychological abuse.