Women of DP - I ask you

teamosil said:

Another way to look at it is that if you were able to see 1,000 random incidents of a man hitting a woman, how many of them do you think you would think the man was justified? 10? 1? None? But presumably in most of those situations the jackass guy thinks he is justified. So, should we really be sitting around trying to come up with rationalizations for hitting women or should we be trying to squash rationalizations people use to justify abuse?

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At Catz and I have both asserted, having worked with CDV cases, many of these instances of "abuse" of women by men, are actually men reacting to abuse of them by the female. I said at least a third, Catz' said 70%. Her figure is probably closer.

Now, I'm not saying that a man is "justified" to break a woman's face in response to being screamed at and slapped a couple times, BUT I think it is self-evident that a woman who hits a man FIRST is not only a contributor to the abuse she recieved, she is in fact an abuser herself.

Until a certain segment of the population recognizes this fact and takes ownership of it, domestic abuse will remain problematic.

Now, in those cases where a man just beats on a woman for no reason, I favor substantial punishment. However, if the man was acting in response to physical assault on his person, he could argue self-defense in some cases, or certainly provocation and harassment... I'd think this should lessen the punishment he suffers if proven to be so.

Let me give you an example...

It would be arguably LEGAL for me to go to a Biker Bar at 3AM, stand up in the middle of the room, and shout "HARLEY DAVIDSON SUCKS!".

I'd also be lucky if I got out of there alive. I pretty definitely wouldn't escape without getting my ass beat good.

Did I have a legal right to say that? Sure. Did they have a legal right to physically batter me for expressing my opinion? No.

That doesn't change the facts that 1. I asked for it, and 2. I should have known better, therefore it was at least partially my fault that it happened.


When a woman screams at a man for half an hour, then punches or kicks him or slaps him repeatedly, she ought to know she has exceeded acceptible behavior, has crossed the line into abuse in her own right, and is willfully putting herself in a situation where she is likely to be beaten up.

teamosil said:

Another way to look at it is that if you were able to see 1,000 random incidents of a man hitting a woman, how many of them do you think you would think the man was justified? 10? 1? None? But presumably in most of those situations the jackass guy thinks he is justified. So, should we really be sitting around trying to come up with rationalizations for hitting women or should we be trying to squash rationalizations people use to justify abuse?

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By your standpoint, abuse is a one-way street - a situation where the man is the initial and supreme aggressor and the woman is the victim.

The point of the thread was made with microcosmic hypotheticals in mind.

You seem to be assuming that every time a man hits a woman, it's because he's just a pissed-off individual who decides to take his aggressions out on a docile woman minding her own. Maybe that's how it happens in la-la land, but out here in the real world it's simply not like that, bub.

I'm thinking your environment may be a cause, as you're from a city where the women typically wear the penis and vice-versa.

Gipper said:

By your standpoint, abuse is a one-way street - a situation where the man is the initial and supreme aggressor and the woman is the victim.

The point of the thread was made with microcosmic hypotheticals in mind.

You seem to be assuming that every time a man hits a woman, it's because he's just a pissed-off individual who decides to take his aggressions out on a docile woman minding her own. Maybe that's how it happens in la-la land, but out here in the real world it's simply not like that, bub.

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My point is that the use of hyoptheticals to justify hitting women is a dangerous path. Sure, some chicks are totally crazy, or totally mean, just like dudes. But, most often the dude is not justified in hitting the woman pretty much no matter what she does short of bringing out a weapon because a guy getting hit by a woman and a woman getting hit by a guy typically just aren't proportionate. Guys tend to be a lot stronger, a lot bigger, and a lot more durable. So, if we focus on this hypothetical (which I agree with in the abstract)- that a guy who is seriously threatened physically by a woman and who responds proportionally with reasonable force, that is justified, what we're really doing it just building up a pretty fuzzy standard that people who are not reasonable, who are not accurately calculating a proportional response, etc, will use to rationalize abuse.

It's like anything else. If you go out of town for the weekend and leave your kids at home, if you tell them- "ok, you can have people over, but only one friend at a time, and everybody has to go home by 10pm", what happens? They have a party with 50 people, a keg, and the house gets smashed up. So, if you really want them to just have one friend over for a few hours at most while you're gone, what do you tell them? You tell them that they absolutely can't have anybody over for any reason.

Same deal with this. If you go around listing off situations where it is ok for a guy to hit a woman, you just end up with more people systematically abusing their wives and girlfriends or responding to a slap with a 2 by 4 to the head and whatnot. Better to set the rule to "you don't hit women ever", and in the unusual circumstances where there really is a justifiable exception, they can explain themselves.

Gipper said:

I'm thinking your environment may be a cause, as you're from a city where the women typically wear the penis and vice-versa.

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Yes, yes... And you're from a state where everybody marries their own sister... Lame sterotypes are dumb.

teamosil said:

My point is that the use of hyoptheticals to justify hitting women is a dangerous path. .

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It's not a hypothetical. If a woman hits a man, she's opened the door to physical aggression, and may well get her ass kicked. Thems the risks.

Frankly, the same holds true for hitting me. You throw a punch at me, it's going to the mattress, and I don't care if you're female or male. My ex-husband can probably provide some clarity on that one.

There is a ton of research on the role of women in domestic violence. It's far from as cut and dried as some would like to believe:

http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf

Over the last twenty-five years, leading sociologists have repeatedly found that men and women commit violence at similar rates. The 1977 assertion that “the phenomenon of husband battering”6 is as prevalent as wife abuse is confirmed by nationally representative studies, such as the Family Violence Surveys, as well as by numerous other sources.7 However, despite the wealth and diversity of the sociological research and the consistency of the findings, female violence is not recognized within the extensive legal literature on domestic violence. Instead, the literature consistently suggests that only men commit domestic violence. Either explicitly, or more often implicitly, through the failure to address the subject in any objective manner, female violence is denied, defended and minimized.

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My view is based on data. What's yours based on, Teamosil?

It depends. I don't expect to be hit back whilst in the role of dominatrix.:2razz:

Dulcinea said:

It depends. I don't expect to be hit back whilst in the role of dominatrix.:2razz:

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A naughty boy should understand his place.

Catz Part Deux said:

It's not a hypothetical. If a woman hits a man, she's opened the door to physical aggression, and may well get her ass kicked. Thems the risks.

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Let me ask you about another scenario then. Say that a 90 year old man slaps you weakly across the face. Are you justified in giving him a full force punch to the head? If not, where do you draw the line? Doesn't a party with a greater capability of employing force have a greater responsibility to restrain themselves? Isn't that more often than not the situation between men and women?

teamosil said:

Let me ask you about another scenario then. Say that a 90 year old man slaps you weakly across the face. Are you justified in giving him a full force punch to the head? If not, where do you draw the line? Doesn't a party with a greater capability of employing force have a greater responsibility to restrain themselves? Isn't that more often than not the situation between men and women?

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If you hit me, I'm hitting you back as hard as I can, even if you're 90 (Or, if you're 90, you're going in restraints). Why do you feel that age/gender, etc. entitles someone to dish out physical aggression and not receive it in return?

Catz Part Deux said:

If you hit me, I'm hitting you back as hard as I can, even if you're 90 (Or, if you're 90, you're going in restraints). Why do you feel that age/gender, etc. entitles someone to dish out physical aggression and not receive it in return?

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I dunno about entitling anybody to do anything. Hitting somebody without provocation, no matter who you are, is not ok. If you want to call the cops on the 90 year old man, by all means, have at it.

But just because something is not ok doesn't mean all of a sudden it's no-holds-barred time. Violence should only be responded to, at most, with a proportionate response. Take that example of the 90 year old man. He slapped you. It probably didn't even hurt, it certainly didn't pose any risk to your safety. So, a proportional response would be something that wouldn't even hurt him or pose any risk to his safety. Punching a 90 year old man full force in the head is a massive escalation. It could very possibly even kill him. So, that's not at all proportional, that's a massive and unjustified escalation. You'd be responding to a minor threat with massive retaliation.

Now, if instead of a 90 year old man it were Mike Tyson, if he slaps you that may very well kill you. In that case, a proportional response may well be hitting him as hard as you can with a baseball bat. He is capable of taking far harder punches than any normal person can deliver without breaking stride and his slaps are massively more dangerous than the slap from a normal person, so you could argue that you were justified in any response that created roughly the same risk to him that he created when he slapped you.

See what I mean?

That's actually the law too by the way. A disproportionate response in terms of the specific parties and their relative physical abilities is not protected under self defense or any other legal doctrine. They take into account how serious the threat the other person poses to you is and how likely your response would be to damage that particular person and see how it weighs out. If a 90 year old man punches you and you punch him back as hard as you can you would be guilty of assault and battery even though he started it, but if you respond to Mike Tyson punching you by hitting him with a baseball bat to the head you would likely not be guilty of assault and battery.

I hate pacifistic turds who stretch the bounds of imagination to demonize any and all uses of physical force.

teamosil said:

I dunno about entitling anybody to do anything. Hitting somebody without provocation, no matter who you are, is not ok. If you want to call the cops on the 90 year old man, by all means, have at it.

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This was also addressed by me earlier. Who's the real sexist - the man who hits a woman initiating aggression upon him, or someone who likens a woman to a 90 year old in categories of strength, threat, and danger?

Your views on women are more condescending than mine could ever be.

Catz Part Deux said:

A naughty boy should understand his place.

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Absolutely.

Gipper said:

This was also addressed by me earlier. Who's the real sexist - the man who hits a woman initiating aggression upon him, or someone who likens a woman to a 90 year old in categories of strength, threat, and danger?

Your views on women are more condescending than mine could ever be.

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No, no. You're totally misunderstanding my argument. I'm saying that there is a spectrum for physical durability and capability to project force that you need to take into account. At one extreme is the 90 year old man or the 4 month old baby or something. At the other end is Mike Tyson. You need to take account of where somebody falls on that spectrum. No doubt there are some women that are actually not that far from Mike Tyson. The point with the bit about the 90 year old is to ask whether somebody is completely disregarding that whole variable no matter how extreme the imbalance or if they are just disregarding it when the imbalance is smaller.

OscarB63 said:

I hate pacifistic turds who stretch the bounds of imagination to demonize any and all uses of physical force.

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Hey, yeah! If you can't even beat on women these days what has this country come to! Luckily there are still countries out there for Real Americans like you. Iran for example.

teamosil said:

But just because something is not ok doesn't mean all of a sudden it's no-holds-barred time. Violence should only be responded to, at most, with a proportionate response. Take that example of the 90 year old man. He slapped you. It probably didn't even hurt, it certainly didn't pose any risk to your safety. So, a proportional response would be something that wouldn't even hurt him or pose any risk to his safety. Punching a 90 year old man full force in the head is a massive escalation. It could very possibly even kill him.
...Now, if instead of a 90 year old man it were Mike Tyson, if he slaps you that may very well kill you. In that case, a proportional response may well be hitting him as hard as you can with a baseball bat. ....

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Yes, a reasonably proportionate response on the use-of-force scale is part of a good self-protection strategy. I addressed that in my post, stating that it was not OK for a man to break a woman's face because she slapped him.

In my state, however, as in many others, you are not limited to proportionate violence in self-defense, but rather to equal OR necessary force... which means the same level of force, or the level of force above that necessary to STOP the attack (usually by stopping the attacker).

I've dealt with old folks who weren't really in their right mind, including one old lady who tried to hit me in the nads because she didn't want to go to the hospital. She was old and fragile, and naturally I used only that level of restraining force needed to keep her from being successful in her resistance.

Being proportional in your use of force is, however, something of a luxury. That is, if you have plenty of force available to you (as I do) then you can afford to be proportional in your response.

If, on the other hand, YOU are a 90 yr old man or other relatively fragile person, you have to react decisively to the threat of violence. For instance, if a 20yo bruiser balls up his fist and advances threateningly on a 90yr old man, in my state the 90yo would be justified to shoot him dead and probably wouldn't even been charged.

But let's get back to a more realistic scenario. Let's say a 90 lb woman and a 200 lb man are having an argument. The 90 lb woman starts pounding her fist in the 200 lb man's face, repeatedly. You don't expect him to stand there and take it do you? No... The man tries to grab her arms to stop her, and she struggles. He has a strong grip... you know what happens? She gets finger-shaped bruises on her arms. The cops come, see the bruises, and arrest the man.

This happens frequently. It isn't right, and it needs to stop.

Goshin said:

This happens frequently. It isn't right, and it needs to stop.

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I'm not sure I'm clear on your arguments. You said that in your state proportionality doesn't matter in the eyes of the law, but then you gave examples of situations where they were enforcing a proportionality doctrine in your state. And you said at the start that you thought proportionality was the right approach, but at the end that you think we need to stop using proportionality as the criteria. Maybe spell out how you think it should work?

As far as I know, proportional response is the doctrine in every state, but yeah, as you point out, your response can either be proportionate to the battery they inflicted on you (what you're calling equal is really 'proportional'), or proportionate to the threat to your safety (what you're calling 'necessary'. AKA self defense).

Self defense is kind of a different thing than we've been talking about, but related. If you have good reason to believe that somebody is about to do something really dangerous towards you, you have the right to stop with whatever force is required to stop them. Then there are limits on that that do vary by states. In most states if not all, you are required by law to opt to run away before you use deadly force if that option is available to you for example- an affirmative defense of "self defense" in a homicide trial requires in most states that you show that it was your only option left to save your own life or limb. In most states you don't have to run away if you're in your own home. In most states there is some kind of limit on how severe your response can be given the threat- you can't kill somebody just to stop them from slapping you or something. Generally most states won't allow people to use deadly force to protect property except, in some states, if you're in your own home.

teamosil said:

I'm not sure I'm clear on your arguments. You said that in your state proportionality doesn't matter in the eyes of the law, but then you gave examples of situations where they were enforcing a proportionality doctrine in your state. And you said at the start that you thought proportionality was the right approach, but at the end that you think we need to stop using proportionality as the criteria. Maybe spell out how you think it should work?

As far as I know, proportional response is the doctrine in every state, but yeah, as you point out, your response can either be proportionate to the battery they inflicted on you (what you're calling equal is really 'proportional'), or proportionate to the threat to your safety (what you're calling 'necessary'. AKA self defense).

Self defense is kind of a different thing than we've been talking about, but related. If you have good reason to believe that somebody is about to do something really dangerous towards you, you have the right to stop with whatever force is required to stop them. Then there are limits on that that do vary by states. In most states if not all, you are required by law to opt to run away before you use deadly force if that option is available to you for example- an affirmative defense of "self defense" in a homicide trial requires in most states that you show that it was your only option left to save your own life or limb. In most states you don't have to run away if you're in your own home. In most states there is some kind of limit on how severe your response can be given the threat- you can't kill somebody just to stop them from slapping you or something. Generally most states won't allow people to use deadly force to protect property except, in some states, if you're in your own home.

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Ok, perhaps I wasn't entirely clear. Some of this depends on terminology and how you use it. As an ex-cop, I don't normally use the term "proportional force". In my state, the legal term is "reasonable and necessary force", and it is situation-dependent.

Proportional force implies that if you punch me once, I can punch you back once. It might also imply that if you're a 90 pound woman and you're punching me, that my "proportionate" responses are very limited. You might punch me in the face ten times and not leave a mark. Contrariwise, anything I do to you might leave a mark... and who has the noticeable bruises is often the deciding factor in who goes to jail. This isn't theoretical, I'm going by previous experience in LE.

In my state, "reasonable and necessary" implies that you may use such force as is necessary to STOP the attack. A certain proportionality is implied, but it isn't a strict standard but rather a situational standard.

Also, in my state there is no duty to retreat before using deadly force, in most circumstances.

Now, you say that self-defense is different than what we're talking about. I would assert that in many cases it isn't different, or at least should not be. If you as a woman assault your man, he is defending himself if he reacts to your attack with force of his own. Granted that it should not be an inordinately greater level of force, but in many cases what we end up with is the man being arrested and charged for defending himself, because he grabbed the woman's arms in an attempt to prevent her from punching him and left bruises with his grip. In some cases she punches him and he punches her back, or slaps her... his blow leaves a readily visible mark, her's not so much, HE gets arrested.

I'm not sure what the solution is, since frankly in most cases the police arrive after the fact, there is no reliable 3rd-party witness, everybody is telling a different story, there is screaming and crying, etc. Unraveling who did what to whom is difficult. This is one reason a lot of departments are going with a policy of just arresting everybody involved and letting a judge sort it out later.

But at any rate, my point is that being a woman doesn't entitle you to hit a man and get away with it. Furthermore, while a "proportionate response" might be more "fair", that is a mighty fine distinction to expect someone to make in the middle of a very heated situation, when you've resorted to initiating violence against a man. It just isn't a good idea; he may very well hurt you badly without really meaning to, because you "activated his fight-reactions" by riling him up and then hitting him first.


I'm not speaking theoretically, as I've said. I should also note that I have personal experience, as my first wife (only wife actually) was violently abusive. I never hit her back because of my upbringing: the idea of striking a woman was most repugnant to me. It is probably wise that I did so, since I was able to prosecute her for CDV, get custody of our child, and keep the house. Had I struck her back, she would most likely have been seriously injured, I would have gone to jail and been charged and probably convicted, and she would have walked away with a child she couldn't take care of and property she didn't deserve.

Such a level of restraint in the face of severe verbal, emotional and physical abuse, including an attempt to kill me, is most difficult. Many men do not have that level of self-control. The single biggest point I am attempting to make is this: if you initiate violence against your man, you are being the abuser and putting yourself in a situation where you may be seriously injured, and if you do this it is MOSTLY your OWN fault. Most halfway-decent men won't hit a woman under most circumstances, but if you infuriate him and then resort to initiating violence, he may lose control.

In short, don't.


G.

Sure, everybody agrees that women shouldn't be hitting men. And yeah, definitely, guys may lose control and hit them back. But, IMO the key point is what you said here:

Goshin said:

Furthermore, while a "proportionate response" might be more "fair", that is a mighty fine distinction to expect someone to make in the middle of a very heated situation, when you've resorted to initiating violence against a man. It just isn't a good idea; he may very well hurt you badly without really meaning to, because you "activated his fight-reactions" by riling him up and then hitting him first.

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I think that is absolutely true. Thinking isn't really on the list of things that happens in a situation once physical violence starts. We both agree that a proportional response is the best solution, or at least the upper limit for a response. But, like you say, we can't count on people to make that sort of calculation properly when their adrenaline is flowing and they're reacting in a split second. And, trusting somebody in that mode to like correctly measure the amount of force they use is not realistic at all. Somebody could very well think "I'll just push her down" and they end up smashing her into a wall and busting her head open. So, we only really have two options. As a society we can say "hitting women is ok sometimes" or we can say "hitting women is never ok". Anything more complicated than that is too complicated for situations like that. See what I mean? So, like in your case, you had the "hitting women is never ok" instinct, right? And in the end, that probably served you better, don't you think? Like you say, you might have wound up in jail, you might have lost access to your kid. You might have seriously injured your kid's mother and had to live the rest of your life with him thinking of you as the guy who put mommy in a wheelchair. That doesn't mean it was ok for her to hit you. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But, if you had had the idea in your head that hitting women was sometimes ok, you would have hit back at some point and you would be sitting here regretting it, maybe even from prison if you accidentally did some really severe damage. So, I figure that out of those two options, we're better off teaching the next generation the same thing we were taught- hitting women is never ok. Not because that's technically always true, but because without having that instinct pretty ingrained people will end up hitting them when it is not ok.

teamosil said:

Sure, everybody agrees that women shouldn't be hitting men. And yeah, definitely, guys may lose control and hit them back. But, IMO the key point is what you said here:



I think that is absolutely true. Thinking isn't really on the list of things that happens in a situation once physical violence starts. We both agree that a proportional response is the best solution, or at least the upper limit for a response. But, like you say, we can't count on people to make that sort of calculation properly when their adrenaline is flowing and they're reacting in a split second. And, trusting somebody in that mode to like correctly measure the amount of force they use is not realistic at all. Somebody could very well think "I'll just push her down" and they end up smashing her into a wall and busting her head open. So, we only really have two options. As a society we can say "hitting women is ok sometimes" or we can say "hitting women is never ok". Anything more complicated than that is too complicated for situations like that. See what I mean? So, like in your case, you had the "hitting women is never ok" instinct, right? And in the end, that probably served you better, don't you think? Like you say, you might have wound up in jail, you might have lost access to your kid. You might have seriously injured your kid's mother and had to live the rest of your life with him thinking of you as the guy who put mommy in a wheelchair. That doesn't mean it was ok for her to hit you. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But, if you had had the idea in your head that hitting women was sometimes ok, you would have hit back at some point and you would be sitting here regretting it, maybe even from prison if you accidentally did some really severe damage. So, I figure that out of those two options, we're better off teaching the next generation the same thing we were taught- hitting women is never ok. Not because that's technically always true, but because without having that instinct pretty ingrained people will end up hitting them when it is not ok.

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I would prefer that we, as a society, rather than distinguishing by gender and saying "hitting women is never okay" should instead say "initiating violence in a family dispute is never okay" and leave gender out of it. This avoids giving a certain type of female the idea that she can hit and not be hit back.

I should not have had to suffer the abuse that I suffered, while feeling that I was forbidden to act in my own defense. In our society it is extremely difficult for a man to come forward and admit "I am being physically abused by my tiny little wife". It is harder still to prove it in a court of law and get justice. Contrariwise, a woman need merely show some bruises on her wrists and often the man will be taken to jail and charged and likely convicted. We need a little more balance on this topic in our society... for too long men have been viewed as the only "brutes" in domestic violence, when all too often they are in fact silent victims of it.

Close Poll.. If you wanna be some little dainty flower? Fine

You wanna bring the smackdown? That is fine too but you best be careful when you get the slap down

Who the **** hits women anyway?

Apocalypse said:

Who the **** hits women anyway?

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Other women and male pigs

Kali said:

Close Poll.. If you wanna be some little dainty flower? Fine

You wanna bring the smackdown? That is fine too but you best be careful when you get the slap down

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Internet bravado, how cute.

Apocalypse said:

Who the **** hits women anyway?

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My brother. Knocked her out with one punch. Broke allot of her facial structure, it was bad.

Of course he went down soon after. Before his punch, she had kicked him in the balls so hard he was bleeding from his mouth.

That's who.

If a woman is stupid enough to lay her hands on a man in a violent way. She should be ready to take a beat down like a man. No excuse for anyone putting their hands on anyone.