What's The Deal With Women Who Slap?

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I'm not talking about the legal angle of this, but moreso the cultural. Men can't slap, punch, kick, manhandle, etc. women or men without fairly serious consequences, assuming the matter is followed up with authorities. In no way is it considered okay culturally. If you do it you are considered either an abuser or just a violent jerk. Women can't punch, kick, or manhandle men, or slap, punch, kick or manhandle other women without the same consequences. No one can strike children in a harmful way without the same consequences (and this is not a thread about disciplining or abusing children so please don't go down that road here).

But there seem to be two exceptions to striking that appear acceptible in modern society: women can slap (specifically - strike the face with an open hand) men, and women can slap teenage boys and girls. I'm sure slapping is the least harmful of general strikes, compared to punching or kicking, etc. (forget about specialist strikes like those used in martial arts for the moment - I'm talking about regular people), and when delivered by a woman, with presumably lesser upper body strength on average, it's less harmful still. But it's still hitting someone. And when delivered by a woman against a man or a teenager who has it coming, it seems to me that society says it should be okay (no one will scream in outrage), and if you're the recipient you should just shut up and take it. (And again, I'm not talking about prolonged, systematic abuse of a teenager or spouse here, for example, so put that out of your mind. Think instead of an isolated incident where the victim is being a d*ck and 'has it coming.')

For example, I watched a movie recently called 'The Squid And The Whale' that brought this to mind. In it there is a scene where Laura Linney publicly slaps her teenage son after a school talent show because he gave her the finger. I found myself feeling kind of glad that she slapped him, because he had it coming, but I'm in no way an advocate of a man doing the same thing to a woman or even a teenager who has it coming. It seems excessive.

IMO a man is pretty much not allowed to dole out 'had it coming' style physical punishment, but a woman is, in a limited capacity. Why is that? Is it just some holdover from a bygone era? And am I running around with a double standard here, or am I wrong in my observations, or is this truly okay across the board?

 

Bugger that! Me and Rob always have physical fights. If I'm going to belt him then it's hardly fair if he can't hit me back. To be honest, if he didn't slap me back I'd think he was being a bit of a tart

 

I get the feeling you win most of these battles nonetheless.

 

Women are, on average, weaker physically, and used to have much fewer social/political options to strike back, so I imagine the taboo against hitting women arose partly to protect them, and partly because such a fight was considered unfair. I am, obviously, grossly oversimplifying, since we are dealing with a cultural phenomenon shared by most of the Western world (and not only) over a period of decades, if not centuries.

Now, things have changed somewhat (women might not have gotten much stronger, but I'd say they have a lot more options to do something about it than in the 30s), and I imagine that with time, the "don't hit girls" concept will change to match. For now, yes, I imagine there is a bit of a double standard and a girl who slaps a drunk guy for "bothering her" would incur less stigma than a guy who shoves a drunk girl on her ass.

 

Sil, you hit Rob?! That lucky bastard...

 

Oh, for the love of Cthulhu, I just realized this could be an awesome stealth pun.

 

You lot are weird. Seriously though, if a woman hits you then hit them back. If another bloke clattered you, you'd do it back.

To be fair, I threw Rob over my shoulder on our first date (he put his hands on my shoulders and made me jump...he didn't know about the 7 years of martial arts training) so he knew what he was getting into

 

Are you talking about CRACK! POW! BLAMO! type stuff here, Sil? Playing pattycake's one thing, but I don't think I could ever hit a woman that way, honestly, no matter how much of a badass she was. Unless I was fighting for my life or something.

 

Grow a pair Gaear! I've given Rob a black eye before now and he's retaliated. However, he's never bruised me. If a woman is big enough to hit you then she's big enough to take a slap back

 

I had a loud mouth chic confront me in my early twenties, at a party. She had the wrong guy from the get go, as she thought I was someone else. Apparently someone else identifed me incorrectly as the guy she was looking for. I think he was a ex-boyfriend of one of her firiends or some dumb **** like that. But, unfortuantely for her, she still started poking and pushing and then tried to slap me as I told her to "go away you crazy *****." . After a few minutes of it and with people starting to take notice, I had enough so I put her over my knee in front of everyone and proceeded to spank her, Hard. She was definitely deserving and I enoyed it immenselyl. Funny thing is, we ended up friends a few years later.

 

Sounds like she enjoyed it too.

@Sil, if we ever meet, we can have a fist fight and get to know each other and stuff.

 

I've had an experience with the double-standard. Once in college, there was this girl that I wouldn't call a friend that was giving me a hard time. She picked a fight in a common area of the dorm, and was publicly trying to dress me down and insulting me. I insulted her back, and she slapped me, hard. By this time we had attracted a crowd. I promptly slapped her back just as hard in the same spot. She was shocked, and screamed something like "You hit me! How dare you! I'm going to get you arrested for assault". All the people around me were also acting shocked, and quite a few treated me as a pariah for weeks afterwards.
No charges were ever filed or anything else like that happened, but she did tend to stay away from me afterwards, to my surprise. Usually with male bullies such an action has the opposite affect and makes them more determined to cause me problems.

This was about 10 years ago, in the 2000/01 school year. I can't recall if it was before or after the semester break so I can't pin the year down, probably before as it was a high stress time.

 

@SlickRCBD, did you "have it coming" in any way like Blades did, or was it totally unprovoked?

 

You're right Slick, it IS a double standard and it's not fair

Gaear, I'd kick your arse love

 

Awww .... I love you too, sweetheart.

 

Hey, my point was that I "DIDN'T" have it coming, as she had the wrong fella from the outset.

 

Good form!

In her mind you had it coming, which is probably all that matters.

 

I find this topic deeply disturbing. There is nothing cute or funny about this double standard. And while healthy people may argue from time to time, I do not think it's healthy for grown people to be striking each other anywhere outside of a martial arts arena.

My ex used to say things like "I'm gonna kick your ass" or I'm gonna beat the **** out of you" and I just knew that if I were to mirror that behaviour she would have called the cops in a heartbeat. I think that if women want equal treatment, they should be held equally culpable for their behaviour. But that's the last thing that militant feminists want -- they advocate equality when it suits them, and then demand special treatment based on gender differences when it doesn't. It's ridiculous, and it pisses me off.

 

I have always made it very clear that physical assault would end any relationship I was in. Immediately.

 

Name one thing that doesn't piss you off.