Traditional women regarded it as the obligatory response to a lecherous advance. Scarlett O'Hara made it glamourous. But what would dear Scarlett have done, if Ashley or Rhett had countered her haughty slap with a stinger of their own?
The argument has always been that a gentleman never hits a lady -- and it's true, a gentleman never does. However, it should also be true that a lady should never feel entitled to deal out a swing, without expecting to get one back.
Surprisingly, some people have trouble reconciling themselves with what seems to me to be a simple exercise in true gender equality -- of rights and consequences...
I have been married to a guy I have loved for the last 5 years. [..]
As much as I would like to understand him about this, it is really making me uncomfortable and completely distracting me from going forward. He has a nephew who is in his early 20's, who married a girl, who turns out to be a rage-aholic. She's 5' 2", and he's 6' 6". She sucker punched him, a few times, and hit him in places that are not the best on a man and he didn't defend himself by hitting her back. They agreed to get counseling, and then turns out, it happened again - so he divorced her, because he didn't think she would change.
The problem for me is that my husband's response was he should have hit her back, and that would have been the end of it. He has told me this, he is proudly promoting his view on this to his older sisters. To me, he has eventually, without remorse, said his first wife hit him, and he hit her back and knocked her down, and they both ended up agreeing that they wouldn't hit each other anymore. He shows no remorse, or embarrassment, or an explanation of how he was "too upset" or "not thinking clearly" and it would never have happened again, etc...whatever you might say to explain how something like that he should never have done.
I don't think women should hit men, believe me - and I don't see myself hitting him, but right now, I think of him so differently.
I'd look at him differently, too. I'd be proud of his good sense and deference to an expectation of mutual respect. That means he should not be expected to accept treatment that would be unacceptable if the roles were reversed.
The Advice Goddess holds a different view and likens the incident to the handling of a petulant child, but this ends up sounding even more condescending than the notion that women should not be expected to keep a rational hold on their temper and impulses for physical violence.
Having once been a victim of domestic violence, some may expect me to defend the notion that it is never acceptable to hit a woman but to the contrary, my experience taught me one thing: Never lay back and just take it. That is what truly makes a person a victim. Don't start fights but make damned sure you finish them.
That is a rule which has served me well since. It is an attitude that I have tried to instill in my children and I fail to see how it is even remotely fair, right or just to teach boys that violence of any kind is acceptable just because the one dealing out the sucker punches smells nice and is half your size.
That's a great point, about the condescension inherent in treating a grown woman the way you'd treat a child.
It is grotesque to expect perfect self control from men, and not from women. But the feminists are all about equality...
Posted by: mikey | May 07, 2009 at 01:45 PM
Well said. No rational person should be going around hitting anyone else male or female. And nobody should just take aggresion and abuse and not respond back. Don't ask me how I know this. :(
Posted by: James Edgar | May 08, 2009 at 02:54 PM