Is It Ever Okay to Hit a Woman?
We tend to like simple answers to questions like this, but if you dig into any subject enough, it’s always a lot more complicated than it seems. For example, that question in the title was posed in response to a video on X the other day:
If you watch the video, she hits the much bigger guy over and over again while he just takes it. Finally, he apparently got tired of it and just obliterated her with two shots. Incidentally, because there is such an enormous strength difference between men and women, this is generally how it goes. Women who think they can handle men in a fight are like chihuahuas picking a fight with a German Shepherd. If the German Shepherd doesn’t fight back, they conclude they’re tough enough to handle him until they get into it with a big dog who does fight back, then they quickly learn that they’re in way over their head.
If you don’t believe that, this will be an instructive story for you. It features two-time women’s UFC champ, Juliana Pena, talking about a fight she once got into with a man at her day job:
In an appearance on the OverDogs Podcast, Pena talked about the early days of her professional career, when she was still working at a restaurant as a server. She got into it with a 6’3” line cook, and when the altercation got physical, it didn’t end well for the scrappy future champion.
“My stupidity [was] thinking that I could beat a man,” she explained. “I went into the back alley while I was serving, and I fought the line cook. [We were] going at each other for a long time, a long story — he dropped me three times! I got dropped, I popped right back up, I went at him again, he dropped me again.
“I had my eye swollen shut for three days and 11 stitches in my eye. I thought that I could fight a man. I don’t have an ego to be like ‘I could beat a man!’ I learned my lesson, I don’t want anything to do with fighting dudes. I actually was in my head like, ‘I’m a pro fighter, I can fight this guy and I’m gonna beat him.’ Julianna, he’s 6’3”, you’re 5’6” — take that into account! Try to bob and weave your way in to get him down. All I gotta do is get in close and take him down and then I’ll choke him, but I couldn’t even do that because the second I tried to enter, I was getting dropped.”
That reminds me of a conversation I once had with a girlfriend. I was telling her how much I enjoyed sparring. Other than sex, there’s no rush like going toe-to-toe with another man in a fight. Granted, sparring isn’t a “real” fight, but there’s just something about hitting another man in the face or getting your head snapped back with a jab that excites a primal part of your brain. She looked slightly alarmed and said, “You wouldn’t hit me, would you?” I was surprised and told her something like, “I don’t hit women. Besides, what would the point be? There’s no challenge to it. It’s like kicking a puppy.” And it is. Morally, I would say there’s almost nothing that a woman you’re dating could say to you that justifies hitting them.
On the other hand, if she’s physically assaulting you, that’s a different matter. Nobody has a right to lay hands on you or physically injure you, but there’s an incredibly important caveat you have to remember. That is, in any physical confrontation between a man and a woman, your friends, the law, and society are almost certain to take her side. MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, if it’s somehow on video, you MIGHT escape some of those consequences, but as a general rule, even if people WATCH THE WOMAN ASSAULT YOU, they will be far more concerned about her than you if you hit her back.
This example, from a variety show in China, is pretty much how it works in the real world. In the game they’re playing, you try to flip a bottle, and if you get it, you hit the other person with a metal bowl (which is a pretty dubious concept for a game in the first place, if you ask me). Well, the woman absolutely whacks the guy with the bowl. She hits him so hard that it dents. Then, it’s his turn, and the host tries to stop the male contestant from hitting her. When the man does whack her, the women all look stunned and angry that he… well, did the EXACT SAME THING TO HER THAT SHE DID TO HIM:
In other words, if you’re a guy and a woman tries to take your head off with a baseball bat, and you shove her down to stop it, she may cry when the police get there, and next thing you know, you may be facing prison, while chances are, she’s going to face no consequences at all. That’s why, despite the fact that you can easily physically defend yourself from a woman, the only real defense is to get away from her. In relationships, if you’re a man, it has to be a one strike, and you’re out kind of thing. If she gets physical, you don’t stop her; you leave, and it’s over for good.
Is that fair? Absolutely not, but life isn’t fair, and you have to be smart about the places it isn’t.
The same goes for violence against women in public.
Don’t get me wrong, if some random guy assaults a woman in front of you, as a man, you have a moral duty to step in. Maybe you don’t feel like you can because you’re heavily outnumbered, they’re armed, or you’re just not comfortable enough with violence to do it, but it doesn’t change the fact that you still have a duty to do what you can to safeguard her, just as you would with a child in that situation. Since women are not physically capable of defending themselves against men, other men need to step up and stop violence against them. Some men might disagree with that, but watch this clip:
If you’re a man and you don’t feel some natural admiration and respect for the guy that stepped up, you’ve got something broken in you. He got tested as a man and he passed the test in a way all strong men would like to pass it in the same situation.
On the other hand, what if the person getting physically abusive with a woman is her boyfriend or spouse? That’s where it gets much more complicated. Personally, I will tell you that if you lay hands on a friend or family member of mine, you’d better make sure your medical insurance is paid up because you probably have a long stretch in the hospital coming up.
But what if you don’t know them?
Well, let me tell you about something that happened to me recently. I was walking out of a restaurant, and an old couple was walking toward me. I’m guessing they were in their mid-seventies. Both of them looked a little fragile, and pretty clearly, they were mad at each other. Well, the guy got a little physical with her. He gave her a couple of little shoves toward the door.
Now, I could have easily stepped in. Physically, that guy was zero threat to me, and even if he were doing concealed carry, he couldn’t have gotten to it before I socked him. But, how would it look for me to punch out a 75-year-old man, especially when the guy was so feeble he might LITERALLY DIE if I hit him full force? When the police got there, do you think they’d side with me? What if his (I am assuming) long-time wife unsurprisingly took his side? “Shoved me? No, no, my Charlie wouldn’t do that! He was just playing around, and then that awful man hit him out of nowhere… (breaks into sobs).”
Certainly, I could have asked her if she needed some help, but I was right there, and she was getting ready to walk into a restaurant full of people. If she wanted help, it was all around her, so evidently she didn’t. I guess I could have stopped them and given her a, “You don’t have to live like this, ma’am. Say the word, and I will testify against him to the police and help you get to a battered women’s shelter,” but do you think she’d take me up on it? Do you think it would make it more or less likely that he would be violent with her later? There’s just no easy call in a situation like that, so I shrugged my shoulders, left them to their own problems, and went about my day.
At the end of the day, women are smaller, weaker, and less capable of handling physical violence than men. With that in mind, men have a duty not to use violence to get their way against women and to defend women from violence aimed at them by other men if possible.
"At the end of the day, women are smaller, weaker, and less capable of handling physical violence than men. With that in mind, men have a duty not to use violence to get their way against women and to defend women from violence aimed at them by other men if possible."
I believe in full gender equality as the female gender demands. I believe that this requires me to deal with any female the same as I would a man. If I am at a protest and some male spits at me and tries to hit me, I will clock him. So, I would do the same to a female.
Likewise, if a homeless thug attempts to steal a phone from a male or female, no matter if that homeless thug is a male or female, I would jump in the fight the thug to protect the potential victim.
Part of the problem we have today is that too many females are taking advantage of this male tendency toward chivalry while she attempts to scratch their eyes out and destroy their career and life. Males walk on eggshells to protect their reputation, so they have greater odds getting sex. That is the source of female power where she can employ vulnerable narcissism tactics to remote control and dominate men.
Personally, I think if more misbehaving females got clocked by the male they were mistreating, more of them would stop mistreating males.
If I were a man and I saw or was with a woman who did anything to physically hurt a child, and I couldn't stop her with words, I'd hit her if that was the only option to make her stop. I can't stand seeing a woman physically assault a man, daring him to do anything about it, but because of the way things are he's better off walking away rather than reciprocating and giving her what she deserves.