|
In Grace's martial arts lessons, her masters--her father growing up and a middle-aged Korean man here locally, emphasize that violence is to be used for defense only. Nothing else ever justifies violence, especially not words, no matter how offensive, or actions that cause no harm but only offend, or that nebulous concept of honor, or revenge. Violence should be used as a defense only, and then only as a last resort, and then only to the extent that it is necessary to end the threat.
So yes, of course a man has the right to defend himself against a female attacker, even one mush smaller than he is. I don't think anyone has argued otherwise.
Defending oneself does not always involve the infliction of harm on another, especially when one person is much larger and stronger than the other. Defending oneself can be as simple as walking away in the face of an attack that has done one no harm. Defending oneself can be a matter of using defensive moves. This is especially true when one person is much larger and stronger and capable of inflicting harm than the other.
Specifying that one particular problem is a problem does not imply that there are not other problems. Specifically, saying that men shouldn't beat their wives and girlfriends doesn't imply that it's acceptible for women to attack their husbands and boyfriends unprovoked.
It is wrong for a woman to attack a man unprovoked and in the absense of a threat to herself. I think everyone here can agree to that.
That isn't the issue. Male on female domestic violence often has a specific etiology that is unlike female on male. In simplified form, a minority of men beleive that they should be the dominant partner (often referred idiomatically as "wearing the pants in the family") in a relationship to the point that they need to exert this dominance over their SO's through the use of violence. Sometimes it is equated with punishing a child through violence, a practice still widely defended in the mainstream in our culture. This is in certain instances a leftover of the formerly common attitude that the man should be in charge of the family unit and a little violence used to keep the others in line is just something that's sometimes necessary. It still happens a lot in marriages, a lot more than is reported, because the men often believe they have the right to behave as they do, and the women often believe this also.
It's become a problem in high schools, with teen boys trying to prove their manhood within their peer group by exerting physical dominance within that group, and by extension, by keeping their women in line. Sometimes it is just a matter of control, telling the girl what she should wear and where she can go and who she can be friends with, but often it progresses into exerting physical control, punishing their girlfriends the way you'd punish a child.
This attitude of the man should be in charge, coupled with the greater levels of aggression found in males, coupled with a generally greater level of upper body strength, size, and ability to inflict harm in a violent situation, makes male-on-female domestic violence an issue of greater consequence that the latter, and with a fundamentally different root cause for most abusers.
Once again, let me make clear that female-on-male violence is unacceptable and anyone has the right to self defense against any attackers. Decrying Male-on-female violence as deplorable does not imply that any other kind of unprovoked violence is acceptable.
__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.
~Steven Colbert
|