Why Does Everyone Think Female-On-Male Violence Is Acceptable?

My original article on Ray Rice’s wife being a gold digger got a lot of negative reaction, as most of my articles do. I’m used to that. What it brought up however, was the discussion of whether this physical attack from Ray was somehow okay, just because his wife might be with him for his money?

Of course it wasn’t okay! I don’t know where I even implied that is was okay? I wasn’t focusing on the act itself, I was focusing on the fact that not long after it, Janay Palmer chose to be Mrs Rice, and now that her NFL star husband has been indefinitely suspended, she’s upset about it.

Since the topic of this type of violence arose, I want to address it. Male-on-female violence is frowned upon in society, like many other things. Now, while I may not be in the Gavin McInnes school of ‘hit her once for every 12 blows she delivers to you,’ I do believe this type of violence does not always occur out of nothing.

Yes, some guys are assholes and they abuse their girlfriends/wives. There’s no excuse for a man coming home drunk and proceeding to beat his wife to within an inch of her life. While these sad instances do occur, we can’t forget that alcohol or a bad temper, aren’t always the catalysts for women getting beaten.

Let’s take the Janay Palmer case. According to Ray, she was drunk. So was she? Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a source other than Ray himself, who claims they were both drunk, to back this up. Does this excuse his behaviour? No – he still deserves to be punished, as he has been. Does it give a reason for why the incident took place? Yep, if she was drunk, it’s more than probable that she was mouthing off to him. A drunk woman mouthing off at a drunk man seldom ends well.

It’s so un-PC to say something like that, isn’t it? You hear about a man hitting a woman, and then you hear why it happened and think ‘ooooh, so that’s why he did it?’ Even if you later say ‘he still shouldn’t have done it,’ the fact that you didn’t alleviate the victim of 100% of the responsibility qualifies you in to the ‘despicable part of society’ bracket.

When did we make these unwritten rules and when did they become so lopsided against the stronger party? Men are hated much like the rich and powerful. The big guy never really has a chance in a confrontation with the little guy. The little guy can grind away at him all day, but one response from the big guy, and he’s the big bad perpetrator.

The trouble is things often go too far. Male-on-female violence isn’t the only area where this happens. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, they all get abused by the victims. When it really does occur, it’s awful, but a lot of the claims of it occurring are false, or at least, the victim has a hand in igniting the act. In the case of violence, yes it’s wrong for a man to strike a woman, since in most cases he’s naturally stronger, but what if she is physically assaulting him? What if she’s throwing things at him? A man going to the police to say he was ‘beaten up by a woman’ is never taken seriously, so what defence does the guy have? Well, none really. His last resort is physically defending himself, but making sure he doesn’t harm the woman while doing so. Remember, holding her arms might hurt her, and leave a mark, so be careful.

Then there are other unique situations, such as the woman being a bodybuilder or karate black belt, and the guy being a five foot scrawny bag of bones. Do the same male-female rules apply then, or are they reversed, since the male is now the weaker party?

I think what Ray Rice did to his wife was despicable. She didn’t appear to attack him physically, and until that happens, there is no justification for hitting a woman. Even when the woman does hit the man, it’s still not enough to hit her back, but it’s when the woman goes insane, like a rabid animal, that perhaps knocking her out might be best for both parties, to defuse the situation?

Whether it was Janay Palmer’s behaviour that caused Ray to knock her out, is another issue. I’d say it’s highly likely that she triggered it with her mouth, but that was still not enough to earn her a ‘total wipeout.’

It’s important to point out that the rules society writes out for you do need to be discussed and perhaps reviewed from time to time. Right now, in most cases when a guy thinks a woman is about to attack him, his first thought is ‘uh oh, what the hell am I supposed to do to avoid a beating or going to prison?’ It’s a lose-lose situation, unless you’re a master in self defence.