When Woman Hits Man

Hypocritical Attitude

How do people typically react when hearing about or witnessing a woman-hits-man situation? Other than presumptively asking “What did he do?” they don’t seem to care. The implication is that the man deserved it, because women are naturally peaceful, and men are naturally violent. Besides, even if he didn’t deserve it, it’s just a woman hitting a man -- a woman can’t possibly hurt a man, right? Such stereotypical nonsense insults both genders.

Our societal attitude is: When man hits woman, it’s violence; when woman hits man, it’s emotion. This hypocritical attitude, resulting in the unconstitutional Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), gives women a free pass to accost men and to falsely accuse them of violence and rape. Aside from the occassional arrest, such as what happened to “bachelorette” and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleader, Mary Delgado, for punching “bachelor” and fiance Byron Velvick (both appeared in the 2004 season of ABC’s The Bachelor), most women who hit men do so with impunity.

I’ve received letters from men saying that the only way they could get their abusive wives and girlfriends arrested was to secretly tape-record the violent acts. When the police hear a woman screaming at and slapping a man, they have no choice but to arrest her. Generally speaking, women don’t have to tape-record anything for the police, just accuse and claim fear. The bar for a female arrest is indeed set very high.

You Go, Girl

When Patricia Heaton’s wife character frequently assaulted Ray Romano’s husband character on CBS’s Everybody Loves Raymond, people always laughed. When Angelina Jolie smashed wine bottles over Brad Pitt’s head in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, they cheered “You go, girl.” And, when CBS Evening News anchor, Katie Couric, slapped news editor Jerry Cipriano for inserting the word sputum into her script, they either yawned or didn’t even know about it. Had the genders in the aforementioned situations been reversed, there would have been rioting in the streets.

This past week, I appeared on The Dennis Miller Show. One of the topics I discussed with Dennis was female-on-male violence, because I had just debated it with Lis Wiehl on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto. Dennis, like most people, had trouble believing that women are as harmful as men. Even if women start more than 50% of the domestic violence, he opined, men have the “muscle” advantage. That’s conventional thinking, and it is wrong. Women today are working out with weights in gyms all over the country. Many were college athletes, and plenty of them are enrolled in karate and kickboxing classes. Have you carefully examined some of the female basketball, soccer, volleyball, and tennis players? They’re not shrinking violets. Women are tough -- isn’t that what Hillary Clinton, who aspires to command the US Marines, always tells us?

Men are taught as boys not to hit girls, even if girls hit first. So, when brother pops the head off sister’s Barbie, and she clocks him over the head in return, many parents condone that as legitimate retaliation. But, when sister steals brother’s truck, and he raises his hand to her, he is told: “You don’t hit your sister, no matter what. Leave her alone.” This sends a message to both genders that females are allowed to be violent, and it becomes a bigger issue in adulthood.

The Victimhood Bubble

In my November 16th debate with Lis Wiehl, about the danger to men of Taser-wielding women, she said: “You know, domestic violence is a bigger injury -- threat of injury to women than rape, mugging, cancer, breast cancer, all of those things combined. So, if women have a tool, a Taser, that they can use in a domestic violence situation or a rape situation, more power to ‘em, Marc. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Ashamed of myself? I’m not too ashamed to check the facts. In fact, Lis’s claims don’t match the facts. Not even close. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), heart disease and cancer, at #1 and #2, respectively, cause 50% of female deaths; domestic violence isn’t even in the CDC’s top-10. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) lists the top-five causes of death to American women as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and breast cancer. What’s sad is that people want to believe Lis Wiehl’s claims. Why? Because American society has chosen to “accept” that men are predators and women are victims.

When Crystal Gail Mangum leveled false rape accusations against three innocent lacrosse players from Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, most people -- including Duke’s president, Duke’s professors, the people of Durham, and the media -- wanted to believe these boys were guilty. Why? Because American society has chosen to “accept” that men are predators and women are victims. Ms. Mangum was never prosecuted, because of the George Costanza excuse: she believed her story; so, technically, it wasn’t a lie. Could a man get such a free pass? Give me a break.

Most people, I believe, envision male/female violence as a boxing ring, with the man as heavyweight and woman as lightweight, and a referee standing by to point out the obvious discrepancy in their builds. But, this is not reality. When women throw punches and dishes, men are usually caught unawares and unprepared to protect themselves. Any woman can fell any man by sucker-punching or ambushing him with a fireplace poker. Just because she might be shorter or weigh less doesn’t make her assault any less egregious than if he had hit her. Even if a woman slaps a man in the face, as we always see on TV when she is in a jealous rage, she is committing a crime. Assault is assault is assault, no matter who commits it.

In my November 23rd debate with Lis Wiehl, about men needing to avoid women at work, because of VAWA and EEOC rules, I committed the politically incorrect sin of correctly stating that men and women are equal-opportunity domestic abusers. The resulting firestorm that erupted from Media Matters was totally unexpected. In fact, Media Matters temporarily censored and prohibited the posting of all comments in support of my claims until RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting) publicly protested. My crime? I pierced the “victimhood bubble,” which feminism needs to perpetuate itself. Instead of rebutting me with supporting data, which don’t exist, the Media Matters crowd “violently” attacked me personally -- always a sign of weakness.

The NoNonsense Bottom Line

Radio & TV PSAs about domestic violence are always about violence against women. The objective is unilaterally to educate men not to hit women, as if women are totally blameless. One never would conclude from these PSAs that women are equal abusers -- people just don’t want to talk about that. But, women are equal abusers.

Until PSAs about domestic violence equally exhort men and women not to hit each other, they are wrongly and unfairly perpetuating the image of man as predator, woman as victim. Worse, boys and girls hear these misleading PSAs and grow up fearing men but also understanding the hypocrisy. And, the benefit of this to society is?

When woman hits man, we should not laugh, cheer, or yawn. We should be appalled and disgusted. Our society must value men and women equally. Domestic violence (DV) is an egregious act, no matter who causes it -- man or woman.

Women are not delicate flowers who need special protection. They are tough and strong and capable of using their fists to hurt men. People who don’t accept this are in denial and are creating unfair, unbalanced, unconstitutional policies and laws that hurt all of us. Violence is violence is violence, even when woman hits man.

About the Author

Marc H. Rudov is an internationally recognized author of 70+ articles and the books Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables™ (ISBN 9780974501727), and The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth™ (ISBN 0974501719). Mr. Rudov is a regular guest on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto.