||Women and Men, sound off: When women hit men.||

Do you think men face more, less, or the same difficulty as women in seeking justice after being abused by a member of the opposite sex?

More difficulty	75.5%	[ 37 ]
Less difficulty	6.1%	[ 3 ]
More or less the same difficulty	18.4%	[ 9 ]
Total Votes:			[ 49 ]

[Krollock]

Runekeeper Mitsumaru

1 and 2: Male

3: The first reaction to the video was one of rage, especially once the witnesses to the situation of the woman abusing the men was met with approval. This was aggravated by the point that the witnesses seem to blame the man for the scene in the first place. "He probably deserved it," is a phrase that is absolutely despicable. Imagining myself as the subject of this kind of situation makes me sick when I think that I would considered the probable aggressor. To say that a woman's rage in this kind of situation is harmless is insulting for the woman and demeaning to the man. Insulting to the woman since I am certain that, if the woman was really wishing to do harm unto the man, she could do so at her leisure by using something OTHER than just her fists or the newspaper as seen in the video (i.e. a hard handbag or a high heeled shoe). Demeaning to the man since society expects men to just grit and bear just about anything that a woman would do to a man without recourse.

4: Honestly, I believe that a man would have much more trouble justifying to a courtroom that he was abused by a woman. Modern society seems to vilify men in situations involving a man and a woman since. Between the two genders, it seems that the woman is more easily seen as a victim than the man. Call it sexist in either direction, but the affect is such that, given the woman's word over the man's, the woman's word would be taken more seriously if she claimed that she was done wrong.

5. Personally, I have seen several women verbally tear apart a man. However, this does not have to be done directly to the man for it to have an effect. To date, I have not seen an instance like the scenario depicted in the video. More often, I have observed a woman publicly slandering her boyfriend/husband/male friend in ways that I think would be hurtful to a group of people (sometimes including me). Not only is this typically embarrassing and demoralizing to the man in question, the people hearing the woman's commentary typically only laugh like it is simply one big joke. When I am part of this kind of conversation, I tend to try and remove the man from the group conversation (i.e. "Hey dude, you wanna get a drink?" wink or, if I am not capable of doing so, I walk away.

(Emphasis mine.)
This is an excellent point. The reactions shown in the clip are worrisome in several ways, but one of the key ideas revealed by this experiment is that from a very early age, we are socialized to view each of the two biological genders as having innate strengths and weaknesses. The people who chose to ignore the distressing situation our male actor found himself in did so because, like the majority of people, they have been conditioned by society to view women as naturally harmless, weak, passive and innocent, whereas men are generally viewed as being stronger, more aggressive, more assertive, and having more agency and independence - therefore being more likely to do wrong than the more dependent type of personality that we characterize women as having. This sort of uncomfortable, odd demonstration very effectively shows one unanticipated outcome of these stereotypes - and the results shown in the clip indicate that gender stereotypes which cast women in the role of the harmless, weak, passive, innocent, dependent type can have doubly negative consequences. Women suffer all kinds of awful prejudice as a result of these silly assumptions on a daily basis, but it appears that our lower standards of women can work against men in a very real way as well. Thank you for your input!

[TheVintageRomantic]

Let's see....I'm female, identify as female.

I didn't have a strong reaction to the video, although this may in part be due to the fact that I knew what to expect before watching. I don't think that the female abusers create as menacing an effect as the men do. Although we know that abuse isn't only physical, it does create a different effect when it does not appear that there is an immediate physical danger.

I absolutely do think that it would be much harder for men to get any kind of justice in the legal system even without considering how hard it is for men to admit they're being abused in the first place. I'm not really sure how these cases are judged. Which is more significant, the attackers intent to do harm or the actual damage inflicted? And how do you evaluate the emotional trauma?

Certainly there is a double standard here in that men who defend themselves against abuse would likely be punished while the abuser walks. I find it comparable to a rape case in which both were too intoxicated to give consent(but nobody was physically forced). The man may very well be charged for rape, but it is unlikely that the woman would be accused.

I am fortunate in that I have not seen any abuse first hand.

[Victoria of Gallifrey]

Fun Fact. I was beaten once where my aggressor had clearly anticipated my fighting back. Five minutes after the beating occurred, the cops show up. Apparently my aggressor had called them 10 minutes prior telling them I was one attacking. Given that I was the only one with marks and the testimony of the neighbors who saw me just taking it, this clever aggressor isn't quite as smart as they thought they were. But still, I think that ranks up there in terms of pre-meditated conduct.