When is it socially acceptable to hit a woman?

It does not matter to me what value-laden adjectives the individuals can be describes as.

What matters is that one individual introduced violence to the situation that I would not hesitate to defend myself against.

Of course, I do think that the reaction should be proportionate to the attack.

Let's use a non-gender issue to illustrate it.

If a kid kicks me in the leg, shooting him in the head is disproportionate to the act being defended against.

Here's another example. If a kid is tresspassing on your property to steal apples from your tree, shooting the kid will probably be considered inordinate use of force.

But if a masked and armed man enters your home shooting him may well be proportionate reaction.

If someone punches me in the face I would hit back with sufficient force to both end the attack on me and to discourage the use of violence with me.

Now how you managed to include sexual preference in the equation does not make sense to me, though I understand that you are probably just adding factors that you see as related to the gender issues inherent to the question I think you'll justifiably catch some flak for it from some of your respondents.

Man, you are always on here aren't you. Not that that's a bad thing. I like your responses. Yes, it is about gender, fairness, and social mores. If a woman punches you in the face, I guarantee if you hit her back, you will be the one to go to jail. Gender does make a difference.

It's not true that if a woman hits you that you will automatically go to jail if you hit back.

But it is true that in some situations (e.g. domestic dispute, and there are no witnesses) your gender is more likely to land a man in jail than the woman regardless of who started it.

In the case you descibed I do not think the man would go to jail for defending himself. It just depends on what lengths he goes to to do so.

If he thwarts the attack and knocks her to the floor that's probably legal self defense.

But if he continued to attack and, say, kicks her on the floor he can be charged with attempted murder in some places.

Criteria is hard to define but as long as the reaction is not excessive self-defense is legal. If the guy had hit her back I doubt he'd go to jail as long as it was defense against her attack (for e.g. if he got pissed after the tauting and walked back to beat her up this would probably not be successfully argued as self-defense, but punching her immediately after she had initiated an attack by punching him would probably be legal).

Yeppers - more or less what Craven said. One responds (as the law here states) in proportion to the degree of (reasonable) perceived threat and with reasonable force - whether man, woman, or child.

To assault anyone, except in self-defence, is legally and morally stuffed.

If one perceives threat, the threat is judged as to reasonableness (the famous reasonable person) and the response as to reasonable force.

Gender ain't in there - and rightly so.

Unoriginal, but I feel the same way. If the woman hadn't have hit the man, she would not have been hit back. Yet, I think that picking a fight on someone clearly less physically able is cowardice, ditto domestic violence. In this case, the woman was the more physically able of the two.

Actually, I misread.

I answered as if the question was when is it ethically or legally acceptable. What does "socially acceptable" mean? Does it mean acceptable in public? Or, does it mean what the majority find acceptable, deep in their hearts, in private?

Hmmmmm - large attutidinal surveys in Australia, (and, I understand, in the west generally, although I am not as sure of this - any info from others?), suggest that large numbers of men (the majority of those surveyed in large, randomised studies - I cannot recall the percentages of women....) think it is acceptable to hit a woman if she "gets out of line" or refuses sex, or is "mouthy".

This, in my state, was reinforced a few years ago, by a Supreme Court judge, who, in a rape in marriage case, said that it was acceptable to use "rougher than usual handling" to get your wife to have sex.

So it goes.

Nonetheless, I find the legal definitions to be quite reasonable. The difficulty is in the detail - ie what is reasonable preceived threat in different circumstances?

The answers will never be perfect - but they are the best approximation we have, I think.

He should have clocked her back. No one has the right to attack anyone who hasn't attacked them first. If I was that guy, I wouldn't have thought twice to hit her back. The fact that the guy didn't do anything about it makes this abusive bitch think that she can get away with it in the future, but I bet if he punched her back, she'd think twice before hitting anyone again ;-)

I think "a good beating" by the way, a ridiculous, oxymoronic and stupid use of words. Whoever is the subject of the alleged "good beating".

I don't think the woman deserved a "beating", but she certainly deserved to get punched right back in the face.

Man, he lives here... he just lets us in to visit.

A person shouldn't hit a person. That's all.

Happens. And there is a gender bias in the perceptions of who hit whom when and how. That perception is based on generations of collective experience... but it is not absolute.

The only appropriate rationale for hitting back would be if it were necessary to extricate yourself from the situation. Beating the person up, would just escalate the situation, and would serve no USEFUL purpose.

I think it's really easy. If she hits first, then deck her. She'll either fight back or realise that she can't get away with it.

1. If he and she are in combat gear of opposing warring nations -
2. In clear cut self defense -
Otherwise, no hitting, please.

Even the school I went to told the guys that if a girl hits them, hit back.

Situation has never occured for me, but I wouldn't hesitate if it did.

I would have gone to the engineman and had her arrested for assault. By punching her back would have fueled something that maybe the accountant type guy was unable to end in his favor.
A 300 lb female polar bear style woman could conceivably beat the little guy senseless. then that would only confuse any real efforts for justice by little guy. Nope, press charges and go to the hospital to get treatment. Then decide, at ones leisure, whether to proceed with the charges. That will have a greater effect since she will have this nagging doubt whether she will face some charges.

Id never hit her back , youd never win anything. even if she were as big as godzilla, shed be presumed a helpless woman .

The only thing I fault the accountant , was he failed to report her to ther subway police.
All life is a poker game and you must be able to analyze your hand at the moment. Suppose he hit her back and similarly minded men would jump in to her defense. Then Mr accountant is gonna get really beat up.
Why was he fighting over a seat? she is obviously one who needs to sit anyway, so what did he expect to gain at the outset? A SEAT? Jeez what a guy.
his first hands mistake was to decide that the seat was worth fighting over. This was not civilization , this was NEw York.

Here I was trying to apply Australian logic.

farmerman
you make some very good points. The poor 150lb man could end up getting his butt kicked.

without a doubt, hed have been in traction , or worse.

I agree. The more I think about it, the more I think the guy should have just gotten up and given the psycho the seat.