How come women can hit men but men cant hit women?

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It's not any more okay for women to hit men than it is for men to hit women unless it's in self defense. I think our society believes it's wrong mainly because women are "weaker", like children and small animals. And the sad thing is that in most cases women aren't as physically strong. I was even told when I was a teenager that women can hurt men but men can *kill* women.

Totally agree with the above.

Although it's never right to do, other than self-defense, a knockout punch by a very strong overbearing man holds much more weight and power than let's say a frail woman who slaps her husband in response to hearing about his affair. Not saying either is right, but the threat of death is very powerful. Is the cheating man really in fear that his wife will kill him? It depends on the context but probably not. So there is a difference in magnitude. When there is an fear for one's own life, this is where abuse becomes extremely severe.

This is gender stereotyping. You could reverse the genders and it would still be just as true. A knockout punch by a strong overbearing woman holds much more weight and power than a frail man who slaps his wife.

Men and women come in all shapes and sizes, and varying levels of strength. Some men are frail. Some women are strong. Some people who appear frail are much stronger than they look, and vice versa, some people who might appear strong are not.

Besides, a person of any size or build could do real damage if they are fueled by adrenaline. Anger can temporarily make people stronger than they usually are. So can fear.

Obviously.

Abusers of both sexes will always play the victim.

It may be stereotyping, but women are on average less physically strong than men. Take it to the extreme. A parent hitting a 5-year old child is far far far worse than a child hitting a parent. And yet people seem to think swatting a child is perfectly fine. And now I'm going on a tangent.

When one person has a very obvious physical advantage over another person (whether they are a man or a woman) they have more power and they can use it to their advantage to intimidate the other person. So the psychological impications are important to consider.

Yes, this is another very unfair double standard. But it would be just as unfair to assume that the parent is safe just because they are bigger. A child who is violently out of control, even as young as 5, can still do a lot of physical damage to an adult.

An adult might be hesitant to restrain a violent child, for fear of being perceived as an abuser, the same way a man might be hesitant to defend himself if he is under attack from a woman.

Men do get abused by women, and parents get abused by children. People who are big and strong also may be abused, because they are not willing to fight back.

The point is that when a person is under physical attack for any reason, but especially suffering from chronic domestic abuse, they just need to find a way to be safe. Making assumptions based on gender and/or physical size/strength doesn't help matters at all.



Intimidation really isn't a question of who is bigger. A person having a violent outburst may grab nearby objects and use them as weapons. It's a question of how out of control the person is, how wild or unpredictable their behavior is, or how malicious their intentions are.

A person who wants to intimidate will use whatever they can to do so. The threat of sending someone to jail for abuse is another method. Like in the cheating husband scenario, an angry wife might slap her husband, not to hurt him, but thinking she might provoke him to hit her back so she can have him arrested.

If it is a true case of self defense, I think it is perfectly legitimate to put a stop to their assault even if it does involve hitting them.

How come these threads keep popping up?

This.

This also applies in the USA, where juries are willing to give men the death penalty, but very reluctant to do so for women.