The One With the Double Standard

D and I had this conversation the other day, about men hitting women, women hitting men, and all that in between. There's this blog that I read that had a question today about abusive behaviors, etc. (that you can read here: http://www.mommywantsvodka.com/go-ask-aunt-becky-26) and in the comment section, someone said something that reminded me of mine and D's conversation and that just made me angry (bolding the text was my addition):

"You could have called his Grandma the biggest cuss word in the dictionary, told him you wish his mom died, ANYTHING AT ALL, YOU could have hit him (hard) first; none of that EVER gives him the right to raise his hand to you."

That made me SO ANGRY.

Also, there was one that said:

"No man should hit a woman EVER."

While this is absolutely true, I don't understand why it's that a man shouldn't hit a woman. I know there are a lot of men out there who are being abused, physically by their wives and girlfriends, and they can't say anything, because people either make fun of them, or don't believe them.

The part of that first comment that said that this woman could have hit the man hard first, and he still had no excuse to hit her, is SUCH BS. How about, rather than, no man should ever hit a woman, we say, no one should hit anyone?

If a woman hauls off and hits a man hard, I feel like she should fully expect to get hit back. If I were to hit D (which I never have), I feel like he would have every right to hit me back. (Which he never has.) The double standard of this whole thing makes me so incredibly angry. When I read that comment, I wanted to comment back and be like, "Are you STUPID?" But then I realized that wasn't great blog etiquette, so I thought I'd come to my own (much neglected) blog and make my own commentary.

Why is it OK for a woman to hit a man, but not OK for a man to hit a woman? I should note, again, that I am not condoning violence in any way, shape, or form, but if you're anyone, man, woman, black, white, gay, straight, whatever, if you haul off and hit someone, you best either be really good at protecting your face or really good at running.

The only exception to this "don't hit anyone unless you want to get hit" rule, in my opinion, is self-defense. If someone TRIES to hit you, and it's clear they're out to hurt you, then by all means, beat the crap out of them. But if you're a woman, and you get mad at a man and you hit him, and then he hits you back, you legitimately can't claim the "Men shouldn't hit women" defense. YOU HIT HIM FIRST! what goes around comes around.

The lesson here is that you need to keep your hands to yourself, and stop calling the stupid man/woman card, because it's lame and ridiculous. If you want to run around screaming that women can do anything that men can do, then I contend that women should be able to take what they dish out.

(Once more, I would never condone any kind of domestic violence. I'm just saying we need a more even playing field.)