The Question of Female Violence
A recent case has been covered by the views in which a woman is accused of raping and murdering a female child. While this is no doubt a tragic case, it is also the source of much controversy. Many people are in disbelief that a woman – and a mother, no less – could brutalize a child in such a way. Many claim she must have had a male accomplice (despite strong evidence to the contrary).
It is interesting to me that our society cannot accept the notion that women are capable of violence and cruelty equal to that of some men. Certain kinds of violence are associated primarily with women (like hitting, pinching, biting, scratching, and so on), whereas other forms of violence are often associated with men (such as punching, head-slamming, kicking, and rape). Rape in particular is usually defined as a sexual crime committed by a man on a woman or man, but women are rarely found to be sexual aggressors. Yet, just because it is rare doesn’t make it impossible.
When a woman kills we cannot begin to fathom her motives. We are uncomfortable with the very idea of a mother harming a child, let alone sexually assaulting that child. Yet at the same time, we hear of fathers sexually abusing children all too commonly. At what point do we abandon our preconceived notions of gender and behavior? Do statistics on violent crimes and who commits them prove that there is an essential difference between men and women? Or do we just chalk it up to the fact that some people (no matter their gender) are just majorly fucked up?
Female violence is all too often eroticized for male pleasure (“catfights” and bikini mud-wrestling, anyone?), yet woe be the woman who raises a hand against a man. Female violence, in reality, is often thought to provoke male violence (in other words, male violence is justifiable if a woman hits first; it is appropriate to retaliate). For example, many rumors circulating around the Chris Brown/Rihanna domestic abuse case perpetuated the idea that Rihanna provoked her beating by hitting or slapping Chris Brown. This brings up some important questions:
1) Is there ever a situation in which violence is acceptable and/or justifiable?
2) Is there any instance in which male violence towards females is justified? What about female violence directed toward a male? Male to male? And so on.
Ideally, in the Chris Brown/Rihanna case, one or both parties would have walked away before the situation escalated. However, I think it is important to note that Chris Brown was in the car’s driver’s seat and therefore had more power to stop the situation and/or allow Rihanna to leave peacefully. Whether Rihanna started the physical fight or not, I do not think he was right to retaliate with more violence. Not only is Chris Brown stronger than Rihanna, but his punches definitely did more damage than any alleged hitting or slapping (which we can see from the gruesome pictures spread on the internet in the recent months). Of course, I am not advocating female violence against men either. Unfortunately, there seem to be countless grey areas when it comes to domestic violence and other violent situations.
What are your thoughts on violence (either towards women or perpetrated by women?) Do you have an answer to any of the questions I posed above? I’d love to hear your thoughts, as this is a complicated topic with perhaps no right answer.
- Dollface
P.S. I highly recommend “A Question of Silence” by Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris. It is a provocative film about three women who kill a male shopkeeper for no apparent reason. It centers around the female psychologist who begins to empathize with the women. Raises so many interesting questions about women and violence, patriarchy, the sisterhood of women, and subverting the social order.
I don’t believe that violence is ever okay. In the case of fighting between men and spouses and women, it’s just not an adult way to handle any conflict. Many people do say that it’s alright for a man to hit a woman if she started it and it’s not. In the majority of cases, the man has much more upper body strength and can easily use it to stop the woman from hitting him by causing her very little to no pain i.e. he can restrain her, in my opinion this is the definition of self-defense. When he hits her back, it’s not self-defense, it’s just plainly desiring to harm another human being.
There’s no doubt that violent acts committed by women have been on the increase for a number of years now. I’m not surprised by this. As women have watched men get their own way by using anger, coercion, threats and finally outright violence, they have simply followed the demonstrated model that has proven to work. Women have stood by and watched men achieve what they want by instilling fear and have emulated it themselves. It is unfortunate however, that violent, (sexual or otherwise) intimidation and threats carried out by women receive more media air-play than those played out by men. The acts are also analysed more and ultimately condemned more. I don’t know the numbers of the ‘hidden’ violence perpetrated by men that never makes the media or documentaries but it’s got to be huge. It’s like the violence perpetrated by men is ignored, brushed aside as not really that important, minimised and essentially denied for the most part, but when it’s done by a woman, this seems to hit a nerve and using the excuse that it’s outside of the traditional gender role, it becomes a relatively big issue. In the overall grand scheme of society, violence perpetrated by women is actually relatively small (still). A number of men and men’s groups will consistently bring up that men are the victims of violence more than women are, and this is true, but they then fail to acknowledge that the violence perpetrated against men is done by other men, this last fact is generally conveniently ignored, and they leave it hanging that there’s a huge possibility that men are victims of women more than the other way around.
Violence is never justified. It is caused in a lot of cases where people have not learned to control their actions. Children growing up without self control. Parents uncontrolled, etc. We all need to control our own actions.
BULLSHIT!!! being part of the whole domestic violence cycle i can honestly say… WOMEN start the whole hitting, pushing, scratching, biting, psychological, emotional, and down right fucked up abuse…. let me tell your “sisterhood” something, had i not been a strong man, who took this abuse for YEARS, i would have murdered this girl… i called the cops (on more than one occasion mind you), you know what they told me “be a man, only girls call for this kind of shit” i finally got fed up with it, and raised my hand back (big mistake) i ended up going to court, having to pay court fees, having to take aggression therapy and pay for those out of my pocket as well. women dont want equality, they want favoritism. so its ok for women to kill their husbands who were beating them up for so many years… and you say: ” awww poor female… she was done wrong and only defended herself” but when its a guy… its “well he should have restrained her” all you BITCHES can kiss the darkest part of my ass… which would be my asshole….
@ Jakub — Your argument is pretty typical of a MRA. While I empathize with your situation, and understand that the cops were wrong to say “be a man, only girls call for this” (which is sexist and unhelpful), you have to realize that it’s hard for women to get out of domestic violence situations as well. It’s hard for the police to arrest someone when their wife is “hysterical” and the husband (the perpetrator) is cool, calm and collected. Every case is different and you really cannot generalize based on your personal experience. I think it would be best if you learned from your relationship and try to find some peace with yourself and others. Not to get all preachy, but it sounds like you harbor anger towards your ex-wife (understandably) and are projecting it onto all women.
And no, I would not like to kiss the darkest part of your ass, but thanks for clarifying what you meant by that. Really, I couldn’t figure it out.
P.S. Your choice of words are pretty telling. “Murder”?!?! Come on now. Lose the aggression, lose the anger.
Jakub: You should have walked away from your abusive situation long before you did. NO ONE deserves to be abused. In order to find peace inside yourself again talk to someone who can help you.
I’ve never been abused by a woman, but I did no a guy who was. It started verbally and continued. He was a normal sized guy and she was actually small for a woman, but she would do things like stab him in the arm with a scissors, pour scalding water on him when he was sleeping, and in general terrorize him. Why didn’t he leave? I don’t know. I’ve known more women in horrible situations and I never knew why they didn’t leave either. Men are much stronger and more likely to do serious injury, but I have known women that if they could have would have and in this case one who did. I believe violence is justified even from a man to a woman when somebody is put in immediate danger and the violence used is minimal and necessary for a victim to remove themselves from danger.
I remember a situation a couple of years ago when a major league pitcher named Chuck Finley was beaten bloody with a high heeled shoe by Tawny Kitaen. He did not strike her back. That basically made him a laughing stock. When he would come to pitch, the opposing teams would play the White Snake song that she starred in the video for. I think as a society we need to learn to be more sensitive to the victims of violence regardless of gender.
Self defense is a moral imperative. Violence is tool in the toolbox of self defense. Sometimes it’s the best tool, often it’s not. I would say that individual violence is neutral, neither good nor evil, it’s what you do with it that makes it good or evil.
As such, it’s perfectly acceptable to commit an act of violence on any person of any gender or sex, if such a violent act in needed.
I want to say, (though I know that this inflammatory and unhelpful) that to say that there is never an acceptable reason to be violent is to justify genocide. I