Wednesday, May 4, 2011

When Women Abuse Men


Watch before reading or posting any comments please. :D
If video doesn't work here is the link:

This video was a pretty interesting social experiment. To summarize what basically happened was; a male actor was made to abuse a female actor, and when people saw this they immediately reacted and came to the aid of the female. But when the roles were reversed and the female was the one abusing and assaulting the male nobody really seemed to care anymore. This shows that we tend to believe that when a man is abusing a women its immediately wrong, but when a women is abusing a male, well it's probably the males fault any ways, he deserves it, right? About 163 people walked by the abusive women before anybody actually reacted. Even a police officer even walked by without doing anything, he simply said that they were having a little "pip"(I think), and it was nothing to be worried about.

A plausible reason for this is that we are conditioned by the media, and even our literature to assume that when
a women hits a man, she has a just reason for it and thus it is acceptable. For instance in Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow is slapped but for a very good reason, so we the viewers immediately consider it OK and even consider it empowering and a good dead done on the females behalf, seeing as she was able to extract her revenge. Also we are raised never to hit a women, and as a result when we see women hitting men, we act passive towards them and don't see the situation for what it really is.

Unfortunately in this country, women abusing men is a serious problem, especially with the stereotypes that exist for both males and females. A abused male may be afraid of even admitting to anybody that his wife/girlfriend is abusing him in fear of being considered weak and a wimp. Also people would be very resistant to immediately believe him seeing as its strange in our society to think that a women is abusing a male. Its generally the other way around.

In the video a lady's reaction went as far as to even cheer silently for the women. When later asked why she cheered the lady responded "good for her, you go girl" supporting and even encouraging her violent behavior because of the assumption that the women had caught the male doing something like cheating. The problem with this is that female aggression, in our current society is stereotyped as harmless, and nothing to react to, but it could possibly be very harmful, to both the male and the female in the relationship. Though unfortunately as a result, many violent acts are committed by females, and encouraged rather than being taken seriously for what they are. Violent actions should never be encouraged regardless of whether there is a good reason for it or not. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".


Points to Discuss:

1) Do you think our society justly treats the problem of abusive females, or are they given a
lesser penalty seeing as they are females?

2) If you saw a female abusing a male, how would you react?


3)Why do you think we assume that the male is responsible when we see a women abusing a

male?

14 comments:

  1. For the video, I was very happy to see a group of women calling the police when they saw the man being abused.
    1)I think our society do not treat the problem of abusive females seriously at all. I am for sure that some females are taking advantage of their gender and they abuse their husbands. The men wouldnt be able to fight back or they will get into big trouble. Outsiders seems treats it as it was a norm for a wife to beat their husband as shown in the video. I think the society should change their view on the problem of abusive females

    2)It depends on the seriousness of the abuse. I will feel pity for the male on most cases. If I feel that there needs to be a stop for the abuse, I might try to tell them to stop. I wouldnt get physically involved with them unless I totally understand the situation. If it is very serious, I would call 911.

    3)I blame this stereotype to the media. I watch a lot of movies and for most of the cases, women hit men because they found them cheating. The media portrays women as peaceful and gentle. For this reason, people will think that it must take a lot to make a women to hit a men. I totally think this is not true and that women can be very abusive and the male is not responsible for it.

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  2. It's kind of unfair because when women is abusing a men, no one is there to protect the men and even police don't inte4rfwere in that. I believe they should put some female police officers to handle these kind of cases so that we can stop the violence because people stop men when they are abusing women but if its opposite he violence is still continue.

    If I see something like this and if they are strangers then I might call 911 or don't interfere but same with men abusing women but if they are someone I know, I will probably interfere and will try to stop them.

    haha jon this is a really good question and I guess because of stereotypes.

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  3. 1) The media definitively conditions us to think that female on male violence is harmless and in many cases comical. Although this kind of thinking is unfair, there is a reason for it. Guys hitting girls is seen as such a terrible action because 99% of the time, the male is physically more powerful than the woman. The woman can't defend herself. If a woman is hitting a guy, chances are he is capable of fending her off.

    2. Unless the woman seemed to be seriously injuring the male, i wouldn't do anything.

    3. Because of seeing this is the media over and over again. Also because a man has the choice (most of the time) to defend himself. If he's just taking a beating it might because he thinks the woman is justified.

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  4. 1. I think that women are treated less when they abuse the male. In most cases the male abuses the women and a huge case is created, but when a female would beat up the male most people would laugh or think he did something to her. Most women rage when their boyfriend would say something rude or would do something to them. So i believe that women get a lesser penalty because they have been abused before and the male usually provokes the female to do these actions.

    2. If I saw a female abusing a male and for example i knew them, i would approach the couple and ask what had happened. If i didn't know them than i would leave it unless the male is hurt or brutally injured, than i would call the police.

    3. I believe that we are responsible because of many cases and situations that have happened over the years. Men are usually seen as the provoker and cause women to do bizarre things. For example if a man told a girl she was fat, she would either hit him or throw something at him. This shows that the male provokes the female to harm/hurt the male. As well, stereotypes play a role in this scenario; as tv shows, movies, music videos, documentaries show that males are usually the ones provoking the female to do such things. The one movie that came to my mind was "Provoked", as the movie was based on a true story. Basically the movie was about a husband who would abuse his wife many times until one day she burned him to death. So that movie illustrates the stereotype that men are the provokers and cause women to do bizarre things.

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  5. Eric, you said: Guys hitting girls is seen as such a terrible action because 99% of the time, the male is physically more powerful than the woman.

    Eric, the first part I agree with, the second part I call a stereotype. By labeling males as being stronger than women 99% of the time you are only stating the stereotype that women are always weaker then men. I personally know many females who could probably beat me up ;p, so you cant simply consider women in general weak, and unable to defend themselves from abusive male boyfriends. The problem usually isn't being unable to defend themselves physically but rather has to do with physiological issues which cause the women being abused to not being able to act to get away or get help.

    If a woman is hitting a guy, chances are he is capable of fending her off.

    In regards to this, you also have to consider that when a woman hits a man she will not hit as hard, but will probably hit more often.(said by the expert in video) Now what I am trying to say is that just because a person can physically fend off their abuser does not mean they will always be able to do so emotionally. Thus due to the emotional bond that a victim cannot severe, they will be subject to constant abuse from the abuser with no real method of escaping, other then intervention from an outside source. Also when it comes to a person abusing their spouse, generally the problem is the emotional abuse not the physical, thus the physical hitting only heightens the emotional abuse that is being delivered.

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  6. No of course not, our society does not treat female aggressors as they would if the aggressors were a male. i think it all comes down to history and how women were treated back then. For many,many years, they were treated unfairly by men and now since that trend is slowly changing, no one really wants to step in when some women are going overboard, since no one wants to be seen as old-school or as a misogynist. I think some women (thankfully not all) have taken this whole rights thing to another level. Don't get me wrong, there are still many, many cases and situation nowadays where women are not being treated fairly and that is not right. I'm a 100% for women's right and equality but i really get annoyed when there are some feminists who want to step over the line. To answer your question, no they are not being treated as their male aggressor counterpart would be if he committed the same act. I think this is mainly due to the fact that women in general do no tend to have the same physical stature of men and as a result, people think that they won't be able to cause much damage. However, people are omitting the emotional consequences that this aggression could have on those bullied men. I think those men in question are in a tight situation since they don't really know how to react. Do they start hitting their partners too and then be potentially accused of assault? I'm exaggerating in this example, that would only lead them into getting more trouble but my point is that there isn't much help around for them to deal with these situations.

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  7. When we see a woman abuse a man we tend to be slightly passive about the situation (just as show in the video) because of the stigma that has been attached to women as a whole, if we date back to earlier than 18th century. Men = more power and strength, women on the other hand = weaker and less powerful. That is the way it has been and perceived throughout history, and has continued to be up until now. When a woman is seen abusing a man, the situation does not necessarily raise a big red flag as much as it would have if a man was seen to abuse a woman. Males are perceived to be always at fault in the events of personal conflicts or mistreatment. Generally speaking, it was women who were controlled by men for too long, and they were the ones to get abused if anything (women were men’s property). As we are familiar with women being physically weaker then males, if incidents such this occur we wouldn’t assume or think of the fact that she could have considerable strength to hurt her opponent. A male is supposed to be more powerful and therefore, this sort of punishment would not be highly affective in their part. Another more obvious reason is the assumption that the male might have cheated on the woman as a result of her outward actions. However, if the roles were reversed, things would then change to a greater spectrum. The surroundings in this case would promptly react to this situation and report the male partner or attempt to intervene in the act somehow.

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  8. I would like to start off just by saying that the video gave my really mixed feelings. I mean at one point, I’m thinking that the women are finally standing up for themselves, and right after that I find that lady completely insane to be abusing her partner like that.

    As for the question:

    1) I would have to say that our society treats the problem of abusive females and they are given a lesser penalty seeing as they are females. Although, I think that this happens because in the past males were the one who used to brutally abuse women. Not that I find to okay for women to abuse men now, but that could be a possibility of why the society doesn’t take female abusers as seriously as they take male abusers. Another thing that caught my attention in the video was that a police officer passed by the abusing women without taking any type of action.

    As for the penalty, I don`t think they even get any penalty. When a male hits a female with all his strength, it can literally fracture the female`s bone, but no matter how hard the female tries, the maximum she can go is like a little bit of hurt. Not a lot. From this particular point of view, I think that men will barely go and complain that a female is abusing them.

    2) If I saw a female of abusing the male, I don’t really know how I would feel. I mean, being a girl I would wonder what the guy did to get the girl this mad and why is he just sitting there without saying or doing anything? And logically speaking, no man will get humiliated by his girl in front of everybody. As the stereotypical male is, strong, he would probably either leave from their or shout at the girl to control herself. Ask yourself, will you just sit there while your girlfriend is hitting you, yelling at you and what not?

    3) Well, what other choice to we have? It’s whether that the female is a drug addict and is high, and is hitting everyone she knows, or the guy did something that she didn’t like. Don’t we think the exact same thing for males too though? Why else would a male or female hit their partners? Well unless they are crazy....

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  9. I don't think abusive females are treated justly, for example, in the video, even a cop who walked by and saw the woman beating on the man, just ignored it and walked by. I don't think that this type of abuse is taken seriously. I think that if the problem was ever taken into a court of law, it would be taken as serious as abuse from a man to a woman, but rarely does it ever reach to that point. The main reason would be that no one reports it. If a woman strikes a man, the man, out of pride, would not tell anyone. This occurs when the man is being abusive, but the woman remains silent out of fear. As we saw in the video, other people will not report this type of violence, either, and because of this, it is just forgotten, and never dealt with.

    I would not do anything, regardless of how severe the injuries were, or how abusive the women was being. I wouldn't automatically blame the man however, I understand that sometimes women can be abusive. I wouldn't want to jump into a scenario where I don't know what's going on, and what led to this abuse. I think that it is the responsibility of the victim to defend himself, perhaps not physically retort, but ask for help from the authorities, or family.

    I personally have seen a woman being abusive towards a man, and I did not automatically blame the man for her actions. I can understand why other people would do so, because when you hear about abuse in relationships in the media, it is always the man's fault, so when you see abuse towards the man, you still assume that it was his fault.

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  10. 1. I don't really think that the society is serving us in treating the problems of abusive females at all. It's always men who are taken into consideration whenever a couple is brought up into a fight. A woman always gets a lesser penalty .

    2.I would rather take that as a joke and do nothing. This is because media has driven me towards the misconception that females cannot do harm to men. They absolutely can but I would not still help a couple if I see a female abusing a male.

    3. This notion has been coming along since ages. It's always the man's fault in a relationship . People should realize that this is not always the case. Females can put men into trouble as well . But, when it comes to physical abuse, it's always thought that the man would have been responsible for all this. It's probably the media that has driven me to this notion .

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  11. 1) This was a very interesting blog Jon! I believe that our society do not justly treat the problem of abusive females. They are in fact given lesser penalty seeing are they are females. It has become socially acceptable that if a man slaps a guy or simply yells at him that of course he did deserve it. Although if the man reacts back and even by talking, the fact that he got slapped just shows how he’s wrong. He should just accept its al his fault… right? First of all I completely disagree and am against this! Honestly personally I’ve met many women who are manipulative, aggressive, and simply rude! I’ve seen many females treat men like “dogs”. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the saying, “Yeah I run his/her ass.” Whether a male says that or a female, it’s extremely degrading and rude. This is probably why there are so many problems between women and men, there’s no respect in abusive relationships. I think it’s really wrong to let a woman’s abusive behaviour go unquestioned. In fact that just shows how women are always innocent and weak and if they do happen to a slap a guy it’s obviously must be his fault. That’s really not fair to men. In most arguments between females and males, both are contributing to it and maybe one gender is more at fault than the other, but the point is there no need for such abusive behaviour towards men or woman what so ever.
    2) First of all even before thinking what I would do if I see a female abusing a male, I’ve already witness such a situation. Honestly speaking I got attacked for sticking up for males, but the female was extremely wrong and the guy just sat there and said nothing. I’m not going to get into what the fight was about but from my perceptive the male had no fault in it. I stood up for him and unfortunately everyone called me a woman hater, but I was trying to be as neutral as possible and to me sticking up for the right person matters a lot more than sticking up for a gender. As ridiculous as that sounds, (how can I be a woman hater if I AM A WOMAN?) but I took the males side and told the female to stop slapping and swearing at him and luckily because I stood up for him she stopped.
    3) I feel that because the society shows males as cheating pigs (sorry guys!) Which is really unfair because not all men are like that. But because they have this bad reputation females feel that it is acceptable to abuses them. Females are shown to be weaker and because men have the strong reputation there known to be the trouble makers. Men are portrayed in the society to be aggressive dominant people. So when you think of a guy you think he’s be the tough one and automatically the cause of any problem, that’s why it is a lot easier to blame them! (which again is unfair)

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  12. Just to add my two cents: check out the Pepsi commercial I posted at the beginning of the blog. A woman abuses a man for comedy...

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  13. comment by Tasnim:

    1) I agree with Sundas, this is a really interesting blog Jon. I think that in our society abusive women aren’t given a penalty for hitting men, just like they would give a penalty when a man lays a hand on a female. For example in the film many people didn’t stop and try to help the man. They felt as if he was not getting harmed by the female, they thought he has probably done something stupid like cheat on her etc. Many people haven’t reacted to this situation because it has become socially accepted whether it is on TV or in reality. But personally, I think that violence in a relationship is wrong whether it is a man hitting a female or the other way around. I think that things like this should not be ignored, because it could result in a tragedy.


    2) If I were to see a female abusing a male, I would have found it to being wrong, and I would think that he might have done something that has made her mad. Also I would not interfere and try to stop the female from hitting the man, only because I am not a person who interferes in other people’s situations. Also, since men are physically stronger I would think that her hitting wouldn’t hurt him that much.

    3) I think that we assume that a male is responsible when seeing a women abusing male, only because females aren’t usually physically abusive, some are but not most. Women tend to verbally abuse rather physical. Also in our society females are shown as weak compared to men and that might be a reason why people don’t react as much when they see women hitting a man.

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  14. 1) Abusive women are definitely not taken seriously. I found it interesting when the psychology professor said that men do more damage but women hit more. I find that this statement is accurate to a certain extent. It is true that typically men are able to do more damage because they are on average physically stronger than women (and that’s a fact not a stereotype btw). In fact, on average women have 55- 58 percent of the upper body strength of men and are only 80 percent as strong as a man of identical weight. However, I can’t comment on whether or not women hit more…personally I’ve never seen a female beating up a male.

    2) To be truly honest, if I saw a female abusing a male I would assume that it’s the guy’s fault and I would probably stick around, not to get involved or help, but just to watch the drama. In reality most people would do the same. But if it’s EXTREMELY serious or like if the guy is bleeding to death then I would call 911. But if it was a girl getting beaten up I would call 911 right away. And also, whether a man or a woman is being abused most people would prefer not to get involved because the people in the situation might say “it’s non of your business.”

    3) Most of the time we think that it’s the male’s fault is because men are usually physically stronger than most women. Also, boys are conditioned to be aggressive and strong while girls are conditioned to follow or be submissive. And as the psychology professor said, men are able to do more damage. Also when a man is just sitting there and accepting a beating it makes him look guilty. And in general women are given self-defence classes to protect themselves from males while men are usually not given self-defence classes to protect themselves from women. And when you think of rape, it’s a FACT that women are raped more often than men. So it is assumed, quite rightly, that men can cause more physical harm. And I agree with Eric, men are more capable of fending women off in attacks.

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