Hidden camera show displays the double standard regarding physical violence

Typh

I imagine most of us have at least witnessed this, if not encountered hearsay of it, and it's an incredibly uncomfortable experience for anyone who's unsure of how to disolve it/whether or not they should intervene.
I've seen a few guys viciously attacked, two with glass sadly, all because some innocuous comment was voiced/someone tried to help, and it was misconstrued as inappropriate and someone threw a slap/glass. Equally, I lost a friend from the sand-box who I found out to be abusive to his girlfriend, as I was utterly disgusted by what he did.
Tbh, a developed society should be intolerant of violence on either gender. When I see people spouting '...but women are less physically able to defend themselves,' while it may have some validity, it's such a specious, ****ed up argument. I talked to g'em in the smoking area at the last beers, and she would literally kill me in a fight, and she's lovely, and hot also.
All that being said, my female cousins, my imaginary little sister, my female friends, I'll just include my female peers for argument's sake; I would intervene in a second if I thought soneone was taking advantage of them or harming them in any sense. I feel a bit hypocritical in saying that, but... emotional investment, I apsire to be my grandfather, old-fashioned, etc, etc...
It's not a tit for tat battle between the sexes. It's a person abusing a person, irrespective of gender, physically and/or emotionally. Sometimes I can't help feeling that the very idea of misogyny or sexual inequality is trivialised when people have these nit-picking exchanges. It shouldn't be that way, for anyone. Also the dude previously whose partner was emotionally blackmailing him with his children, that's awful, and I hope everything worked out for him and his kids.

Anyway, off to Coppers. More gin for the gin god,etc

CIARAN_BOYLE

Its a disgrace. I can understand ignoring physical (punch/kick ect) abuse due to the percieved lack of vulnerability of the man. If he didn't want to be hit he could block blah blah blah thats the view of society. But once weaponry comes into play its a disgrace if its ignored.

LeeHoffmann

I've at last been able to watch those videos. I found them both interesting (the differences gender, the style of clothing and age seem to make re: society's perception and reaction) and shocking. In the first video, two things that the psychologist said really stood out to me:

1. "Men create more damage but women hit more than men do"
This ^ seems to be the crux of the debate on this thread, and seems to both account for and answer some posters' view that we should have more concern for abused women than abused men. Yes, men can do more damage - but apparently women are violent more often than men are. If women are violent more often, then that is a big cause for concern.

2. "Female aggression is seen as not very important, not very deadly, nothing really to react to"
Again this brings us back to that perception of men as the strong sex and women as weak. I think if we can change this perception, we will see a lot more people opposing female violence against men. This really is, I think, the place to start. This outdated stereotype has to change.

Eve_Dublin

Time for more men to take a stand. wrote: »

I don't know how accurate the information you could derive from these videos is, as they may use selective editing, and I only have 1 female aggressor video to go on. From the limited video footage available though, I think the videos I've posted show that yes males will intervene when a woman is getting abused, but there seems to be a lot more women who actually intervene, and go to greater lengths to protect other women, such as physically removing the girls from the situation, and standing right in between the aggressor and the girlfriend to protect them..

I've intervened twice in two different situations where I've seen men beating up their girlfriends. Once in London when a young guy was shouting and punching his girlfriend at a busy bus stop at 8am. I was the only one who intervened and right beside me was a cafe full of burly builders. I shouted at them to come and help me...and they laughed! I've no idea if this has anything to do with the fact that this was a rough area and both these teenagers were black and from that area.

Second time was on the Metro here in Madrid. A man was slapping his girlfriend around the head and shouting abuse (much like what Lee Hoffman heard that man say to this girlfriend in Cardiff..you're useless, you're a whore etc.). Again it was obvious both of them were from a poor area of Madrid. There were 3 men on the Metro and all of them pretended to read their books/papers, so I intervened and called Metro security.

I think there's so many other factors that determine whether people will intervene and I think it's a little more complicated than just gender.

HavingCrack

Eve_Dublin wrote: »

I've intervened twice in two different situations where I've seen men beating up their girlfriends. Once in London when a young guy was shouting and punching his girlfriend at a busy bus stop at 8am. I was the only one who intervened and right beside me was a cafe full of burly builders. I shouted at them to come and help me...and they laughed! I've no idea if this has anything to do with the fact that this was a rough area and both these teenagers were black and from that area.

Second time was on the Metro here in Madrid. A man was slapping his girlfriend around the head and shouting abuse (much like what Lee Hoffman heard that man say to this girlfriend in Cardiff..you're useless, you're a whore etc.). Again it was obvious both of them were from a poor area of Madrid. There were 3 men on the Metro and all of them pretended to read their books/papers, so I intervened and called Metro security.

I think there's so many other factors that determine whether people will intervene and I think it's a little more complicated than just gender.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The vast majority of people will not intervene in a fight between anyone, regardless of the genders involved. It's not so much a double standard as very little intervention will occur if the roles are reversed as you yourself witnessed.

Being honest though, ever since I heard of a man being murdered in Dublin after intervening to prevent another man assaulting his girlfriend I would be very cautious about doing anything except calling the police.

CIARAN_BOYLE

HavingCrack wrote: »

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The vast majority of people will not intervene in a fight between anyone, regardless of the genders involved. It's not so much a double standard as very little intervention will occur if the roles are reversed as you yourself witnessed.

Agreed. I've been attacked in broad daylight in dublin city center and no one intervened. People don't want to get into fights when they don't have a personal stake. Its not a gender thing just a self interest thing.

People don't want to go through the pain that a fight could result in. Especially since we aren't used to combat in this modern era. I'd say I've seen 30 incidents of someone being atacked in my life. I've only intervened once. That was when a mate was attacked.

If you don't have a truck with the fight people don't intervene.

I especially wouldn't intervene when a man was being abused by a female since I would probably get in police trouble since a lot of Garda have the attitude that the loser in a fight is the victim.

Eve_Dublin

HavingCrack wrote: »

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The vast majority of people will not intervene in a fight between anyone, regardless of the genders involved. It's not so much a double standard as very little intervention will occur if the roles are reversed as you yourself witnessed.

Being honest though, ever since I heard of a man being murdered in Dublin after intervening to prevent another man assaulting his girlfriend I would be very cautious about doing anything except calling the police.

Just to say, I didn't mean to necessarily make the point out of the fact that the people on the Metro and close to the bus stop were men, I suppose I just expected them to intervene as usually that's what you expect men to do. I was definitely nervous myself when I intervened but I suppose coming from a small town and not a city, I'd have it in my head to get involved. Perhaps if you're born and raised in a big city, you'd be fairly jaded seeing this kind of carry on and wary that you might get hurt yourself. I was so shocked my automatic reaction was to do something.

gargleblaster

Eve_Dublin wrote: »

Perhaps if you're born and raised in a big city, you'd be fairly jaded seeing this kind of carry on and wary that you might get hurt yourself.

Some inaction could also be due to diffusion of responsibility - just the expectation that there are many other people around, so surely someone else will help.

Napper Hawkins

It helps that you're a woman though.

The reason most men don't intervene in a couple fight is because 99.9% of the time we know the violence is just going to be turned on us.

(that was @ Eve)

Eve_Dublin

Napper Hawkins wrote: »

It helps that you're a woman though.

The reason most men don't intervene in a couple fight is because 99.9% of the time we know the violence is just going to be turned on us.

(that was @ Eve)

Do you really think it helped that I was female? I have to disagree with you there! These men obviously have no problems hitting women. In the incident in London, the guy went for me and hit me sideways on the cheek leaving a bruise under my eye (and I had to go to work and deal with customers in a library...I'm sure I must've looked some state) then grabbed a large pole he found on the street and went for both of us. This guy was only in his teens. Any man could've held him back but they didn't. I still stand by the fact that people tend to turn a blind eye to this kind of carry on in a city regardless of gender.

Eve_Dublin

gargleblaster wrote: »

Some inaction could also be due to diffusion of responsibility - just the expectation that there are many other people around, so surely someone else will help.

Which has been proven to be more common in cities (read that in a book....I can give you the title but not a page reference).

citytillidie

Morlar wrote: »

In general a woman is more physically vulnerable to a physical assault from a man than a man is phhysically vulnerable to a physical assault from a woman.

'In General' are the important words of that sentence.

There will never be a magically, 100% accurate, 'everyone is totally equal in every way', even handed societal approach to this, there always has been a double standard and an imbalance. It is imbalanced in the direction of concern for the physically weakest. That is a double standard and is technically unfair but in my opinion is understandable.

So you think its understandable for a woman to drug her husband and then cut off his manhood like your woman in California.

raveni

Typh wrote: »

Tbh, a developed society should be intolerant of violence on either gender.

Couldn't agree more.

gargleblaster wrote: »

Some inaction could also be due to diffusion of responsibility - just the expectation that there are many other people around, so surely someone else will help.

Exactly, it's something like the Bystander Effect. But I think when it's a fight, regardless of which gender is the aggressor, it's understandable for people to not want to intervene, you just don't know; they could have a weapon and if they're beating somebody up they're clearly not in a stable state at that moment, you don't know what they're capable of.

citytillidie wrote: »

So you think its understandable for a woman to drug her husband and then cut off his manhood like your woman in California.

Now that's not exactly what they said, is it...

the_syco

onedmc wrote: »

Its natural to side with the weaker and to be disturbed when the a stronger picks on a weaker.

Nothing to do with double standards it one standard.

What a crock of shyte. If a big fat ogre of a woman was giving abuse at a small feeble man, would you assume he deserved it???

LeeHoffmann wrote: »

So I'm asking - did I do the right thing?

Your OH's full attention would be you. If the other lads had punched him in the face, he may not have seen it coming. Also, if any of the lads had playfully pushed you, it would most likely be taken the wrong way, and all three lads may go into protect the woman/kill the enemy mode.

Morlar wrote: »

Physically men are more able to defend themselves from a violent woman than women are able to defend themselves from a violent man.

Legally, if he defends himself, or if he attacks her, he will be seen as the attacker in the eyes of the law, if the link that foxyboxer put up from the Indo.

Morlar wrote: »

on balance is not an entirely bad thing.

What balance?

=-=

Unless I know why the fight is happening, I never intervene, unless a mate is being attacked. I do not intervene, as I do not know who is in the wrong.

CIARAN_BOYLE

the_syco wrote: »

Unless I know why the fight is happening, I never intervene, unless a mate is being attacked. I do not intervene, as I do not know who is in the wrong.

agreed

LeeHoffmann

Unless I know why the fight is happening, I never intervene, unless a mate is being attacked. I do not intervene, as I do not know who is in the wrong.

a "fight" suggest that both people are being violent or that there is some degree of equality with regard to the violence. What if somebody is being beaten and they're not fighting back or they're getting seriously hurt? Just wondering. Would like to figure out myself what I think I should do in such situations

Logical Fallacy

LeeHoffmann wrote: »

a "fight" suggest that both people are being violent or that there is some degree of equality with regard to the violence. What if somebody is being beaten and they're not fighting back or they're getting seriously hurt? Just wondering. Would like to figure out myself what I think I should do in such situations

To be honest when i see a fight i break it up...I don't worry about who is right and who is wrong because that kind of thing can be sorted out after the fact.

If i am breaking up a fight and one of the combatants gets violent with me then it's them in the wrong from that point and that is all i need to know.