By Running Hardly
During a playboy interview in 1965 Sean Connery very candidly offered up his opinion on how best to deal with a woman who was a “bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded”
“An openhanded slap is justified–if all other alternatives fail and there has been plenty of warning.
Today nearly three generations later only renegade comedians like Chris Rock could make that kind of comment and not be blacklisted from earning a living:
“You know what they say, “There’s no reason to ever hit a woman.” Shit! There’s a reason to hit everybody. You just don’t do it. Shit, there’s a reason to kick an old man down a flight of stairs. You just don’t do it. Ain’t nobody above an ass-whooping”.
Aside from Mr. Rock leaving “hysterical or bloody-minded” feminists speechless, we’ve made a long journey from that playboy interview. Today’s men would laugh at Connery’s statements as anachronistic; not necessarily because their women no longer occasionally grate on the nerves in the same way, but because hitting a woman is now so dangerous.
In today’s world Connery’s advice would be insanely misguided. Laying hands on a woman is the surest way to lose custody of your children, to lose a significant share of any property and income you have, if not to lose your very freedom as a result of incarceration. Once a woman brings the combined weight of the judicial and enforcement arms of the government to her defense, the only person who will truly get slapped is the man who decided to go old school and raise the back of his hand to her.
Feminists say the law is finally catching up with the dramatic historical imbalance in power between the sexes. But men’s rights activists point out that the imbalance has just shifted against men.
Domestic violence activist and former police lieutenant Greg Schmidt who created the Seattle police department’s domestic violence investigation unit in 1994:
“The domestic violence industry–the trainers, the shelter directors, etc.–can spin things however they want,” he says, “but most street cops know that women are just as likely to start domestic disputes as men are. But arresting women puts you under lot of scrutiny. It’s bad for your career.”
Schmidt also criticizes the dominant aggressor doctrine which discourages dual arrests (which are often an appropriate measure) and instructs police to downplay who struck the first blow. Instead, police are asked to focus on who is (supposedly) in control of the situation and who is more fearful–often code words for “arrest the man.”
Women are still more likely to physically abuse children, and probably still have a greater tendency to be the initiators of physical confrontations with their men.
Dr. Charles Corry: When its mutual combat, the studies show 60% of the time it is the woman who initiates the violence.
Men on the other hand, being generally bigger and stronger, still probably have a greater tendency to answer with physical force which puts such confrontations to an end. But men now shoulder all the responsibility for any conflict, and can be at risk for merely defending themselves in any mutual physical altercation, not to mention against false domestic violence accusations.
The irony is that the net result has not been positive for either gender. Despite the zero tolerance policies towards domestic violence popularized in recent years, domestic violence has not only remained relatively stable in proportion to overall crime, but family disharmony by any measure has increased.
Carey E. Cooper et al., Princeton University
Partnership Instability, School Readiness, and Gender DisparitiesInsofar as family instability has differential effects on boys and girls and insofar as family instability is more common among disadvantaged populations, the increase in instability during the past few decades may account for the growing gender disparity in school achievement, especially among minority populations.
Now neither feminists nor men’s rights groups are satisfied. Feminists are adamant that still more responsibility for domestic violence be assigned to men, and men’s rights groups are furious that women get off Scott free when they become violent, just as they get a pass for the denial of access and emotional abuse that are often triggering factors in domestic violence. Men’s rights activists also say that because women have an incentive to lie about domestic violence, particularly during property or child custody disputes, and because they face no consequences for doing so, women have a huge advantage in not having to provide any proof before the law acts on such permanently damaging accusations on the strength of the woman’s word alone.
It seems clear that each sex has a predisposition towards certain failings. Men say women are overwhelmingly more prone to withhold access and to alienate their children, women say men are more prone to be violent and to withhold financial support. If even part of these allegations are true, this begs the question, how can there ever be equality if the court’s are unequally lenient on the things that one sex tends to do while being unequally harsh on the things that the other sex tends do when both of those failings contribute equally to family crises?
As an example, courts are notoriously forgiving of women who withhold access or who are unfaithful. Given that access issues and the unfaithfulness that caused the breakup are a huge factor in post separation violence it would seem fair to be at least as forgiving of the sins men fall prey to as a result of that stress. If for example a man comes home to find his wife with a lover then loses it and slaps her, should that really be so much more serious in the eyes of the law than the emotional abuse of her bringing another man into his bed in the first place?
As it stands right now the law says that men’s violence is much more serious. So if you come home from a long day’s work and your wife and her lover tell you to “beat it” because they haven’t finished with your bed, don’t overreact. They’re probably exhausted from screwing all day and too tired to get up. Just do your best to catch a couple of moments rest on the hard cold floor before you have to go to your second job. Keep yourself from raising your voice or a restraining order could have you living in your parent’s basement and paying for the pizza and beer he’s eating while he’s sitting in your living room chair, and using your new hi tech remote to watch your big screen TV. At least on the floor you’re inside and still get to see your children and occasionally use your stuff.
Of course the other option to stop emasculating men this way is to get the government out of family matters entirely. Libertarians argue for exactly that, namely that a man should be able to do what he wants in his own family. But a truly libertarian society is a social experiment we’ve never really tried. Does a man’s right to do as he wishes in his house, become a man’s right to do as he wishes in his compound, which then become his right to do as he wishes in his tribal fiefdom? Would a Libertarian society look more like the ungovernable tribal areas of Pakistan? A lot of questions need to be answered before that step seems less scary and unfamiliar to the average citizen.
There has to be a middle ground. Somehow we have to get to a point where social contracts like marriage enforce responsibility on both parties, and where breaking that contract has penalties. For example, don’t want to cook and clean while staying home as a housewife? … Lower spousal support after divorce for you. Aborted husband’s children without his knowledge or consent when he expressly married to have children? … Lower spousal support after divorce as well. Unfaithful? Put your hand back in your pocket you get NOTHING. The list goes on.
Too many people today believe women have more incentive to divorce than to stay married, and too many people believe men have no incentive to marry in the first place. Our sons who are watching our struggles with divorce may balk at ever getting married. Responsibility to a marriage contract is a radical suggestion, but unless we commit to replacing our population solely through immigration as some other western nations have, we have to make society less hostile to families. Radical may be exactly where we need to go.
