North Carolina's law mandating that an assault on a female is a more serious offense than an assault on a male is not consonant with modern notions of gender equality

In North Carolina, if an assault is committed against a male, the perpetrator (whether male or female) is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor. But if a male over 18 years of age commits an assault on a female, it is a Class A1 misdemeanor (the same classification as when a person inflicts serious injury upon another person or uses a deadly weapon). N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-33. This difference in classification means that male defendants who assault females receive greater sentences than defendants of either gender who assault males.

The courts have held this statute constitutional because it serves an important governmental objective (protecting persons more likely to suffer greater injury due to size and physical strength) and that it does deny males equal protection of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

While appreciating the general physical difference in size and strength between men and women, this generality has innumerable exceptions. Institutionalizing a sweeping gender generality as a matter of state policy, and applying it across the board whether or not it actually applies in a given case, does not seem consonant with modern notions of gender equality. The law should be repealed.