Is female empowerment about beating up the man in your life?

Natalie Lue writes...

I’d been lying if I said that in my angriest, most heartbroken moments that I haven’t fantasized about doing a drop kick or two on my most pitiful exes and getting medieval on their asses. But these were just fantasies and words have always been my preferred weapon of choice – Violence doesn’t solve anything and it’s amazing how you can make someone’s nuts shrivel to the size of a walnut with a choice look or some killer words…

I was surprised to read the brazen confessions from readers to a post on Jezebel which asks “Have You Ever Beat Up A Boyfriend? Cause, Uh, We Have”. From slaps, to punches, to thrown plastic laundry hampers, biting, a lashing with a leather belt, and even one man being thrown around the room by his penis, these women can only be described as boasters. They’re about a hop, skip, and a jump away from beating their chests and holding their beaten boyfriends above their heads proudly.

Has beating up your boyfriend become like anal sex? – That thing that lots of women indulge in but pretend that they don’t do….

I have been raised to believe that violence is not the answer, admittedly by Jamaican parents who weren’t afraid to open up a can of whupass when I misbehaved…but I have grown up thinking that I shouldn’t dish out any violence if I don’t expect to take it back. When people think of domestic violence, we envision a man pummeling a woman with his fist and any variety of things, but we generally don’t think of women being the perpetrators.

But much like a lot of other things, with the fight for equality and the ability to empower ourselves, the tables seem to have turned, and not content with wanting to be equal or top financially, in the workplace, at home, and in general, it seems that there are lots of women out there that want to use their physical strength. That and the ability to choose household weapons to assert themselves with their men…

If men made the type of comments that these women were making, they would be vilified and labelled as wife-beaters and domestic abusers, but these women are essentially boasting about their violent exploits with very little remorse.

“After I dumped him, he served me with a restraining order, which I proudly showed off to all his friends. Stupid wimp.” Weavingissexy declared, whilst Warmaiden wrote ““*snicker* It's okay, ladies. They can just consider it payback for binding our feet, shoving our chunklet asses into corsets, leaving chick babies on mountaintops, droolin over size 0 asses, and generally making us miserable for centuries. “ Admittedly her conscience is slightly bigger as she adds “Then again, as a native NYer, I am also of the opinion that if a woman hits a man, he is allowed to hit her back. (I find the southern gentleman thing so CUTE, if ill-advised as a defence tactic.) Fair's fair, after all...”

Whilst you may get some guys that will laugh off some of this behaviour, there are clearly men out there that will feel that they are victims of abuse, and who are we to tell them that they aren’t, just because they have a penis and may be physically bigger than us?

One woman asks “Are these men actually physically afraid?” Well I don’t think that’s what it’s about. How do you measure afraid? Isn't it about intent and actually doing it? It’s demoralising to get knocked around the place by someone whether you’re a man OR a woman. And let’s not forget that these women seem to be making up for any physical difference by using household items. Wouldn’t you be afraid if someone started raining stuff on you?!

The moment that you hit someone, is the moment that you lose, is the moment that you disrespect the person on the receiving end. Men can't rationalise hitting us, so why do we think we can? We believe that men that hit women are cowards so why are women applauding women for doing the same thing?

Because the perpetrators don’t see their actions in the same way. They see it as asserting themselves and because they aren’t men, they don’t view their actions as violent per se. It is amazing how we can pick and choose which playing fields that we want to be level on and which goalposts we want to move.

Empowerment is about confidence in your abilities and it seems that as women have progressively grown more confident about competing with men, so has our confidence in our physical strength. Any decent man has been taught that he shouldn’t raise his hands to a woman, so unless you’re with someone who is already physically abusive, or that will dish it back, you’re unlikely to believe that your violence will be reciprocated.

Many would argue that men are physically stronger than us, bigger, more imposing, hence able to do more damage, but does that mean we should say “F*ck it! I’m smaller than he is so I’m gonna do my worst, just because I can”?

So I ask, have you ever beat up your boyfriend and if so, is there a difference?

Natalie Lue is currently on maternity leave and typed this using boxing gloves...

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