The facts are she is on record as having assaulted her brother and admitting to being the first one to deliver a blow in this relationship. Her father is on record as saying that he is ok with them getting back together. Im just being a low budget analyst here but this smacks of her background also involving violence.

I know girls, who because they were raised in that situation, who swear that they will never be the one to be smacked around. They are so determined to not ever let a man put a hand on them that they lose perspective during what should be a simple argument. As the argument escalates, these girls will start to brace themselves for what the percieved actions will be to the point that they land the firts blow in a situation that was nothing more than a simpel lovers quarrel. I believe that they lose their ability to comprehend what is happening and immediately attach it to their child hood memeories of their own mother being beat. Again, no man will ever do that to me!!
I see thsi all the time and I live with it. My sister has been known to fly off the handle with her boyfriends in situations where every one else agreed that it was a simple argument but she decided that if it were to escalate she would be doing the escalating.

Im not condoning his behavior but i do fully believe that these are two young people who both need help.

BTW: If he had gone public the first time she struck him and said it was over because of that, in the ghetto hip hop world he resides, he would have been labeled a punk amongst other things. General thought amongst his demographic would have been “shyt, let her slap you if you still getting that azz at night”!!

See, certain things are dependent upon other things, but then people get too comfortable with the effect and forget about the cause. The CAUSE for “A man should never hit a woman” is that the woman is ACTING LIKE A LADY. As long as she plays her position, and doesn’t cause any physical trouble, the EFFECT is that no man should hit her.

The problem is, when you get women that want to throw the hands with men to begin with, it’s like you said, self defense is taught without exclusionary rules. By taking themselves outside of the realm of ACTING LIKE A LADY, they sometimes don’t get TREATED LIKE LADIES. They get treated like men.

Like I’ve been saying, the best situation is where people are mutually respectful of each other and keep their hands to themselves. Just today, some dude got punched in the face by his girl and turned her in:

[The Chick] hit him “with a closed fist, thereby causing informant to suffer a laceration below informant’s left eye and substantial pain,” the criminal complaint he filed with police charges.

See that? Just like I said. Call the cops. Turn her in. He did the right thing.

Unfortunately, as you mention, not everyone can just leave whomever’s being abusive. In those cases, we can just hope for the best for them.

Having said that, I also must confess to be raised in Spanish Harlem during the 80′s and 90′s, crack hell central. I was raised by both my mom and dad to NEVER back down from anyone and to defend myself at all times. I will say I have been lucky enough to read a book and to know that the world was bigger than my four corners BUT what do you say to those less fortunate? My parents never said, defend yourself unless its a girl, they simply said defend yourself. I remember clearly one day (in like the 5th grade or something) where a girl pushed me and I pushed back. All my teacher saw was when i shoved her to the side and he told my mom. I did not get in any trouble for this because my mom simply said “well she started”!

You take a different youth with out the ability to see beyond his immediate surroundings and that lack of consequence can easily lead to an adult (teenage) life of slapping woman around.

C. Brown comes from a situation where his step father would abuse his mother. Seeing that and saying I’ll never do that are completely different than saying I’ll never do that but not knowing how to respond when actually faced with being in an escalating type of situation. and BTW, this is not exclusive to men.

For those that are not aware, she is on record as having admitted to assaulting her own brother in the past. Part of her victim statement was acknowledging that this was not the first time he did this. According to her (and her own words) the first time he pushed/hit her was in response to her having slapped him. Does anyone see the problem there? She slapped him. By defenition he was protecting himself but because he is the man he should have known better. **I hate to admit that part of me agrees but the level headed part says that this is extremely unfair.**

Please keep in mind that having come from that situation myself i hate that I can even say that. I hate that my mom was a victim but I hate MORE that I have on several occasions said she made it worse. I really hate that I can even think that. Had it been two guys this would not be a discussion.

(For anyone unaware, this is the woman Jay interviewed in the video I embedded above)

Of course, I agree with you with your smack/stab scenario. Both are wrong, and the reaction’s egregious and entirely uncalled-for. I also agree with the walk-away concept, as I mentioned several times in my post and replies to comments.

I see what you’re saying and recognize the difference between retaliation and defusal. Using those terms, one of the points I was trying to make in my response to SoulPowr is that there’s no obligation to defuse. This is true in any human relationship, not just “a relationship”. Therefore, my advice is to “let sleeping Giants lie”, or basically not to open the potential floodgate that may lead to retaliation instead of defusal by someone smaller (male or female) attacking someone larger (male or female).

re: SoulPowr’s statement/question… Would I *LIKE* for everyone to subscribe to “A man should never hit a woman?”, yes. I would like that. I would ALSO like for all women to subscribe to “Keep your hands off of men when you feel like they won’t hit you. Recognize that as them honoring & respecting you and show them that same honor & respect right back”.

Similarly, when anyone holds the door open for anyone else, that person SHOULD say “Thank You” in respectful response to the respectful gesture of holding the door so they can pass through. It’s not a privilege, you’re being honored to not have to open the door yourself, so be polite/civilized and return the respect that was offered to you first.

I should have said that I thought you made very good general points about domestic violence situations in the video and I definitely learned something from it. Agreed that we have NO IDEA what went on at this point in time. Also agreed that people need to get past unhealthy situations.

I heard what you said about your upbringing [paraphrasing] involving/teaching violence. Thanks for bringing that up, because it’s very important. It’s typical for families “around the way”. Kids are trained to only respect power and violence, so there’s “no talking to them”. This inability or refusal to work things out verbally and have respect for someone that won’t slap the $#&% out of them is brought into “romantic relationships” in the future and as you said, isn’t healthy at all.

I actually had to deal with this one time when I was dating this street-fighter chick. She was very used to violence and liked to use the term “I ought to smack you” or “I feel like smacking you” or something like that. I recognized that she was merely expressing a dislike for something I had said or done, which was mostly making fun of her… nothing physically negative, because that’s not what I hang out with chicks for. This was getting on my nerves, so I verbally walked her through several scenarios of what the predictable future was of her slapping me. One of those potential outcomes was that I’d never speak to her ever again. Since that wasn’t what she wanted, and she actually had no intention of smacking me ANYWAY, she switched up her verbal style and I never heard that line again. We stopped dating ages ago, but we’re still close to this day.

Thank you for posting the link to the BoJ stats (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cv07.htm). I do think people focus on “the whole violent female thing” in order to get over in court, etc. That wasn’t my intention with my post at all. Actually, I wasn’t going to post about this situation AT ALL until I saw Jay’s video. I’m a fan of his work and he always has intelligent things to say about important topics.

The reason I frame things the way I do, pretty much throughout my entire DatingGenius blog is that I feel that women place themselves at an EXTRAORDINARY DISADVANTAGE by not recognizing the lengths that men *might* go to when it comes to getting laid or “keeping your girl in check”. I certainly detest violence in relationships, because that’s not why people are claiming to get together. They’re claiming to get together to support each other and carry each other in a positive direction. However, women do themselves a disservice by believing that ALL men subscribe to “Never hit a woman”. As you’ve linked in your comment and discussed in your interview video, the statistics show that there are LOTS OF GUYS that hit women, and that’s what I want y’all to recognize and be prepared for.

I also agree with what you were saying about escalation. If it happens once, it’s going to happen again. That’s why I knew I was going to excommunicate my girl if she couldn’t keep her hands to herself. I don’t need to associate with primitive people, ESPECIALLY in my inner circle. If she couldn’t step up to the plate and carry herself in a civilized manner, she needed to vamoose. Similarly, when women recognize that their men can’t control themselves, they need to LEAVE. When men recognize that their women can’t control themselves, they need to LEAVE.

Thanks again for commenting, Elizabeth. :D