Hi Phanto,

Hmmmm .... I think they call that 'projection' in psychology :)

The fact is that women tend to be smaller than men. Maybe you could turn your logic around and say, that, if men were the same size as women, they would treat them far more equitably. One might have to add: " ... and shared all the work of raising the kids ..... " and had equal access to the credit cards.

The bottom line is that everybody has to work at improving social relations between men and women, between people with different roles even in modern society, which are bound to throw up different opportunities and attitudes. So we all have to appreciate these different roles better and try to even out any inequities inherent in those differences.

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth:

No, I think they call it violence in psychology too.

We are not talking about raising the kids or sharing the credit cards - we are talking about violence.

phanto the more credible question is to ask what happens when you have massive social and legal consequences for one gender and very little for the other around family violence.

Size is a factor but not the overwhelming one when one believes they have a free pass to use violence against a partner and the partner is likely to be considered at fault if they report the violence, if they respond in kind (and not the use of the phrase in kind), if they walk out (stigma around children deserted by their father) etc.

That belief in a free pass can and does eventually fail for some but that factor does not negate the underlying problem of the refusal of so called anti-violence groups, politicians, advertising campaigns etc to credibly speak against all violence regardless of the genders involved.

R0bert

//To answer my own question what would women do if they were bigger and stronger? They would use violence//

Really?

It's important to bear in mind that when we talk about men being bigger and stronger than women, it isn't true in all cases. It's just an average figure. On average, men are bigger and stronger. But some women lift weights and do UFC and throw hammers and shite, and I'd bet my last dollar that they're stronger than the lot of us here.

It's at times like this I wish I could draw on the screen, to demonstrate the overlap of the male and female Guassian distributions of strength and size. Sadly I can't, so just imagine it instead. We'll colour the area under the male curve pink and the area under the female curve blue to be traditional. See that huge swathe of mauve in the middle? That's where the two sexes overlap. Let us assume people couple randomly (I know it's a fairly poor assumption - cut me some slack: I like physics, so my natural inclination is to assume they're perfect spheres in a vacuum.)

What you end up with is a majority of couples where males have the strength and size and advantage (but still only a tiny minority where the scumbags use that as an excuse for barbarity), but a still sizeable minority of couples where it's the woman with the physical advantage.

So it isn't so much a question of what WOULD women do if they were bigger and stronger as it is what DO women do when they are bigger and stronger. Which they are, in a sizeable minority of cases. And it seems what they don't do is beat their husbands - or at least, not nearly so eagerly as husbands beat their wives. Which rather shoots a hole in your notion that it's all just down to the physical advantage one party has over the other.

//Put a whole bunch of women together and see what happens//

Spontaneous outbursts of knitting? In my experience, what one can expect is entirely too much cleaning: give it a rest, ladies. We're not impressed, so unless you're doing it to impress each other, what's the bloody point? Seriously, it's like your whole sex has OCD. Nobody died from a bit of clutter.

But all this silly conjecture is the sort of thing that should be discussed in a philosophy tutorial after a nice big spliff.

EJ's got the right idea: turf all the non-violent offenders out of prison, and lock the thugs away. They're no use to anybody, save perhaps for medical experimentation or organ farming.

phanto

'Is the idea to elicit more sympathy so as to heap more blame on men for ruining the dream of domestic bliss? A dream which lives in the imagination of so many women?'

Well, I can't speak for all women. However, I got married almost thirty years ago, because I was in love with my husband and was very eager to embrace 'domestic bliss' - as was he. Lucky for me, he turned out to be one of the 95%+ of men who don't beat their wives. Phew! What a close shave!

Sorry. I know I'm sending you up. But your arguments are so send-uppable.