Could you forgive a man who beat a woman up

[Walley]

this is a very tuff topic to sound in on..
I think i would need to ponder this more.. but depending on a case by case analysis, the answer off the top of my head would be a resounding No.
to me, it's not alot different than saying someone who is drunk is not liable for their actions. maybe emotional reasons bring about a situation, maybe even agression from the girl who had been attacked instigated it, but are they excuses?
is it ever acceptable someone haul off and puch a girl in the face out or rage? I can tell you that I would never do it. the woman would have to be comming at me with a weapon or attacking someone else for me to bring myself to it even in my weakest or drunkest state.
I know a couple that this happened to. she was home drunk and angry, he comes home drunk and stupid and they get into a fight, she almost attacked hima nd then started pushing his buttons and yelling at him to go ahead and hit her, and in a fit of rage he lashed out and hit her one time in the jaw.
well, she spent the next 2 weeks in hospital with a broken jaw and he got chaged, lost his job and lost the rest in the devorce.
do you think i felt sorry for him? nope. not at all. even though in knowing them both i can totaly see and understand that she played a part in the agression, i am sorry to say that there is still no excuse for it and violence shouldnt be a part of human behaviour and deffinately not a behaviour that should be excused or forgiven any more than someone who murders out of passion and then feels remorse afterwards.

ok , so i didnt need to ponder it lol

 

[Loser#1]

I don't think any man should ever hit a woman, regardless of the circumstance. I've been punched and slapped and it's never crossed my mind to be physical. There's such a huge discrepancy in the amount of damage a woman can inflict -vs- a man. I wouldn't allow a woman to repeatedly assult me (meaning I'd leave) but I'd never hit her or grab her.

I'd never allow a woman to make me that angry, ever

So would I forgive a guy for hitting a woman.... Probably not. There's no situation I think that's acceptable

 

[Peaco]

I couldn't.

 

[perfanoff]

...and proceeded to behave in ways that reflected that he was truly sorry for what he'd done?


That's ewwsic to my ears!




My answer is yes, of course.

I don't get this thread.

If a woman starts punching a man in the face, it is not ethical to hit back? Or there is some more other specific situation you are talking about?

 

[Okiedokes]

Forgive...yeah... but trust again? No...

 

[WishingWell]

Because of my Christianity, I always am easy to forgive people, because I feel if Jesus forgives me for things, how can I NOT forgive others?

So, YES, I would forgive a man who beat up a woman--also, though, I think it shouldn't be just men hitting woman talked about. It should include everyone.

I don't believe in physical violence of any kind nor do I believe in verbal abuse. I don't think anyone should hit anyone.

If it is a person you are in a relationship with, and it happens more than once, it is up to you to decide when enough is enough and end the relationship or get the police involved.

Acting in self defense, against a stranger, I do condone physical violence in defending myself. My ex-husband/late husband taught me some self-defense actions to try to temporarily disable someone, so I would have time to run away from my attacker. I would have no qualms in using any of them, if need be. I wouldn't, however, hurt someone more than I had to to get away from him/her. I have had to do this once, and I was successful. I hope I don't have to do it ever again, especially at the thought of not succeeding and what that may entail.

I am sorry I got off the subject of just "FORGIVING", but I felt there was a lot more involved regarding "beating someone up."

 

[Walley]

...and proceeded to behave in ways that reflected that he was truly sorry for what he'd done?


That's ewwsic to my ears!




My answer is yes, of course.

I don't get this thread.

If a woman starts punching a man in the face, it is not ethical to hit back? Or there is some more other specific situation you are talking about?

so, if a 4ft tall 10yr old punches me im allowed to kick the crap out of him?
or maybe an old man in a wheel chair canes me so its my right to make him eat his control stick.
there is a difference between defence and attack. if a woman hit me or came on full attack my first thought would be to take myself out of the situation or subdue her. not start punching back..
i mean.. if she came at me with a knife i may have to knock her out to protect myself.. or if she shot at me i would shoot back.. but unless she is a trained fighter.. i dont think it should ever be necessary to beat up a girl.

 

[perfanoff]

You did everything but answer the question - how violence towards women and men (and any other possible sexes and asexuals) is any different. I somehow have a feeling (but I can't prove it) that a punch in the head hurts men just as much as it hurts women;

Just another of the conflicts of feminism/traditional gender roles that marks our modern society's madness.

And to give my opinion on the thread's question: it depends. I have been witness to a physically abusive relationship (with an alcoholic involved) and what he did was simply unforgivable. I have also seen bands of girls picking fights and being brutal to each other, so if some security guy or just a random guy went and beat up one of these sickos.. it may not be unnecessary but I'd have a hard time stigmatizing him.

 

[Walley]

You did everything but answer the question

why thank you
that's my specialty!

 

[ajdass1]

You did everything but answer the question - how violence towards women and men (and any other possible sexes and asexuals) is any different. I somehow have a feeling (but I can't prove it) that a punch in the head hurts men just as much as it hurts women;

Just another of the conflicts of feminism/traditional gender roles that marks our modern society's madness.

And to give my opinion on the thread's question: it depends. I have been witness to a physically abusive relationship (with an alcoholic involved) and what he did was simply unforgivable. I have also seen bands of girls picking fights and being brutal to each other, so if some security guy or just a random guy went and beat up one of these sickos.. it may not be unnecessary but I'd have a hard time stigmatizing him.

How is violence towards women different than violence towards men? We live in a society where the overwhelmingly vast majority of violence is done by men and a hell of a lot of it is done towards women.

So the answer is in the context: there is a disproportionately huge amount of violence done by men to women than by women to men. Not just assault, but the threat of violence: e.g. having to deal with unwanted male attention that could easily turn violent; harassment; slurs; being blamed for your own assault; internet threats and harassment; etc.

Theoretically it shouldn't make a difference who's getting hit. But realistically, women are far more likely to have experienced violence done to them by men than the reverse.

 

[Lonely in BC]

Are you ******* kidding?

Any guy that would decide to smack a woman around is a lowlife piece of honeysuckle. Same goes in reverse. I had a relationship where the the woman- she was my wife (now ex-wife), decided it was ok to get physical. I took it the first time. The second time I left- no way I was going down over a miserable ***** like that.

The only justification I could possibly support would be if the significant other (man OR woman) was threatening kids.

This is a stupid ******* thread.

 

[Swamp Yankee]

Any man who raises his hand to a woman is no man at all. -SY

 

[The Good Citizen]

Firstly and to clear this up acts of violence committed by men toward women are far more common than vice versa any man who wishes to argue against this is deluded and to be honest I don’t think anyone here is so that’s hopefully an agreed statement. This doesn’t need to turn into yet another gender argument and it would be a shame if it did.

So to answer the question "Could you forgive a man who beat a woman up" well it needs elaboration and expanding on, there is no easy answer.

Firstly committing an act of violence against another human being is wrong and is one of the earliest things we are taught as children (or should be taught). There is no need to distinguish by gender and this is something every decent human being should accept, violence is wrong, you don't hit people to resolve your anger, you don't hit people to resolve an issue. You don't hit people, you don't kick dogs, you don't pull the wings off flies, you don't take pleasure in administering physical harm. This teaching should be absolute and not watered down to boys shouldn't hit girls.

There are exceptional circumstances where force is required the most obvious being self defence, if someone came at me or my kids with a knife I would hit them without a second thought, as hard as I could. If someone tried to slap me I would grab their wrist to prevent it, if they were of a physical stature where this would not suffice I would use further reasonable force to try to defend myself. This is all just the sort of legal premise discussed in law where the process is to determine whether the act of violence in self defence was done with reasonable force. Its only worth mentioning here to distinguish REASONABLE self defence as valid and separate from the main argument.

So now you can take the original question and change it to "Could you forgive someone who beat someone else up" to get to the core of what is being asked.

In answer to this I would say as humans we are all capable of mistakes and its how we learn from those mistakes that defines us. It’s important to distinguish between forgiveness and trust however as establishing one does not automatically establish the other. The willingness by a victim to forgive should always be dependent on an understanding by the offender of why it happened. A full acceptance of blame on their part, a genuine feeling of remorse for what they have done, an understanding of the effect and repercussions, a full commitment to learn from it and ensure they do their utmost to ensure it never happens again. If they can establish this for themself they are then in a position to ask for forgiveness. If through talking to the victim and establishing the above and the victim believes they have learnt and demonstrated they have learnt from the act they can decide to forgive.
Forgiveness in my view is a human quality and someone being willing to forgive should not make them appear weak in the eyes of others, it should not however be given lightly or prematurely. To me all forgiveness is, is a recognition that the other person accepts their guilt and is genuine in their apology and wanting to seek redemption and to change for their own good.

This however does not guarantee trust and this is where people should consider in more depth. Using the context of an act of violence in a relationship for instance, they may forgive, they may accept the human flaw and see and believe the other person is sorry, remorseful and determined to try to change, but this does not mean they can and should trust them to succeed. Trust needs to run much deeper, you may forgive, but if with every sharp movement you flinch or with every raised voice you cower then trust has not been established and without that you can never retrieve what was lost. In this sense it may be best to accept, forgive and maybe even to still love but to separate as the damage is irreparable.

This is all too complex and involves far too much soul searching to ask a simple question and receive a simple response (as if I ever give simple responses ha!) so I would change the question again simply and if someone ever asked me as to whether they should offer forgiveness for any act committed against them, I would probably outline my thoughts as above and then just simply ask them (as they ultimately have to choose) "well can you forgive and can you then forget?".

 

[SophiaGrace]

This is a stupid ******* thread.

I agree. It treads perilously close to condoning abuse of women by giving people the opportunity to victim blame and condoning this sort of thing.

 

[The Good Citizen]

This is a stupid ******* thread.

I agree. It treads perilously close to condoning abuse of women by giving people the opportunity to victim blame and condoning this sort of thing.

No it doesn't, I've just read the whole thread and the consensus is violence against women is not acceptable. There is no suggestion of blaming the victim. Some have pointed out self defence should be allowed. Some may forgive while others may not its a personal choice. Others have raised the point that violence in all forms is wrong by or against either gender. There is not a suggestion that violence is condoned being expressed here after 4 pages and it's a worthwhile discussion to have in my view. We're all adults after all and we should be able to discuss difficult issues, which is the case here.

 

[SophiaGrace]

Okay. You may be right, and are, in fact, probably right. I'd like to point out though that adults can be sexist as well and pleny of adults don't know to debate without throwing around personal insults.

 

[The Good Citizen]

True, true but we have Sci-Fi and he rarely puts up with any shenanigans

 

[Tear of the Goddess]

Unforgivable.

 

[WallflowerGirl83]

No. I watched my mother get beat up by my father when I was a little girl...
Than I dated a guy who verbally abused me and controlled me.
It's never okay! Never!