[Livia]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

Lets take relationships out of the equation though.

Say you were out in a bar. And a guy randomly punched a woman. Would this be worse than a guy randomly punching another guy?

If so, lets imagine the man that got randomly punched, was a really weak guy, smaller than the woman in the hypothetical situation.

All violence is wrong. Legally, that attack in the bar, whether it be on a man or a woman, whether the man or woman was as weak as a kitten or a body builder, would carry the same sentence, mitigating circumstances aside. Morally though, I think most people would be more appalled at a man hitting a woman. This could be because - generally - all through history, men have been the ones who have gone to war and been expected to endure a certain amount of violence in their lives from childhood, their games being rougher generally, than girls games. Whereas women's role has been to nurse, teach and raise children. Also men are generally accepted to be physically stronger than women. There are some exceptions to this, but we have to talk generally unless there is a particular example put forward to discuss.

Domestic violence is different from a random attack in a bar where alcohol and poor judgement comes into play. One party is subjected - usually - to sustained attacks, both physical and mental. It is usually perpetrated by a man against a women, but not always. People who abuse in this way are bullies and need help to deal with their aggression, but first they need to accept they have a problem, which not many of them do. The other problem is that, in order for the police to prosecute an abuser, his (or her) victim needs to press charges, which they are often scared to do.

Either way, I'm sure we're all agreed that violence is never the answer.