Downsides to equality.

Something I was reading brought this up, and it didn't take long for me to decide where I stood intellectually, even if my emotional reactions do not quite match. It has to do with violence between genders.

of course, first a disclaimer, in general, violence is the wrong solution to most problems. Moving on...

"It's never OK to hit a woman." This is part of the code of being a gentleman, or being chivalrous, or various other codes that put the man in the position of protector over the weaker woman.

Yet it is also the cry of many feminists and other groups that push equality...

the problem is, any time you specifically say something is not right to do against women, you imply it is OK against a man. and this is not equality. Saying 'it's never OK to hit a person." is at least not hypocritical.

Under circumstances where it is OK to hit a guy (say, a mugger, or attacking you with a knife, or what ever.) , it is OK to hit a woman. This is not abuse, or at least, not any more abusive than it is against guys. True equality comes with bad things sometimes too. The gentleman who would never hit a woman, is also the same guy who assumes that a woman is a delicate creature that needs protecting. It's a built in assumption to the phrase "never hit a woman".

My emotional reaction is such that I'm still going to be 10 times more reluctant to hit a woman than a man, due to my upbringing, but for true equality, any phrase that treats women differently than men needs to be dropped or modified, as we continue moving forward.