Judging from the popularity on and off screen of personas depicted by earlier stars like Sean Connery and Errol Flynn, the commonly accepted solution to a hysterical woman’s verbal abuse was a well-timed slap followed by an earnest rogering to soothe her feminine dissatisfaction.
How things have changed. The horror genre aside, today widespread feminist advocacy has largely eliminated gratuitous violence against women in film. Women have been educated to be more aware and now reject that violence. Films perceived to use violence to gratify male viewers in these or any other ways provoke modern women to extreme reactions. For these reasons, though stories of women who’ve been victims of violence are still seen as courageous, the depiction of that violence remains an extremely sensitive issue. Hidden messages that “she deserved it” are quickly detected as a form of covert violence in itself. Women are extremely unlikely to use their entertainment dollars to support films depicting sexual or other violence against unsympathetic women.
Strangely enough movies themselves haven’t become less violent though. Today’s movies are full of fearless kick ass chicks. Men may not appreciate the importance of this change to women because male audiences have always had male on screen action heroes to cheer. Guys like Stallone and Schwarzenegger portrayed the very definition of tough by surviving being knocked out, tortured, stabbed, burned, and shot, before coming back and unleashing hell. Schwarzenegger said it best in Terminator: “I’ll be back”. But now female audiences now have women action heroes too. Decidedly feminine, these “Grrls” don’t try to “out man” their male action hero counterparts. They fight in high heels while never quite losing their perfect makeup and hair. All these women are too skilled in the ninja arts to ever catch a real beating from any man they engage in fisticuffs with, and they never back down from any confrontation that brings them standing toe to toe with one. When they fight men they never lose, and they’re ready to fight all the time.
With all the thrashings being handed out by these ladies, it seems that the appetite for violence against men has actually increased with the decrease in movie violence against women. Perhaps that’s because as audiences we’re still allowed to enjoy the most appalling violence against men. Recent Sci-fi thriller Lockout was a great example. Killings of males were flying on to the screen left right and center with no more significance to the storyline than flies hitting a speeding windshield. By contrast the director brought an entire room full of crazy prisoners to momentary pause during a jail break just to add significance to the death of one inconsequential female character. Having been given the appropriate attention she was able to deliver her final lines.
Feminists advocate for eliminating depictions of violence against women in movies because they say it promotes violence against women in real life. If true it brings us to reconsider the depiction of physical aggression of women against men and the depicted lack of consequences of that aggression which we see so often in today’s movies. Does the pervasiveness of these images impact women in real life?
That may be exactly what’s happening. A 2006 study in the American Journal of Health found that women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases where one partner was violent, and that women initiated violence the majority of the time. The worst violence occurred in cases where both partners were violent. In other words things didn’t really get bad until it turned into a fight. Unlike the movies, when women initiate violence and men react the consequences are sometimes severe.
The fact that the abuser was the woman in 70% of cases where one partner was violent brings up another issue. Domestic violence puts men at tremendous legal risk. Even police officers confess that when they show up to a domestic violence call the general policy is “arrest the man”. Men accused of domestic violence are routinely evicted from their homes by force, and denied access to their children with no trial and no evidence other than her word – said in the heat of the moment. The losses he might suffer as a consequence often have permanent repercussions in terms of child custody and divorce, not to mention serious repercussions in the criminal justice system.
So men may be physically stronger, but these huge risks mean women who attack men clearly not only put themselves in danger of violent repercussions, but much more often also put the men in danger of serious legal trouble. Unfortunately the number of false abuse claims show some women understand all too well their power to misuse and manipulate the system to the detriment of innocent men.
All this brings me to the point, which is finding a more modern way for men to defend themselves from being so afraid to stand their ground in relationships that they become emasculated. Unfortunately rather than appeasing an abusive woman this strategy often just culminates in her legally harassing him after the relationship is over.
If, like me, you have a crazy great uncle, his solution might be “a slap followed by a good rogering”. In his day men might have derided a henpecked man as either being unable to control or satisfy his woman, or both. Don’t listen to him. Nothing could be more insanely dangerous to you in this world where sexual consent only occurred if a woman says it did, and where she’s at liberty to change her mind and revoke that consent at any time after the fact. There’s no safe way to react. We have to focus instead on prevention.
Today’s “go girl” culture demands empowerment through depictions of fist fighting movie heroines who show no restraint whatsoever in taking on men. If aggressive women are more likely to file false abuse charges, there’s a legitimate argument that these images create a culture of women prone to verbal and legal abuse that has serious life altering consequences for the men who come up against it. Perhaps these images of aggressive women in movies are where we should target our efforts. Is it time we advocate against violent movie heroines as being responsible for the legal abuse culture victimizing men?
