About disrespect
 

A couple of days ago, one of the morning crew of the radio station I liston to was verbaly abused by a guy that had been elimanated in a "The Batchler"-esque contest (She's finding a boyfriend). It happoned in the parking lot of a bar, so some drinking on both parts happoned. Still, she was there with some friends, one of which was about 30 feet away when this happoned. The course of events happoned as follows:

They see each other in the bar, and say hi.
The gril leaves, not really saying good bye to anyone, as she's a little tipsy.
The guy, who is a Marine officer I might add, spots her and approches her.
The guy starts cursing her out, saying how she didn't say good-bye to him or anything to that effect.
He continues to chew her out, not even letting her get a word in edgewise.
She's pretty much in tears when it's all over.


I swear, if someone tried that with me, I would flat out beat the $#it out of him. No one should ever do that to a woman just for the fact that she was just saying good-bye. But that's just me. Plus the fact that her friends nearby didn't do squat to help her during this is another thing that ticks me off. I mean, if you saw someone yelling and cursing at someone, would you go over and ask what's going on?

This isn't about the treatment of women then, it's about general disrespect for people.

Would I interfere? Likely not, because it would be hypocritical. I speak out against people interfering in other's lives. As such, were I to intercede, I would be acting against my own beliefs. That's what this boils down to as far as I see, people's beliefs.

If she were a friend of mine, hell yes I would get in his face. If he were attacking her, yes. But if it was a non-physical confrontation (no hitting etc) I would just let it be. MYOB and that.

My actions would really depend on the situation. If it’s like you said then I would intercede. If someone’s obviously over there head like this woman, its only right that you help them out. If she was holding her own in the verbal fight and it was just two people yelling at each other there would be no reason to intercede, but I might have stuck around in case verbal led to physical.

Also, if both sides have had a few drinks, it may not be a bad idea to make sure someone is ready to run for a phone to call for assistance. (Cops, medics, etc.)

Never, under any circumstances, is it acceptable for a man to hit a woman.

That being said, yelling at a woman is not so black and white. What you described seemed pretty "gray-area" to me. The woman could well have been in the wrong. I'd say that unless it gets violent, it's really not your place to interfere.

Under any circumstance? Not to put words in your mouth, but why- because women are "gentle, dainty, fragile creatures?" Women deserve a little more credit than that! I would think that if some prospective murderess was making a move, it'd be a justified circumstance to act out.

In the example Flarecobra mentioned, it seems that it was strictly a verbal argument. While it was extraordinarily out of line, threatening, and disrespectful of him, in a [drunken] situation like that, it's probably best to try to avoid escalating it through confrontation. If the verbal abuse suddenly becomes physical, then I think it'd be appropriate to call the police, get the attention of the bar manager, or otherwise intervene.

I'm in a style of martial arts that doesn't really make a big deal of the sex of a person training. After all when your getting mugged, or raped, you can't fall back on that women should never be hit principle. As such I've hit my fair share of ladies and have been hit by more than a few too. In general women can be just as dangerous as men and sometimes more so. Not that I'm saying it's a fair fight and that women never need help. But the kind of thinking that leads people to say women should never be hit leads to treating them like that guy did. You can not want to hit them because you don't like beating up on those weaker than you but it should never be taken to the point of she is female thus for some reason ebtitled to the special privledge that I should never fight back against her.

If a frail geek starts hitting you your going to stop him. You may not break his bones or through him to a wall but chances are you will stop him somehow. Women deserve the same consideration as any guy so long as you use the right amount of force to reslove the situation. Refusing them this is sexist in a not so convential sense but it is still sexist.

A lot of people my age are very, very disrepectful. Today, in Visual Arts 1, we got our progress reports, and this one guy got a 005% average (snicker). So he got all pissed off and started taking it out on the teacher, despite the fact that he got a 5 because he just kinda sits there all day.

But he was yelling at her and generally cursing her out. That was my last class of the day, so after leaving there, I met up with my friend and went to ask the Art teacher if we could use her phone and we found her in tears. It was really very depressing.

he must have went to the academy...

sorry, I just don't really like officers much. :)

On the topic, he was just venting his frustration at being dumped I guess. If she was too chicken to say anything in her defense, her own fault. None of anyones' business but their own.

Any physical altercation however, and the story changes. But, there was none, so I say it doesn't matter if she was the daintiest girl in the world or a steroid pumped weightlifting man, you reap what you sow, and you handle your own problems.

Besides, since she played the tears card, the guy probably ended up feeling worse than her in the end.

Is it disrespectful to voice your oppinions loudly? Not really. Its just emotion, yelling at someone doesn't necessarily denote a lack of respect, just a dire need to make ones' feelings known.

I don't think it would have been necessary to kick his ass just because he was loud, since he was only using words, you should do the same. A simple "get away from me you jerk" would have sufficed.