A note concerning the statement that men should never hit women.

Twice last week I had presented to me the idea that a man should never hit a woman for any reason. The first was in a form of an image that simply presented the statement. The second time was during a conversation with a very good friend of mine. I never really knew that this was a statement I felt so strongly about until that conversation, and in this I would like to refute it. During this process I will quote my friend several times, as he is the one who brought up the points that I would like to discuss.

I want to begin by saying that, if someone hits you, whether they are male or female, you have the right to defend yourself. If they are going to hit you again, then hit back. Just because someone is a woman does not mean that you cannot defend yourself against her. When I posed this to my friend, I was given the response,

"And no I will take a beating from a woman before I swing. Not saying it wouldn't hurt, but my mom and dad raised me with manners, which is something that few people have now days."

I want to point something out. Manners refers to customs or a way of living. Saying please and thank you is, in our society, manners. Taking a beating is not. When someone hits you and intends to continue hitting you, manners do not dictate that you continue to take a beating and possibly suffer serious injury. That, simply put, is stupidity.

My second argument against the idea that men should never hit women is that it is sexist. Yes, I know that card has been played before, but I have a different take on it than some people do. I believe that it is sexist in favor of women, not against them. I believe that using this statement is a way for people to elevate the female sex above men. Why? Because it is an enabling statement. Look at it this way. If we turned the statement that men should never hit women into a rule that we had to live by, what would happen? Women could hit men as much as they wanted and the man would not be allowed to hit back. Essentially, we could do what we wanted without fear of being physically reprimanded. Men would not have that protection. Now, this is most likely not going to happen, but if this statement were put into law, then what would be to stop it from turning into a situation like this? In short, it enables women to push men around more than they already do.

Of course, I also see it as sexist against women, because I believe that it does promote a certain sense of inequality because it suggests that women are somehow more delicate, weaker than, or deserve different treatment than men. We will never be completely equal because of our physical differences, but that does not mean that we should have values that demand that men treat women better than they treat other men.

Near the beginning of the conversation, my friend made this statement:

"(not trying to be sexists) but I don't hit women. That's the right way and the way I was raised, actually since birth. And I wouldn't wanna be raised any other way. mom and dad did a good job at raising me."

Apart from the atrocious grammar and spelling, I can point out a significant mistake in this statement. Refusing to hit women is not the right way. I'm not saying it's the wrong way, either, but there is no right way, whether it was the way you were raised or not. Since we're talking about what I think here, I will say that it is both the wrong and the right way. Should you hit a woman for a reason other than self defense? No. That's not acceptable. Should you hit a woman if she is throwing punches, running at you with a knife, or otherwise threatening your well being? Yes! Getting seriously injured just because you won't hit a woman is stupid.

I want to make one final point concerning this statement. Unless it's in self defense or to protect someone else, you should never hit anyone. Not women. Not men. Not children. Not adults. Hitting is not okay. Ever. Women aren't the only ones men shouldn't be hitting. Men shouldn't be hitting each other. Men shouldn't hit children. How come those statements aren't running around along with "men should never hit women"? Where is the statement that says women should never hit men?

This statement is flawed, wrong, medieval, and no longer relevant to society today. No, men shouldn't run around hitting women. This is true. But you should defend yourself if attacked by a person, not let yourself get hurt because the person is female. Nor should women hit men, because that is equally unacceptable. Women have been victimized by men throughout history, but there are also men who have been victimized by women. We're not equal. We never will be. But that doesn't mean we need to continue to hang onto such an unequal, narrow-minded, foolish statement.

We are all human. Humans should never hit humans.

SOS Venezuela

I play on a SIM website that is about lions and creating your own pride. We have a variety of different nationalities that are represented on the site. I wanted to share this with my friends on Facebook...


"Like many other players in Lioden, I don't live in the USA: when I first joined this Sim, I was actually amazed with the ethnical diversity and the friendliness of the LD community. I'm proud to say I belong to such a marvelous game, where people from all around the world can get along so well, no matter where they come from.

It is because of this kind nature we all seem to share, I thought of posting this thread: as I stated before, I'm not northamerican, but actually venezuelan. Some of you may have heard of the struggle my country is going through: students from all around the venezuelan states rose to protest in the name of freedom, without weapons... and our current, illegitimate leader, dictator Nicolas Maduro, sent the Guardia Nacional Bolivariana (equivalent to USA's military infantry), to arrest, SHOOT and KILL those brave students, who dared oppose him in a PACIFIC protest.

Whomever tried to give the defenseless students refuge from the GNB would be arrested or, if "necessary", killed too. Our capital city, Caracas, closed it's gates to the rest of the country AND the rest of the world, not letting anyone in or out. All the communication services were brought down or censored for good, including a colombian tv channel wich tried to broadcast what was happening. Students barricated themselves inside buildings, and the GNB used tear gas to get them out. The police, instead of protecting the civillians, joined the GNB in it's bloody pursue, and many officers have taken the chance to beat them mercilessly, almost to death. They broke our political and diplomatic ties with other countries, closing their embassies, both ours and those from the other nations. Believe me, this is just the tip of the iceberg...

I created this thread to inform people, to let the world know what's going on in Venezuela, how we need help, support, someone to listen to our pleas: all around the internet, wherever we can, us venezuelans are trying to raise other nations awareness of our dire situation. Like me, right now, native people from Venezuela are trying to let our voice be heard, wether we're currently living there or not, because our family and friends are still there, and we love our nation. Let everyone know Venezuela is bleeding, suffering, dying, every single day. It hasn't stopped, it won't stop until we do something: tell your friends on LD, tell your friends on school, college, work, your family, your neighbors!

I'll check this thread on a daily basis: those who support Venezuela, or want to know more about what's happening right now, feel free to post your questions and/or comments here.

SOS Venezuela."

Religion and Spirituality

Those who are reading this may or may not know that I was raised as a Christian. My mom took me - and later forced me - to go to church and pray before dinner and things like that. When I transferred from college in Montana to a college at home in Oregon, I dropped the identifier of "Christian" and began to refer to myself as "spiritual" - specifically, spiritual but not religious.

The school I attended in Montana was affiliated with the Catholic church. Some of the people I knew here were a bit confused by my decision. Catholics and Christians don't always get along very well because of the differences in their belief systems. They have the same base beliefs - that God created the world and then sent his son to save humans from their sins in the ultimate sacrifice. After that things start to get blurry and the two split away from each other. Coming from a Baptist church, my experience is that Catholicism is more ritualized and focuses on doctrines whereas we focused on forging a relationship with God and developing a strong Christian family and reaching out to those around us. Not that that made us better, of course. In some ways, we were worse.

Montana was bad for me. I never should have gone. I experienced things that no person should ever have to experience. But I also experienced some spiritual attacks that originated in the Catholic church. Now, I want to be clear that I am not saying Catholics are jerks, or wrong, or bad. I know some awesome, loving, faithful Catholic people who deserve all of the good things in the world and a place in heaven with God someday. The goal of this is to simply share some experiences and observations that I made while experiencing the tensions between two religious groups that share the same history.

I went on a retreat through my college that was supposed to be open to all women of all walks of life. Being Catholic was not required. I wouldn't have gone if I had known what I would be dealing with. I already felt left out because there were so many things I wasn't allowed to participate in because I wasn't Catholic, communion being one of them, and perhaps the one that pissed me off the most. But on this retreat we had a guest speaker. I'm sure she was a great person and all, but some of the things she said were absolutely unacceptable. Ultimately, though in less direct terms, she said that if you weren't Catholic then you weren't Christian. I checked out of the retreat at that point and hid in the basement where everyone was sleeping. I got a lot of homework done that weekend. The sad part is, that wasn't the first part of the retreat that made me feel unwelcome.

That was the only direct insult to my faith during the time. The other insults came indirectly from policies within the Catholic church that controlled who could do what. I already mentioned not being allowed to take communion, so I'll use that as my example.

Transubstantiation is the idea that the wine and bread actually physically becomes the blood and body of Jesus during communion (which resulted in Christians being seen as cannibals during part of history). The Catholic church still believes this and holds onto this idea. It is one of their doctrines. I'm not an expert on Catholicism and their beliefs, but I did have this one explained to me. A significant number of protestant denominations do not hold on to this belief, instead believing that the bread and wine are merely a representation. Essentially, this is why Catholic churches do not allow other people to take communion. It may not be the intent, but the basic message is that other Christian's believe the wrong thing if they do not believe in transubstantiation. There are, of course, the classes that Catholic members have to take before they are allowed to participate in communion, but other churches have similar classes. As long as someone understands the purpose of communion and believes, they should be allowed to take it.

This, at least, is how I was made to feel. I could, of course, go up and be blessed by a priest, but why would I want to do that? If I was at a mass it was because I wanted to commune with and worship God, not be blessed by someone who was just as human as I was. On top of that, it singled me out as different, when really I wasn't. I had to show everyone that I wasn't like them by crossing my arms across my chest. That was exactly why I never got up for communion, and part of why I left mass early multiple times or refused to go at all. I participated in maybe three or four when I was in Montana, at least one of which I had to leave early so I wouldn't burst into tears.

This is a big part of why I no longer identify myself with a religious term, such as Christian or Baptist. I am spiritual, and for me that is enough. I made the decision once before, when I was in high school, but that was typical teenage questioning. Even so, there was one important person who treated me like I was a disease for that short period of time. That hurt more than anything and is yet another reason why I am no longer religious. The final reason why comes in the form of the isolated cases in which I was looked down on after coming out as bisexual several years ago.

There was at least one person who, upon seeing my Facebook page, where I openly display my values and my identity, did not think that I should be allowed to work with the kids at church. At the time I had volunteered to help teach Children's Church during service, so that the kids didn't have to sit through boring sermons and distract everyone. I would have been teaching them about God's love, miracles, different Bible stories, and more. Nothing to do with bisexuality at all. The sad part was that the people who had a problem with it didn't even have the balls to say it to my face, to put it bluntly. They hid behind my mom, who in turn came to me. While she is not completely accepting of what I identify as, she loves me and she was angry that anyone would say things like that about her daughter. I was just angry that they didn't say it to my face.

Religion opens up too many doors for discrimination, judgments of people, and hate. There are too many complexities and too many reasons for people to fight and argue and hate each other. Spirituality is simple. You believe what you believe because you value it and because you believe that it's the truth. No rules, no doctrines, no necessary rituals. It is what you need it to be. And though God and I have some issues to straighten out, I feel closer to him now that I do not view myself as part of a church.