The morality's way too gray for me to take a hard stand on this one. Like a poster or two before me, I've been attacked/swung on by drunk girls in bars and nightclubs several times (luckily usually while working and rarely while drinking). Luckily, those situations have never necessitated that I actually -strike- the offending female. Worst occasion that comes to mind was a large hawaiian/pacific islander mixed breed woman sucker punched me because I had asked her to either put out the joint she was smoking, or take it outside. At about 6'2", this girl had 3'ish inches on me and probably 20-30 lbs, on top of which it was a pretty stiff cross that caught me right on the tip of my chin, and I'm not afraid to say that she straight rung my bell. If I hadn't been dazed, I might have swung back and gone up and up with her like she was a man. In stead, I kept my footing simply by half-falling and half-charging her, then half-tackling and half-fireman carrying her out the front entrance. By the time we get to the sidewalk, I'm halfway back to capacity and thinking clearly again and pissed off by the realization that this b*tch just f*ckin hit me, so I accelerated toward the curb and shot-putted that chunky broad into the street. Now, she hadn't followed up the initial punch with anything, and in retrospect, she really didn't struggle or fight to keep me from carrying her out, and if I'm being totally honest pitching her into slow moving traffic was not, in the strictest sense of the term, self defense. More along the lines of impulsive retribution.
I did however feel it was justified and I would do it again if it happened again. I'm also not above blasting another man in the mouth for intentionally disrespecting me, even in a purely verbal fashion. The pervading attitude where I grew up was that respect must be given to be deserved, that you don't play with people you don't know, and that you don't run your mouth if you're not willing to reap the consequences of what you say. The flip side of that coin is that, if I get my jaw jacked for disrespecting someone, though I'll do what I can to defend myself, I'll accept that his/her reaction is justified.
Anyway, lemme tie this back in before I go too far off into tangent land. . . as someone who's practiced this method, I feel that there is sometimes potential moral justification for a -controlled- violent response in situations outside of what could be called self defense. (Mind you, I don't believe that a society or law should follow this standard. I'm speaking purely to situations between individuals). My personal code doesn't allow -me- to instate this standard when the other party is female. . . I can't bring myself to striking a woman when no physical confrontation exists otherwise. I am, however, loose enough regarding other peoples' standards in relation to my own that I wouldn't -necessarily- condemn a man for implementing a similar standard that -did- include women.
In this regard, I'm also pretty lucky. Two of my female friends and my female cousin, all of whom are off-and-on central cast characters among my drinking buddies, can all scrap like men (the cousin I actually grew up fist fighting with. She was the 2nd person I ever punched in the face at like, age 6 lol). I say that I'm lucky because I've had more than a few occasions over the years when one of them was there to check retarded drunk girls before situations spilled over into that, "Can I hit her yet?" gray area. Girls should honestly chin check each other more often for running off at the mouth.
If everybody. . . -EVERYBODY- was in constant danger of being put in check physically for being a dick, I honestly believe the world would be far, far more tolerable.
