Equality

A woman throws a punch and then gets pepper-sprayed as protesters yelled outside a Trump event in Janesville Wisconsin Monday.


Ann Althouse writes,

The young woman is pepper sprayed, which looks terrible, but she's also seen smacking or trying to smack a man on the head. There's some confusing discussion of "groping." There might be a groping off camera. I've looked at several of the available angles, and I do see 2 hands holding her back, touching her on one shoulder (as she is getting very fervent vocally, aiming the word "fuck" right in the face of the white-haired man).

I'm connecting this incident with the San Francisco State dreadlocks confrontation — blogged here — and the charging of Corey Lewandowski. In the SFSU case, the woman grabs the man, and in the Corey Lewandowski case, the woman is touched only after she touches Donald Trump twice. There seems to be a traditional stereotype at play that ignores or minimizes battery by a female and holds the male responsible to refrain from doing anything physical, even in self-defense. It's an interesting stereotype. Perhaps you support it. The man should never hit the woman, even if she is hitting him. But how does that traditional model work in modern conditions of demanded equality, in which a woman actively participates in a rowdy protest or pursues journalism aggressively or instigates a confrontation with a passing stranger?