"Don't Beat Women" is the Wrong Societal Rule

Our society has a number of built-in moral rules that need to be changed. Much of the time it boils down to the way that a moral rule is stated.

The rule "don't beat women" is a great rule. Clearly it's morally correct rule that I support and abide by.

But it's the wrong rule to teach our children.

Teaching a child that the rule is "don't beat women" teaches them that women are different. Sure, they are. The context of the difference that gives rise to the societal moral rule "don't beat women" is that women are less physically strong and less able to defend themselves.

The child learns two things. First, "don't beat women." That's the good thing and the reason society continues to propogate the rule. The second thing the child learns is that women are weaker. It's implied. It's the logical conclusion of the statement. Children don't hear "don't beat men." So over time they learn that women are a special protected class because they're physically weaker.

The problem I have is with the second lesson (that women are weaker) is that while it's applicable to physical situations, it's not applicable to the rest of the world. In work environments, parenting situations and legal contexts women are equal. But the rules we state as a society regarding women make them different. The rule "don't beat women (implied: because they're weaker)" carries over to the work place.

Women are percieved unconsciously as weaker. Even though on the conscious level nobody would ever say that women are weaker in the work environment. When deciding who to hire as executive VP, the boss might say to him or herself "that VP is going to have to be strong to negotiate with the vendors and get us good prices." Strength is of virtue in business situations. But business strength has little to do with physical strength. (Although physical traits like height, bushy eyebrows and deep voice do pull at evolutionary Jungian cues, I'm willing to discount their effect for the purpose of this argument.) The societal rule "don't beat women (implied: because they're weaker)" is at play when the boss is making the decision. The boss decides to go with business strength (which is correct) but takes into account the notion of women's physical weakness (which is wrong).

My belief is that when society creates rules to physically protect women, those rules have negative effects in unexpected areas. Those rules, because of the way that they're stated, create inequalities.

The same applies to race rules, gender rules, age rules.

My argument is that by choosing different semantics to define the rules of our society we can create a more level playing field and take society to a higher level.

The rule "don't beat women" should be replaced with a more general rule stated as "don't beat people." The phrasing doesn't single out women as special. It doesn't invoke a weakness and derive a class difference when trying to protect women. It simply creates a higher order rule that protects all people.

Simple semantic game? Yes.

Important semantic game? Yes.

You: "But everybody already learns that beating people is wrong."

Me: "Yes, they do... which is great. But they also learn that beating women is especially super wrong."

You: "But isn't beating women especially super wrong?"

Me: "No, the notion that beating a woman is worse than beating a man is a societally-created notion that society thinks protects women."

You: "But the woman can't defend herself against a man."

Me: "I agree in many situations and would even concede most situations. But this is a simple problem to solve. Instead of building a punishment system based on classes of people (which necessarily separates people based on unimportant characteristics like gender, age or race), create a punishment system based on the amount of physical damage inflicted on the other person. Causing a black eye gets a misdemeanor. Causing brain damage puts you in jail."

You: "But women get beaten up more in fights than me. And what about kids? Are you telling me that hitting a kid gets the same punishment as hitting an adult man?"

Me: "No, I'm not telling you that hitting a kid gets the same punishment. I'm saying that doing the same damage to a kid gets the same punishment as doing the same physical damage to an adult. You're not focusing on the amount of damage, you're focusing on the general notion of a beating and assuming that the kid will get beaten up more."

You: "I'm not sure I understand."

Me: "Let's do a mental experiment. I (Joe Reger, 166 lbs, male, massive penis) haul off and hit two people as hard as I can. As absolutely hard as I can. One person that I hit is an adult male of roughly the same dimensions as me. The other person is a seven year old boy. What's the result?"

You: "The male of your size has a black eye and a headache. The seven year old boy has brain damage and loses sight in one eye. How the hell is it fair to punish you the same for both?"

Me: "I'm not punished the same for both. Remember, we created a system based on the amount of damage inflicted. Causing brain damage is certainly worse that causing a black eye. So I go to jail for hitting the kid as hard as I can and I get a misdemeanor ticket for hitting the male adult of my size as hard as I can."

You: "Oh, I see. But isn't the outcome the same as the system we have today where it's worse to hit women and children?"

Me: "Yes and no. On the physical punishment front the outcome is the same. And I think this is morally correct. Where the outcome isn't the same is outside of the situation at hand. Instead of putting me in jail because "kids are weaker" (whether that statement is explicit or implied), you're putting me in jail because I caused another human being massive damage. You're not creating a class of people that's defined as weaker."

You: "Ok, I see what you're saying about punishment based on the amount of damage inflicted. I see how in the real world because women and kids have less defenses they'll get beaten more and their beaters will incurr more punishment. But I'm still having a problem believing that we shouldn't have rules saying that beating women and kids is bad... whether those rules are legal or societal word-of-mouth."

Me: "I understand. It's a hard nut to crack. But you have to look beyond the differences and celebrate humanity as a whole. When you do this you take your beliefs to a higher level."

You: "But then beating a kid is just as bad as beating an adult male, isn't it?"

Me: "You're still applying the old way of thinking. You're thinking about beating a class of people. You're stereotyping. You've been taught since you were young that women and children are a protected class and that beating them is taboo. Think instead about all people as being equal. When you create punishment based on damage inflicted you can adjust the system however you like. Instead of beating a kid being less bad, the reality is that you can make beating a man more bad. But the way you do so is to completely ignore the fact that a male or a female is being beaten. By focusing on the fact that a person is beaten you create a higher order rule."

The key here is that when you make a statement in any context that a class of people is different, that statement has massive effects on all contexts regarding that person.

A much better rule is that hurting any person is wrong. Period. Any person. It's easy to identify people.

I know that society wants to protect those that are weaker. But in doing so they make society worse for those that they're trying to protect.

By being told from a young age that they're weaker, women may be less likely to get out of a relationship where their male partner is beating them. They're taught, via seemingly all-good moral codes like "don't beat women", that they are weaker.

But let's look at the same situation where the person being beaten is not female. Let's look at gay couples where there is one physically strong male and one physically weaker (smaller) male. I'm guessing that when the strong male beats the weak male the chances are better that the smaller male leaves the relationship. I don't have science to back me... just a sense that because the weaker male grew up in a society that celebrates his strength, he would leave more often than the woman in the same situation.

The percentage of times the gay weaker male leaves may not be much greater than the percentage of times that the woman leaves, but I'm guessing that research would show that the difference is there. Which would prove that our rule "don't beat women" can actually lead women to stay in situations where they're being beaten. That it has a negative effect.

(Please note that I'm in no way trying to argue that staying in an abusive relationship is a woman's fault.)

We can the debate the extent of negative impact that the rule "don't beat women" has. One may argue that the rule "don't beat women" acts as a deterrent... that men choose not to beat women because of the rule. But that paints beatings as a logical thing. They aren't. They're based on rage and anger. By the time you beat anybody you're not thinking rationally. We could go back and forth for a while.

There's nothing to say that society can't create a stronger, more general rule "don't beat people" that has the same deterrent effect... in fact that has all the same positive effects.

My point in all of this is that the way we state our societal rules defines the effect of those rules. We need to be careful to propogate those rules that create equality between all people. In the 1960's I could have written this same entry based on race. Today the issue of sexual orientation is on the forefront. In the early part of the 1900's it was women's rights.

I simply have a problem thinking in terms of classes of people. My belief is that any rule intended to protect a class of people needs to be extended to protect all people equally.

Stereotypes don't make sense. There are tons of women who could kick my ass. And I'd guess that the average woman could physically train herself to be stronger than the average male. Stereotypes just don't work.

It's very easy to classify people into groups. On certain planes, like the physical plane, there are clear differences that can be polarized and acted on. But the moment you create classes of people, real or implied, you have a billion grey areas to deal with. And so in dealing with the grey areas you make more rules to patch the leaking dam.

Before you know it you've lost the original intention of your rules. And you've done massive damage to the group you're trying to protect because you've singled them out... you've made them different.

Think through human history. Most of the big evil things (slavery, WW2, terrorism, etc) are based on a foundation that says people are different and then exploits those differences to justify some cause. The more you create rules in society that don't allow for differences the more you undercut those evil forces.

In a million years our physical differences will have been evolved out of us. Technology will continue to create a world where interbreeding is the norm. Imagine all of us looking exactly the same. No race. No gender (test tubes will eventually replace female birthing). You may think it's boring, but it's not. You've moved beyond the constraints of physical difference and you can focus on the much richer reality of humanity.

People are people. Shed your societally-created notions of difference. Celebrate a higher level of humanity. Celebrate experience, thought and culture.

Let's make beating people taboo. Slight shift... big implications.

"Don't beat people."

Update 2/8/05 (a couple days after I wrote this): I was watching The West Wing re-runs and there was some ERA discussion. One of the characters was anti-ERA and her justification was essentially my argument above... that such laws are redundant and highlight differences as opposed to celebrating unity. I woke Heather up and had her listen to it, but I think she was pretty much asleep. Always nice to see that at least somebody out there shares your view... even some Hollywood writer.