I remember in elementary school tussles escalated to ‘meet you at the bike racks after school’. There would be some wildly ineffective punches thrown, maybe a torn shirt, and the next day the kids would be riding their bikes to school together again.
This is what I was trying to illustrate, thank you. Obviously, there are situations that are extreme and absolutely require adult intervention, situations well shy of the broken bones and sexual assault that
@Tis_Bearself mentioned. But I don’t think we need to immediately call out the National Guard because Tommy and Billy got into a shoving match, or be shocked that twelve year old boys are going to get into stupid tussles.
Like, I don’t think it’s bad that the kid I mentioned from camp learned, “Oh, if I act like an obnoxious idiot, eventually I’m going to get called on it, and no one is going to be sympathetic if I’ve brought it on myself.” I’d much rather he learn that lesson as a 12 year old who got a fat lip than a 25 year old who gets shot by someone in a road rage incident because he never learned to control his mouth. And I think that if the kid who smacked him had started seriously pummeling him when it was clear that he was down and out, crowd sympathy would’ve swung against him pretty fast, which would have been a lesson for that kid about fair fights and when enough is enough.
This is pretty extreme. I doubt any man would do this. There are also a lot of women who would go right behind him with their own bat or gun, because they love him and they are tough.
Of course. But I think we’d all instinctively judge a man who stayed in the bedroom while his wife went to confront the danger in a way we wouldn’t judge a woman. We kind of unconsiously expect the man to have primary “protector” duties. That’s not to say there aren’t super bada$$ women out there. I’m sure Ronda Rousey would have me on my butt in five seconds. I’m talking about general expectations here.
I guess what I’m saying at bottom is that it’s okay to recognize that some virtues are more commonly associated with masculinity and some with femininity, and that’s not just a result of the accretion of societal expectations. Some of that is innate. That’s not to say you can’t find plenty of examples of women displaying physical courage throughout history.
