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Double Standard Abuse Female On Male / Comic Books
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  • Asterix:
    • Asterix's relationship with Straw Feminist Bravura in Asterix and the Secret Weapon. Bravura uses her size advantage on him to physically, mentally, and sexually abuse him, forcibly moving into his house, casually smacking him on the behind, picking him up a lot, gaslighting him, and ignoring all of his constant protestations. At one point, when he turns down a marriage proposal from her, she scoops him up and forces a kiss on him, so he punches her to get away, immediately feeling terrible about it and being ostracised for it by the other villagers. When Asterix attempts to vent to Obelix about how dismayed with himself he is for hitting a woman, Obelix just teases Asterix about his 'thing' for her and spreads rumors around to the other men that he likes Bravura. In the final act, he suddenly changes his mind about Bravura after seeing her slap a Roman centurion, they plot together to defeat the villain of the week in a way full of romantic Double Entendre ("It's my turn to make you a proposal!"), and the final page shows them demurely kissing and making up, with the implication that Asterix did indeed have a thing for her.
    • The feminist backlash against this book in French-speaking Canada was based around the scene where Asterix hits Bravura, even though she was clearly the abuser, and even though there are things going on in the book that are so much more sexist and insulting. One of the main campaigners admitted to Uderzo that she did not read the book and that when she gave it to her teenage feminist daughter to read, she thought her mother was overreacting.
    • In addition to the above, the hitting of Bravura by Asterix is hardly any worse than the punching of numerous Romans throughout 50 previous books, all of which have been happily treated as a joke.
    • In the same story, the incident that causes Cacofonix to leave the village is getting a black eye from Fulliautomatix's wife. Everyone in the village is sad he's leaving, but considers it to have been Cacofonix's responsibility not to get hit by her in the first place, and his own weakness in deciding he'd leave merely because a woman hit him. The reader is supposed to feel sorry for him, though.
  • The Flash: In Impulse, one issue deals with one of Bart Allen's classmates being the victim of child abuse, it's treated as an Ass Pull that it's his mother beating him, and that his stepfather actually loves him and had no idea. In a later issue, the boy's mother gets visited in the mental hospital she was put in; DC stories have always treated abusive fathers as monsters deserving of jail (preferably after a severe beating from a furious superhero), so this trope goes into effect when an abusive mother is treated as someone with mental problems she needs help resolving instead.
  • Hawkeye: In Hawkeye (2012) #9, this is subverted when Spider-Woman finds out that Hawkeye had slept with another woman, despite being in a sorta-relationship with her (it's not made clear exactly, but the implication is that Clint didn't think they were in a serious, closed relationship). She then slaps him twice and tries to hit him a third time, but he stops her and says that, while she's angry, she doesn't get to do that. Should be noted that Spider-Woman has super-strength and could easily crack his skull, while he's a Badass Normal with no defense.
  • Knights of the Dinner Table: Sara and Sheila are the two main offenders in the comic. Sara regularly grabs Dave by the shirt collar (once ripping out his chest hair) as retribution for an ill-advised sexist remark. Sheila appears to have punched out just about every man in the strip at some point, and it's always Played for Laughs. They have both drawn a degree of ire from some fans for this reason. This has been evening out somewhat in recent years – in that Sara has been receiving as much abuse as she’s been handing out.
  • Les Légendaires:
    • Gryf's love interests Shun-Day and Shimy both abuse him physically at some points, and it's always played for laughs.
    • Sheyla's violence on her brother Razzia was slightly played for laughs in a flashback, when she had just rescued him from bullies and was mad he didn't defend himself. Ironically enough, he eventually learnt how to fight and became stronger than her, only to end up killing her by mistake when they end up on opposite sides.
    • Tenebris has moments hitting Razzia during Book 13 when he start displaying peeping moments when seeing Jadina in underwears. This is gradually deconstructed as the book goes however, with her becoming more and more aggressive as the story goes, in a less and less funny way (she ends up threatening him to cut his other arm off when he calls her out for trying to kill Kasino's assassins and taking pleasure to it). It's eventually revealed that Abyss brainwashed her with his Puppeteer Parasite abilities.
    • Amusingly enough, the same book portrays an inversion of this trope on the villains' side: when Count Kasino finds out his female assassin Bodyguard Babes has failed to kill his cousins, he starts insulting them and threatening them with a sword. Which is played as comedy.
  • The Maxx: Deconstructed through the back-story of Mr. Gone, the main villain, who was sexually abused as a child by his aunt, who subsequently blamed him for the abuse. His inability to seek serious therapy and sympathy from others exacerbates the psychological problems that poison his relationships with his three ex-wives, and cause him to ultimately take out his self-hate and shame on several women through rape and serial killing.
  • Monica's Gang: The series is pretty much this in spades when it comes to Monica and most of the boys (especially Jimmy Five and Smudge). While early comics showed that Monica would beat up anybody but her own parents (even her best friend Maggy wasn't safe), later comics go out of the way to establish that she only beats up boys (and sometimes grown men), and if she hits a girl, it's always by accident. A few times when Jimmy Five gains enough courage (and Super-Strength) to get back at her, it's always treated as a bad thing (although not to an extent where parents have to interfere), but Monica is always treated as being on the right by solving her problems with violence (something her family may or may not advocate). It doesn't help that most of the time, she only uses her strength to mend her own pride (such as petty insults thrown at her by the boys, but if another girl does it, Monica either hesitates or becomes heartbroken over the "betrayal") rather than to actually help others.
  • Scott Pilgrim: In the "free comic day" comic, Scott is attacked by female ninjas and, much to the chagrin of Ramona and Wallace, refuses to defend himself because he doesn't want to hit a girl. Missing the opportunity to tackle the issue in a meaningful way, it's instead Played for Laughs.
    Scott Pilgrim says...
    Sometimes girls can be very, very mean. They might pull your hair or kick you in the shins really hard. It can feel like they're sticking razor blades in your heart. Or maybe they actually are sticking razor blades in your heart. Just remember, in real life you should never hit a girl. Unless it's a serious emergency.
  • Tessie the Typist: Tessie is frequently portrayed as a controlling jerkass and sometimes physically abusive to her boyfriend Skidsy, which is generally played for laughs. In "Taxi Trouble" (#13) she insists he takes her to a concert by taxi, but Tessie's unreasonable behavior means they lose their first four taxis and arrive at the concert hall very late, just as everyone's leaving. Tessie then takes it out on Skidsy, leaving him shocked and dazed with a black eye, while claiming it's all his fault, because he insisted on getting a taxi. It's presented as a funny ending.
  • What's New? with Phil and Dixie: Dixie regularly smacks, punches, or hammer-KOs her partner Phil, which combines this trope with Take That Me because he's Phil Foglio's Author Avatar.
  • Oh Wicked Wanda: The Penthouse comic tended to have... questionable messages, but the ending stands out. The two female protagonists jump around time trying to change history, and eventually land in the future, in a desolate wasteland full of deserts and wrecked cars, and vocally agree that this is not good. Then a ragged, panicking man runs into them, and they see that he's chased by two savage women. Wanda reasons that women are now in charge, and immediately concludes that the world is in good hands.
  • The Wicked + The Divine: The violence in Baphomet and the Morrigan's relationship isn't played for laughs so much as normative fantasy-violence for two angry young people with horrible emotional regulation in a mutually dysfunctional relationship. But this trope is then subverted when the reveal that the Morrigan's been physically abusing Baphomet in revenge for him cheating on her is treated with appropriate levels of severity.
  • X-Men: Writer Chris Claremont loves "taking it out" on Scott Summers. In one issue, Madelyne Pryor punched Scott square in the face for daring to mention Jean again. The entire storyline involving the couple had Scott questioning his wife's identity. One of many unhealthy details behind the relationship. However, it should be noted that supervillain Mastermind had orchestrated things to lead to the altercation that culminated with the punch, so in that specific case things are muddled on account of both characters being subjected to external psionic influence. What really makes the scene an example of this trope is that Scott takes the punch that seems to come out of nowhere and thinks "I guess I deserved that." If the genders were reversed, a woman thinking she deserved to be punched by her lover would be seen as the greatest ´woobie ever.

Alternative Title(s): Comics

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