Double Standard Abuse Female On Male / Pro Wrestling

• TNA Impact has had a rule imposed on it by Spike TV that they can never, ever show men using violence against women.^note Particularly ridiculous, as Spike never had problems showing men using violence against women in any other of their shows. See also: the USA Network complaining about this in WWE when roughly half their schedule is repeats of a show about rapists and pedophiles The reverse of this is not true, and, as TNA discovered when they ran a storyline where Cody Deaner stole the women's championship belt and claimed to be the champion, this applies even within the confines of a sanctioned wrestling match. Therefore, every single match where a woman was trying to reclaim the belt had the woman absolutely beat the crap out of Deaner for 3-4 minutes, with Deaner getting absolutely no offense whatsoever in, only for him to either win in the end with a fluke roll up, or lose and sneak away with the belt anyway. The aftereffects of this killed his TNA career.
• The WWE Video Games used to avert this trope. Around the time the WWE went PG, though, this standard became apparent. A man can't hit a woman at all, whether it be by accident, self-defense, or in a sanctioned match without being disqualified. The only time a man and a woman can be in the same match are if a woman comes out with a guy, or in a mixed tag match, where if a man tags in a woman, he has to leave the ring or get a DQ. A man can be disqualified for hitting a woman, even if she isn't part of the match at all.
• Pro Wrestling usually averts this trope. One of the unwritten rules of the ring is that if you attack a wrestler you are fair game regardless of your gender. The crowd usually cheer when an abusive bitch gets her comeuppance.
  • That said, these cases will still usually have a bizarre tendency either reply by smacking the attacking woman to send her reeling or hitting them with their finishing move, with very little in between.
• Intergender matches tend to have the woman as the face and the man as the heel. Whenever it's done the other way round, the woman has to be especially despicable and go to extremes to make the crowd boo her.
• Completely averted in 2013 when Kaitlyn went mad from AJ's treatment of her and hit a referee during a fit of rage. She was Kayfabe fined $1000 and it was presented as her going off the deep end. Though when Kaitlyn went to apologize to the referee, he was more annoyed about being embarrassed in front his co-workers for being hit by a woman.
• Also averted with regards to Eve's abuse of Zack Ryder. While it was entirely emotional abuse (manipulating him into believing she had feelings for him), she was still portrayed as unambiguously evil. When she kicked him in the balls at WrestleMania, it solidified her villainy — and she got a slapsticky comeuppance a couple of months later.
• Averted heavily in the case of Chyna, who wrestled in the men's division for most of her time as an active wrestler. She was in the Royal Rumble, the King of the Ring tournament, and was a two-time Intercontinental Champion. At no point did anyone take it easy on her.
• These days (since about 2009), the WWE plays it more-or-less entirely straight. On the very rare occasions that there is man-on-woman violence it is almost always depicted as an accident and treated as deadly serious. Meanwhile, Stephanie McMahnon has slapped half the roster in the face and pretty much any time there's any sort of mixed gender matches, the female babyface will wind up doing some sort of offense onto a male heel.
  • However, Stephanie is so detested that even if she took bumps, audiences usually loved it.She was accidentally close-lined by Reigns when Triple H dodged, and nobody was too concerned.
  • But it's played straighter during the mixed tag-team match in Wrestlemania 34 with Stephanie & Triple H vs. Ronda Rousey and Kurt Angle.
    • When Stephanie tries to kick Kurt, he catches her ankle and the ref comes over to stop him, but he proceeds to ankle-lock Steph.
    • When Ronda goes after Triple H, the ref ushers him back but Triple H gets him to move to the side so he can oblige Ronda, smirking amusedly. But she ends up clobbering him into the corner.
    • Trying to protect Stephanie, Triple H grabs Ronda's leg and yanks her from the ring causing her to slam onto the floor. The ref can be heard yelling at Triple H that he can't do that.
• James Ellsworth receives this treatment by his "homegirl" Carmella. After one fuck-up too many while interfering in Carmella's matches, she berated Ellsworth in front of the crowd and fired him. Ellsworth later begged her forgiveness, which Carmella reluctantly accepted following a kiss and a slap. The following week she put him on a leash (tying him to the ring post while she wrestled) made him dress like a dog, bark, eat dog food and talk to him as such. There was a huge outrage when Vince McMahon did something similar to Trish Stratus (in the Attitude Era of all places), and while Carmella's actions are not necessarily portrayed as being okay (as she's a heel), there's no way in hell this would be allowed to air on current PG WWE TV if the genders were reversed. However, after a while they tried to justify it by having James suddenly start behaving like a sexist pig towards Becky Lynch, which led to her kicking his ass in an intergender match, and Carmella kicking him in the face unprovoked. There were even times the entire SmackDown women's division could be seen attacking Ellsworth, including Carmella, without a hint of self-awareness from any of the ladies that the very person who sicced Ellsworth on the division and used him to get to the top was helping them beat him down for his actions and comments. Ellsworth was released shortly after this.
• Averted with Tessa Blanchard who has legitimately wrestled men and is the only woman to have held the EWA Heavyweight Title and EWA Florida Heavyweight Title. She's also wrestled the likes of Sami Callihan at IMPACT Wrestling Slammiversary XVII in the first intergender match to main event a national PPV. She didn't win, and men she faces off against do not hold back on her.
• Mickie James, who was presented as the face in the situation, lost her Women's Championship to Melina and then slapped interviewer Todd Grisham, a Non-Action Guy who was interviewing her about the loss as part of his job. Male wrestlers assaulting female interviewees was usually the signal for a heel turn, but Mickie was a face throughout the situation.

---