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Erron Black: I grew up around tough women.
Cassie Cage: Didn't they teach you respect?
Erron Black: They taught me to hit back.

A male character who rejects the values of so-called chivalry and treats his male and female opponents with equal rights and equal lefts.

If he's good, it's either because he's just not sexist and he believes in beating people up equally, or because he knows that holding back against female opponents is a good way to get his ass kicked or killed or endanger his friends/allies/muggles. Alternatively, it could be the victim who tries to argue that he shouldn't hit her because she's a woman; the narrative depicts the claim as wrong, allowing him to proceed. In all these scenarios, he will stop as soon as she's no longer a threat.

If he's evil, it could be done in a multitude of ways. On the best end of the scale, it could just be Equal-Opportunity Evil, like fighting Batgirl because she's a threat, and makes her look stronger when she beats him. More unpleasantly, it shows a Dirty Coward, attacking those weaker than him, and/or he's a bully who likes to make people afraid of him, or at the worst end of the scale, he's a sick monster who gets his kicks from hurting women. Ultimately, for it to be played as a villainous deed, it is necessary that the woman in question is not a threat to start with.

Naturally, modern female characters tend to go into battle fully expecting to be hit. If anything, many of them would probably be insulted if a male opponent went easy on them because of their sex. That said, an unprovoked attack on a girl, especially one who can't fight back, is still often played as a Kick the Dog moment, more so than if the genders were reversed. In milder works it is perfect as a Moral Event Horizon without the need for gore, torture, rape or death — it shows the villain will even hurt those who pose no threat.

This can often overlap with What Measure Is a Non-Human?, where even a hero who would not usually hit a girl has no qualms about it if she is some kind of witch, alien or whatever. In these cases, it may be more or less justified, depending on how obviously inhuman the female enemy is.

Since this trope is about defying social expectations, it only counts if the work mentions the expectation that men should not hit women — even if just to defy it.

The opposite trope is, of course, Wouldn't Hit a Girl. When hitting girls is Played for Laughs it can be a case of slapstick. Obviously not present when a woman hits a woman. If the circumstance is designed so that women are only hit by other women, then it is a Designated Girl Fight.


Example subpages:

Other examples:

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    Comic Books 
  • In the French comic Alpha, after heavily insulting him, the acting director of the CIA ask Alpha if he would hit a woman. He answers that she shouldn't talk about sex equality right now.
  • Batman:
    • Depending on the writer, the Caped Crusader may show varying degrees of reluctance or distaste for fighting female villains. However if they care to test him on this matter, they soon find he'll still take them down regardless. That said some portrayals of the Dark Knight show him making zero distinction between male and female criminals.
    • Poison Ivy found this out the hard way against Batman. Knowing that he was reluctant to strike her, Ivy dealt Batman a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown until she had him pinned to the ground. She then urged him to kiss her — which, this being Poison Ivy we're talking about, would be immediately fatal — and taunted that there was no use resisting, because "I know you don't want to hit a woman." Batman confessed that, yes, that was true — but it wasn't going to stop him, and so he knocked Ivy unconscious with a single head-butt.
    • The Batman: Arkham City tie-in comic, has a paranoid Jenna Duffy lash out at Batman when she believes he's following her; he swiftly ends the match with a head-butt.
    • A scene in an 80s Batman comic has a hulking female coming at Batman with a knife, while gloating that everyone knows that the Bat won't hit a woman. Batman casually punches her in the face with the line:
      "Mitzi... You've been misinformed."
    • Spoofed in the comedic Batman: Black and White story "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld". Facing off against a female villain, Batsman declares that it's against his principles to hit a girl but that he has no rules against smashing them over the head with, for instance, a Priceless Ming Vase.
    • John Byrne also used a version of this exchange in his story in the anthology comic Batman: Black and White: a gangster's moll asks Batman "You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?" and Batman replies that of course he wouldn't, but he doesn't see any ladies here, and knocks her cold.
  • A terrorist once said to Captain America, "Patriotic fool — you would not hit a lady!" He decked her while saying, "Lady, you're no lady!"
  • Daredevil: Elektra's infamous death at the hands of Bullseye in Daredevil #181 plays into this trope, as Bullseye initially underestimates her and regrets it immediately when she kicks his ass in a fair fight. This prompts him to take the gloves off, kicking her in the face twice and - when she briefly regains the upper hand - punching her across the face with a closed fist, incapacitating her and giving him the opportunity to fatally strike and then impale her with her own sai sword. The autopsy in the book later implies that Bullseye broke her jaw in the fight.
  • In Justice League #4 (1987), time-traveling new recruit Booster Gold defeats the four human members of the Royal Flush Gang. Ten of Spades is female and tries to pull chivalry on him. He points out that such an attitude is outdated in his time after punching her out: "Where I come from, equality of the sexes is a given, so we can pretty much hit whoever we want."
  • Preacher:
    • Cassidy has a history of striking women. This is not excused at all and is treated as an absolutely unforgivable sin. When Jesse discovers this, it fully cements Cassidy's Face–Heel Turn.
    • In Starr's first appearance, he is instructing an anti-terrorist unit. He is introduced as saying to always kill the women first, as the female terrorists they encounter will invariably be far more competent and dangerous than the men.
  • The Punisher does not take gender into account when putting people on his list, whether his main incarnation or his The Punisher MAX incarnation.
    • He's killed cannibalistic backwoods country girls, sniped a woman who killed her own children, a mobster's wife after she'd just given birth because she killed several people during her rise to the top and he wasn't going to let the baby be raised by a sociopath like her, and once took a woman who was leader of a sexual slavery ring (kidnapping girls and addicting them to drugs to force them into prostitution, as well as other monstrous crimes) and bashed her face against an unbreakable skyscraper window until the window popped out of its frame, then he tossed her out of the building.
    • This is also depicted in The Punisher MAX with Frank's regular UK secret services contact Yorkie Mitchell in the Afghanistan arc, when he has no hesitation when ordered to execute rogue CIA agent Kathryn O'Brien. (Although he later changes his mind when Frank asks him to let her go as a favour.) When one of his men expresses misgivings about killing a woman in cold blood, Mitchell tells him that her gender doesn't change the fact that O'Brien is a cold-blooded professional killer like the rest of them, who doesn't deserve any special mercy because of it.
  • Robin: Tim Drake is accused of going easy on girls by a thief who reminds him of Stephanie after Stephanie's "death" who he was going easy on. In general though he has no problem or hesitation fighting women, which is a good thing considering women make up a large percentage of his rogues gallery.
  • Scott Pilgrim:
    • Gideon Graves does not hesitate to brutally stab Ramona.
    • Todd Ingram punches out Envy Adams after she gave him a well deserved Groin Attack for cheating on her.
    • Scott himself cut Roxy in half, even though he has moral reservations about this sort of practice.
  • Dwight McCarthy from Sin City, though he's quite violently protective of them, has no problems with hitting or shooting a woman. Marv is usually the type that Wouldn't Hit a Girl, but he'll do it if he has to such as punching out Wendy, Goldie's sister, in order to spare her from watching him torture Goldie's killer, Kevin, to death, or mercilessly executing a madam who has taken to exploiting underage girls (in Silent Night).
  • Spider-Man:
    • Spider-Girl's enemies don't pull their punches when they fight her. If they did, she'd probably be insulted.
    • Spidey, meanwhile, started out as a Wouldn't Hit a Girl type back in The '60s, which caused him some problems with Princess Python of the Circus of Crime. He eventually shed this viewpoint, best highlighted in Secret Wars (1984) in The '80s, when he simultaneously gives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to villainess Titania.
    • In Ultimate Spider-Man, Spidey beats up a mother-daughter team of mutants who rob banks with their powers. Later in issue 8, Spidey, Human Torch, Iceman, and the newly empowered Rick Jones encounter a quintet of lizard/girl hybrids stealing items from the Pegasus facility and don't even think twice about attacking them head-on, including full punches to the face. Although Johnny does keep trying to get that Lizard girl's phone number...
    • Venom's first confrontation with the Black Cat was, to many, his Establishing Character Moment as a villain; the brief fight ended with him slamming poor Felicia's face into a wall, breaking it and her nose in a blow that all of fandom must have felt; he didn't hesitate to remind her of that later, during the Maximum Carnage storyline. Future stories show he really doesn't care what gender an enemy is, gleefully slugging Shriek, Ghost Rider's foe Hag, and any female symbiotes that he encounters. (Of course, most of those characters had it coming.)
  • Superman:
    • In The Great Phantom Peril, Faora mocks Superman for hitting a woman when he engages her. Since she is a Kryptonian who can give back as good as she gets, Superman hardly cares.
      Faora Hu-Ul: My, my, I'm surprised at you, Superman... I always thought you were a gentleman! After all, just because I'm from Krypton and invulnerable like you— that's still no excuse to hit a woman!
    • Lex Luthor (claims he) dislikes hitting women but he is not above it. In Supergirl (2005) story arc Girl Power, Luthor goes on about hating to hit women as he's laying a beat-down on Supergirl:
      Lex Luthor: There was a time when I wouldn't sully my hands with the pedestrian art of fisticuffs. Striking a woman— worse, a girl— reduces me to the level of some thug— a hooligan— on the street. Then, I see that "S" that you so brazenly decided to wear on your less than impressive chest. And I can almost forgive myself.
    • In The Man of Steel, a female terrorist tries the "You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?" line on Superman. He knocks her out with a flick of his finger, saying something like "No, but then again no lady I know would carry C4 in her purse."
    • Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow: When Ruthye approaches a mercenary to hire him, the man backhands the young girl after stealing her sword.
  • In the 2007 Union Jack miniseries, the titular hero clocks Ecstasy after depowering her. He had to step over a lot of bodies to get to her.

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 
  • Action Pack: Kira has no qualms about fighting women as seen by how he electrocutes Snapdragon and fights Quake. He even tells Naruto that you can't hold back on the enemy just because they're women or you end up dead.
  • In Power Girl fanfic A Force of Four, the Kryptonian outlaws' leader Mala doesn't enjoy hitting or killing women, but he'll do. He knows Power Girl is too dangerous to be allowed to live.
  • In Girls und Panzer -- International War Games, after Edo bumps into Suzuki, and she tells him off, he punches her in the face, starting a fight. His superior officer, Kenji, is furious that Edo would attack a girl who is also Edo's senpai, and removes Edo from the team.
  • King Explosion Murder The Shield Hero: True to My Hero Academia, Katsuki Bakugo has no issues hitting girls. Partway during Malty's trial, he outright slams the Vassal Shield into her face which gave her a bloody nose and after the slave crest used in her trial shocked her into exhaustion while keeping her from harming anyone, he stomps on her stomach as she sobs from how painful and humiliating it was. Given how much of a bitch she shown herself to be, many people do not feel bad about him doing so.
  • In My Brave Pony III Starfleet Magic Ace Ray beats up his own sister while threatening to kill her.
  • In My Huntsman Academia, Izuku resorts to a Suplex Finisher followed by a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown when pitted against Weiss in a spar. This is especially surprising to Weiss, who didn't think that her quivering mess of a leader would be able to resort to such tactics.
  • In The Fairly OddParents! fanfiction, Never Had a Friend Like Me, Francis claims to be an "equal opportunity bully" when he's about to hit Amanda.
  • In Ponyfall: Rainbows, Cody has little hesitation about hitting the humanised Rainbow Dash in self-defence, to the point of knocking her unconscious. Garrett, from Ponyfall: Mile High Apple Pie, calls him out on it later.
  • Near the start of the third Chapter of Where Talent Goes to Die, a heated argument breaks out between Hoshino and Sugiura, respectively a boy and a girl. While the two don't quite come to blows, Miura notes that Hoshino probably wouldn't hold back against Sugiura merely because she's a girl. Miura's proven right when Hoshino later kills two girls, stabbing one and shooting the other.
  • Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse: Ranma Saotome notes he doesn't like to fight girls under normal circumstances, but this doesn't stop him from beating a girl like a drum if the circumstances warrant it. And if he'd rather not fight a female opponent, well, good thing he has four Violently Protective Girlfriends, isn't it?

    Films — Animated 
  • Hoodwinked!: The Goody Bandit Boingo, who delivers a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle to Red.
  • In Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Superman fights Superwoman of the Crime Syndicate, a ruthless villainess every bit as powerful as he is, and he doesn't hesitate to fight her the same way he would a male villain. Green Lantern fights and knocks out Aurora.
  • The Lion King (1994):
    • Simba is willing to tackle his best friend Nala and start play fights with her, and later gets into a much more serious fight with her to protect Timon and Pumbaa from her. Downplayed somewhat because even though he is willing to pick fights with her, he's never actually beaten her in a fight, except for one time when they rolled down a hill together romantically and he finally managed to pin her, but that doesn't really count as a "fight".
    • Scar also hits Sarabi when she compares him to Mufasa.
  • Prince Eric kills the female Big Bad Ursula at the end of The Little Mermaid (1989). It helps that she's rather inhuman from the beginning (being a mermaid with tentacles where her tail should be), and that she grows into a gargantuan One-Winged Angel at the climax.
  • Mulan:
    • Played with. Shan Yu initially believes Mulan is a man but still tries to kill her after it's revealed that a woman destroyed most of his army. Mind you that her being a woman doesn't seem to bother him at all. Referring her to as the solider from the mountain.
    • There's also Chi Fu, who was willing to see Mulan die by the hands of Shang when he orders him to kill her after her gender is revealed while she's injured. He was even protesting about why Shang decided to spare her until Shang shuts him up.
  • In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Lock has no problem tackling Shock and punching her. Barrel tries to get a hit in at her and fails. To be fair, Shock choked Lock first and knocked him into Barrel, thus starting the fight to begin with. Earlier, Barrel drained the bathtub right before both of his cohorts jumped in, causing Lock and Shock to both suffer similar pain.
  • In Pocahontas when Kocoum attacks John Smith, Pocahontas tries to pull him off. Kocoum responds by whacking her with the back of his hand and knocking her to the ground.
  • In Sleeping Beauty, during Prince Phillip's battle with Maleficent as a dragon, the prince struck the dragon's head with his sword.
  • Jenner in The Secret of NIMH attacks the female protagonist, Mrs. Brisby, when she tries to warn the rats about the coming of NIMH. Also, when he sees that Mrs. Brisby has the amulet with the stone that Nicodemus originally had, he tries to take it by force.
  • Clayton from Tarzan slaps Jane aside when she tries to stop him from shooting Tarzan with his gun.
  • Toy Story 2: Woody implies he would do this during his fight with Jessie.
  • In Turning Red, this is implied; after Mei accidentally gets Tyler basketball popped, he chases after her, yelling "You're dead, Mei!"
  • The main protagonist of Zootopia is Judy Hopps, a rookie police officer. As a result, a lot of the criminals she meets have no qualms about hurting her. This trope also gives rise to Judy's Freudian Excuse for her subconscious anti-fox biases; when she was nine, a vicious fox bully beat her up and clawed her left cheek for trying to stand up to him.

    Folklore 
  • The men who made the doll in "Sennentuntschi" abuse her. And while the doll itself isn't alive at that time, their treatment of their "mountain wife" speaks volumes of their attitudes towards women if they think they can get away with it.

    Manhwa 
  • In Veritas, Gangryong WILL hit a girl or at least tries to, if she pisses him off.
  • Jin-Ho Myung, the protagonist of the manhwa, Unbalance × Unbalance. He has no objections to hitting a girl, and will in fact beat the crap out of them should it be provoked (which it was in one occasion). He even rants about the double standard of not hitting girls.

    Music 
  • From "Getting Better" by The Beatles:
    I used to be cruel to my woman
    I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved.
    Man, I was mean but I'm changing my scene
    And I'm doing the best that I can.
  • The music video for Garth Brooks' "The Thunder Rolls" includes a graphic domestic violence scene, where a young family man — returning home after a rendevous with a stripper at a local hotel — is confronted by his wife about where he's been. When he realizes she knows he's been cheating on her, he beats her senseless. (Most of the actual strikes take place in between lightning strikes, as the house loses power just as he loses patience with his wife.) When the man sees that his daughter has been awakened by the commotion and begs her daddy to stop beating mommy, he begins to go after her ... until she grabs her gun and shoots him dead.
    • Brooks — who in addition to performing the song onstage with his band as omniscient observers, plays the wife-beating, philandering husband in the action scenes — used the "wife-beating" scenes as a response to Capitol Records' reluctance to include the song's third verse (with the domestic violence themes) in the studio recording. Brooks would later peform the song with the "wife beating" third verse in concert. Critics and many others (including women's advocates) have given virtually unanimous praise to the video and the full version of the song as a powerful statement about the prevalence of male-on-female domestic violence, and it would win the Country Music Association's Video of the Year award in 1991.
  • Façade by Disturbed is about domestic violence.
    Broken down, hurt again, it never ends
    Frightened and trembling
    Did she fall again? An accident?
    Her eyes encircled in black again
    I can't believe that she's still with him
  • The original 1986 version of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble" was a bit more risqué than the more well-known 1988 re-recording. When Prince's date starts getting too touchy feely during their resturant date, Prince, not cool with the sudden heavy petting, chin checks her to get her off. When she screams rape afterwards, a scared Prince cold clocks her with a trashcan, and takes off, leading to him getting caught and given a nasty beatdown by cops. The 1988 re-recording tones this down to a simple shove to make Prince more sympathetic.
    "She started grabbing all over me
    Kissin' and huggin'
    So I punched her in the chin and said You better stop buggin'!
    She got mad, looked me dead in the face,
    Threw her hands in the air and yelled out, "RAPE!"
    "I got scared when she started to yell,
    So I hit her with a trash can, and ran like hell!"
  • "Gunpowder & Lead" by Miranda Lambert — the lyrics in the song indicate that the female main character was physically abused by her much-larger boyfriend (Slapped my face and shook me like a rag doll); the brute was sent to prison as a result. (Just like "The Thunder Rolls" and "Independence Day," the song ends with a death — this time, of the antagonist, as the woman is standing ready to greet her bloodthirsty ex-boyfriend with a gun.)
  • Many of the Serial Killers Macabre cover target women.
  • "Independence Day" by Martina McBride. Like "The Thunder Rolls," the video to "Independence Day" contains graphic depictions of a drunken husband beating up his wife (for questioning his behavior), said scenes being intertwined with clips from a Fourth of July parade where two clowns engage in comic mock fighting. The lyrics are also quite frank ("She tried to pretend he wasn't drinkin' again/but daddy left the proof on her cheek").
    • Much like "The Thunder Rolls," "Independence Day" (both the video and song) won universal acclaim for its statement against domestic violence.
  • Never Again by Nickelback from their third album was supposed to have a music video but their record label put a stop to it, due to the violent nature of the lyrics.
    He's drunk again, it's time to fight
    She must have done something wrong tonight
    The living room becomes a boxing ring
    It's time to run when you see him
    Clenching his hands
    She's just a woman
    Never Again
  • "Madam, I Challenge You To A Duel" by They Might Be Giants. Quoth John Flansburgh, " "The entire conceit of the song is that it’s about an extremely formal person, like the kind of person that would challenge someone to a duel — only that the twist is that they are challenging a lady to a duel, which breaks every code of behavior in the world of dueling."

    Pinball 
  • In Capcom's unreleased Kingpin, The Kid doesn't hesitate to kill Trixie, the mob boss' Moll, on his way to the top.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Pretty much the default in the BattleTech universe where female combatants have been a simple fact of life for centuries and mixed-gender units are effectively the norm without anyone batting an eye.
  • The Legend of the Five Rings rulebook explicitly mentions that Rokugan has far less rigid gender roles as Japan — it's entirely acceptable for women to be bushi, fight on the front lines, duel for their honour and so on.
  • Anyone engaging in Close Combat with the Sisters of Battle in Warhammer 40,000, Eldar Banshees, or Dark Eldar Wyches.

    Theatre 
  • In Meyerbeer's opera Les Huguenots, Raoul's Grumpy Old Man of a servant Marcel admits to combining this trope with He-Man Woman Hater in the second verse of his song " Piff, paff", which is presented as a Huguenot anti-Catholic song and whose second verse translates as follows:
    "My arm will never falter
    at the cries of women!
    Woe betide those Dalilas
    who damn their own souls;
    We'll break their infernal charms
    with the blade of the sword!"
  • In The Moon is Blue, David says that his wife divorced him for extreme cruelty after he hit her across the behind with a skillet. "Matter of fact, I rarely strike anyone but a woman," he explains.
  • The stage adaptation of Oliver Twist called Oliver! features the abusive behavior of Bill Sikes toward his girlfriend, Nancy. Throughout the play, Nancy is a punching bag and the beatings grow progressively worse. In the end, Nancy tries to leave with Oliver, but Bill follows them and confronts them by London Bridge. Oliver tries to stop Bill from trying to grab Nancy, but is unsuccessful; Bill –- in an unprecedented display of barbaric savagery -– brutally clubs Nancy to death (in the original stage play; she has also been strangled, stabbed and/or had her throat slit). Bill takes Oliver hostage and uses the lad as a bargaining tool to ensure his freedom, but Bill is still caught and killed.
  • Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew:
    "I swear I'll cuff you if you strike again."

    Theme Parks 
  • A rather horrific variation of this occurs in Florida's version of Revenge of the Mummy, when Imhotep disintegrates a female ride operator into a skeleton.

    Visual Novels 
  • Ace Attorney:
    • The victims vary from game to game, but quite a few of the murder victims are women. Two important members of the Fey clan die at the hands of men: Mia Fey dies at the hands of Redd White after being struck with a Thinker statue/clock, and Misty Fey is killed by Godot with a sword.
    • Manfred von Karma apparently didn't have any problem using a taser on Maya in the fourth case of the first game when she went with Nick to an evidence locker. Phoenix takes the blow for her, but then Von Karma just tases her anyway.
  • Danganronpa:
    • Much like Ace Attorney, many of the cases involve guys killing girls. In the first game, Leon stabs Sayaka with a knife after she tries to kill him, although the manga suggests that this is an Accidental Murder. In the third game, Kiyo kills both Angie and Tenko, specifically because they are girls, while Kokichi manipulates Gonta into strangling Miu to death when Miu tries to kill Kokichi.
    • In the second game:
      • Monokuma repeatedly abuses his younger "sister" Usami/Monomi, assaulting her to reshape her in his own image and punching and kicking her at the slightest provocation.
      • Akane repeatedly challenges Nekomaru to fights, resulting in Nekomaru sometimes injuring her. There isn't anything particularly malicious about it on either side, though, and they become close friends with a bit of Ship Tease.
    • Izuru Kamukura is shown in the anime to be more than willing to slam a woman to the ground and step on her for the crime of merely annoying him. She is a mass murderer, and this doesn’t stop him from dispassionately hanging out with her as a kinda-ally later and her from fawning over him.
  • The protagonist of Dra+Koi gets in a fight with the dragon early on, at which point he apparently blows a hole through her neck and goes home. She shows up the next day in love with him.
  • In Highway Blossoms, Joe is a Nice Guy who is not prone to violence, but he mentions during the Next Exit Downloadable Content that he got into fistfights with his long-time friend Mariah when they were younger.
  • :In Melody, when the two of them start fighting, Steve slaps Bethany in the face when she wants to call off their extortion scheme and give Melody her guitar back.
  • Kaine in A Profile at one point assumes that Masayuki refuses to hit girls. He's very wrong, as is proved approximately five seconds later. It's not that he doesn't hit girls, he just never felt like hitting the girl in question until then.
  • In War: 13th Day, Grant most certainly won't go easy on a warrioress just because she's a woman. He tries to take on Wildfire the Valkyrie, fully aware that he must Best Her to Bed Her, but fails pitifully. It might be safe to say all the warriors fight on equal standing, irrespective of gender. Arsenik has to defend himself against a team attack by two Valkyrie, while Onyx the Black Knight is pretty much a lean, mean killing machine...who's also a supernaturally creepy stalker.

    Webcomics 
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: As the Doctor's sidekick, Gordito is excellently prepared for fights with dangerous opponents, but not for when he actually has to go to (middle) school for a while. When a girl slams his fingers with a locker door on purpose, he immediately punches her down. The other boys keep mocking him about it afterwards.
  • The Amazing Adventures Of Bill, a Journal Comic, explains the principle of chivalry involved.
  • When prince Joakim from Ashface's Daughter refuses to attack Anna during training, she's angry and asks him if it's some ridiculous chivalry thing where he can't hit a girl. It turns out that he has no problem with trying to hit her, instead he refused because he was terrified that as soon as he did, she would hurt him pretty badly once he failed to connect.
  • Cucumber Quest: Tomato threatens this, but Almond doesn't give him the chance to follow through.
    Tomato: I should warn you, kid, I'm not too chivalrous to hit a girl. In the face. With a sword.
  • Morris of Domain Tnemrot is perfectly willing to not only set his female slaves' hair on fire, he sucker punches children.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Damien had no qualms about beating up his minions, including Grace, to the point that, had she had a less effective Healing Factor, she'd have scars.
  • Girl Genius:
    • Airman Higgs has no problem going up against Zola in a vicious fistfight after she stabs Zeetha through the torso with one of her own swords. And now Tarvek has gotten into the act.
    • Higgs also took on Bang Dupree when she attacked him, broke her jaw, and put her down twice.
    • Ardsley Wooster seems to be okay with the concept, too.
    • Tweedle has no problem manhandling, knifing, poisoning, and otherwise getting physically rough with women.
  • Danced around in Gunnerkrigg Court once; in an earlyish storyline, Eglamore says he doesn't want to fight Jones, even just as a quick demonstration for some students. Antimony gives him a Look and asks if it's because Jones is A Woman. "No, because in an enclosed space like this, Jones would wipe the floor with me." Note the implication that he'd be totally down with it if they were outside.
  • Goes without saying in Homestuck, which manages to be remarkably equal gender-wise. For example, in Act 6 Act 3 at one point Jake decides that Meenah is basically fish Hitler and decides to beat her up, because that's what you do when you go back in time and meet Hitler. Of all the many, many problems with this idea, the fact that he's hitting a girl never even seems to occur to anyone. (For what it's worth, Meenah was so blinded by awe over her genocidal alternate counterpart that she barely noticed.)
  • Kaiten Mutenmaru:
    • Sick beat Anne when his butler caught them on a date. He's apologetic about having to hide their relationship that way, though.
    • One of the poverty-ridden rebels thrust Anne away when they suspected her of being a spy for Sick, the innocent son of their aristocratic oppressors. They killed her in a blind rage for trying to stop them afterward, with horrific consequences.
  • Implied but not shown in Modern Day Treasure Seekers. Sam tells Cade that she was "knocked out" by the bad guys, but doesn't specify whether it was physical.
  • In Nodwick, striking Piffany (by anyone, male or female) is considered an Act of Ultimate Evil, but there are a few villains who have been vile enough to do it; this always brings down the wrath of the other three protagonists on said villain, and often that of the Powers That Be themselves.
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • Roy is perfectly willing to fight Sabine. When she tries to seduce him, saying that he can do "anything" he wants to her, the next panel shows her getting launched out of a window.
    • A straighter example is Tarquin casually snapping Haley's arm — in her case, she's a mortal female.
  • In Plume, Corrick implies this pretty heavily when Tegan tries to flirt with him.
    Tegan: You have very striking eyes...
    Corrick: You'll find my hand striking too if you don't back up.
  • Max is probably the only one who Wouldn't Hit a Girl in Precocious, and that's more from not wanting to hit anyone. The rest? An early strip shows one detail of the Big Ball of Violence as Bud popping Autumn in the jaw with an uppercut. Even the beauty pageant queen Dionne will dive in when sufficiently angered.
  • Questionable Content: A rare female subversion with The Vespavenger's lack of a Double Standard on the subject in this strip.
  • Sidekicks:
    • Every supublic. Justified in that most villains actively try to kill superheroes (and their sidekicks) and vice-versa, regardless of gender, so not hitting a female back would just be plain stupid.
    • Lightning seems to have no problems with physically abusing his most recent sidekick Succubus.
  • Sire: Emile, descendant of the famous Inspector Javert does not hesitate to slam a teenage woman in the stomach.
  • Slightly Damned: For the most part, Buwaro is a sweet little cinnamon bun, but he won't hesitate to strike back at anyone who hurts his girlfriend, Kieri. Especially if that person happens to be Lazuli. In Chapter 2, he kicks her into a lake, and in Chapter 8, he punches her in her already-wounded rib when she spills a bowl of alcohol on Kieri's head. When he's in his Semi-Berserk formnote  and starts racing to rescue Kieri, Buwaro slams Lazuli into the side of the wagon they're on and sinks his teeth into her, thrashing her around in his mouth and tossing her aside like a dog playing with its favorite toy.
    • After Kieri saves Buwaro from being killed by the angel Denevol, he demands her to back off. When she refuses, Denevol deems her a traitor and proceeds to attack her, as well.
    • Azurai fights hard against Kieri's group, giving Kieri herself a wing injury, breathing fire at her, and slashing her across the cheek. Later, he hits Lazuli with a fire breath attack when she tries to kill Kieri. In both instances, he was trying to subdue Kieri for a ritual that would bring demons to earth. Also, he and Lazuli don't really like each other very much.
    • Abyset viciously attacks Rhea (who was protecting the children of Miranda Sinclair's family), cutting part of her ear off, slamming her into the ground, and tossing her directly at Buwaro. Earlier, he was willing to kill Miranda herself, but he chickened out of that skirmish when she proved to be too much of a challenge for him.
    • Zig-Zagging Trope during the fight between Kazai and his sister Kieri, which started after Kazai attempted to assault Buwaro. Ironically enough, Kazai is slightly more reluctant to fight Kieri than vice versa. When he claws at her face with his wolf paws and draws blood, he's visibly horrified... but when she's still determined to finish the battle, Kazai doesn't hesitate to launch a barrage of star-like energy blasts at her.
  • Bun-bun from Sluggy Freelance has no problem with doing anything evil.
    "You are in my spot, toots. I'm going to have to hurt you on principle."
  • Played completely straight in Tower of God. In the Tower, everyone is trying to kill everybody just to climb to the top. Thinking about an opponent's gender is the least of a Regular's concerns.
  • In Two Weeks Notice, the hero Adrian sucker punched a blind girl. Twice.
  • Almost all the evil guys in Union of Heroes: Manero, Ahres and The Wittener.
  • In Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic, Yapp the gnoll boy punches a troll girl who boasts about how women rule the mountain. "Women may rule, but braggarts always go down."

    Web Original 
  • AFK: Clint has no problem with hitting Amy, and not when she's armed or free, but tied up as he's trying to get information from her.
  • Cream Heroes: Momo punches Lala on a regular basis — usually because she punches him first.
    • Dodo has punched Chuchu (playfully), Lala (not so playfully) and TT of all cats. Lala usually retaliates by either punching back or hissing but TT clearly doesn't want to punch kittens so simply walks away.
  • DEATH BATTLE!: Whenever there is a Male vs Female match-up, this trope will inevitably apply for the male combatant.
    • Dante vs Bayonetta after the former smacks a chair at the latter, Bayo chides Dante saying "You're a naughty boy, hitting a girl like that". Considering she just spent the previous few minutes trying to kill him, including kicking him into a Iron Maiden (which would've certainly killed him if he was normal dude), her remark comes off as completely ludicrous. By the end of the fight Dante does more than just hit Bayonetta, he riddles her with blades from his weapon Lucifer and explodes her into Ludicrous Gibs.
    • Captain Marvel VS Billy Batson has Billy Batson attempt to punch Carol Danvers. Though to be fair to Billy Batson, she does falsely accuse him of robbing a broken ATM and attempted to arrest him for the supposed theft when in actuality, he was trying to fix his mistake, making it fair game. In the end, he succeeds and his punch completely blew both her and the meteorite she was punted onto completely.
  • Monster Island Buddies is willing to do this, considering that the entire cast mostly consists of Monsters (whose natural instincts are to beat the crap out of each other,) though unsurprisingly, the women monsters are no pushovers themselves. Prime examples include the L.E.S.B.I.A.N.S. and the Ghidorahs willing to kill Mothra on several occasions, as well as Rodan getting into a fight with Biollante during a big party (though this case can be justifiable since she was evil for a while).
  • The Nostalgia Critic punched the Chick once in Kickassia. In fairness, this was after she repeatedly hit him with a baseball bat and even then he apologized.
    • The two fought in their Ferngully review, kicking the shit out of each other, breaking off to have a pillow fight, then fighting each other again. Though the Chick started it by throttling him.
    • That Dude in the Suede decks the Good Witch in the middle of the big battle towards the end of Suburban Knights.
    • Todd in the Shadows attacks Lupa after he is Mind Raped by Mechakara in To Boldly Flee, but stops as soon as he comes to his senses.
  • Wash of Red vs. Blue has absolutely no problem with hitting a girl if it's necessary. Or shooting one in the face. In both cases, however, the women he's fighting are also Freelancers (so very skilled, very dangerous fighters), and in one case, she's undeniably a better fighter than him anyway. And also not technically human.
    • Given a mention in dialogue when the Reds and Tucker are being curb-stomped by Tex. Each of them is perfectly willing to punch, kick, shoot, slash, drop heavy things on, or launch heat-seeking rockets at her. The problem is making the connection.
      Grif: What do we do, Sarge?
      Sarge: I don't know. I've never hit a girl in my life!
      Simmons: Yeah, I noticed. (Beat) Try harder!
  • After a crossover review of the Asylum's Sherlock Holmes, The Cinema Snob punched Obscurus Lupa in the face when she asked him if he wanted to watch another movie with her. An after the credits outtake shows Brad accidentally not pulling his punch, and hitting Lupa in the face; causing him to immediately start apologizing profusely.
  • Somewhat less apologetic than the last two is Ask That Guy with the Glasses, who'll hit, torture and rape men and women without prejudice.
  • Phase of the Whateley Universe. He doesn't like hitting people, but he has no qualms about hitting a girl if he needs to, because there are lots of girls who are far stronger than he is, including some of his team.
  • Described in great detail in Unforgivable. The character, Ricky, is a misogynist and extremely violent towards men and women.


 
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Alec slaps Kitty

[Italian dub]



Kitty Shearer slaps Alec. Not caring that she's a woman, Alec slaps her back twice.



(This is a re-upload of a previous video, now with subtitles for non-Italian speakers.)



Source: Episode 39 of Hello! Sandybell.

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5 (2 votes)

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Main / WouldHitAGirl

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