description versus examples: Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male

Trope in Theory: Widespread depiction of women as the superior gender makes it common to see women abusing men treated as morally condonable — being Closer to Earth and all things nice and so on, the application of violence is only done when necessary or the guy deserved it.

Examples in Practice: Girls hitting guys is a staple of humor, filed overwhelmingly under Comedic Sociopathy. If you're calling the perpetrator a sociopath, you're not saying their behavior is okay. If you're obviously supposed to sympathize with the guy, what is being morally condoned? If the girl is being portrayed as a raging hysterical harpy, what about that is Closer to Earth?

Trope Description Attempts to Weasel: Well it's saying the guy can't take it 'cause he's not a "real man," it's a sexist Double Standard.

Not Buying it: Sexist Double Standard, yes. Steeped in old gender stereotypes absolutely. Part-and-parcel to a vast misandrist conspiracy not so much. As far as I can tell the vast majority of examples are "Abuse Is Funny When it Is Female-On-Male," the guy being a hapless Butt-Monkey you're supposed to feel sorry for and the girl a trigger-happy Tsundere you're supposed to recognize is unstable. Were you to switch the genders, the guy in the Tsundere position would be a Domestic Abuser and any attempt to evoke laughter would result in Dude, Not Funny! — pretty much, yeah. But there's a huge difference between "I can laugh at this character's behavior" and "I condone this person's behavior." The other attitudes on display are "we don't expect women can seriously harm men" (which doesn't have anything to do with morality) or "we don't expect female-on-male violence to happen as often as the reverse", which really sort of does, but its twisted morality is steeped in a notion of justified retribution rather than intrinsic superiority (it's okay because it's PAYBACK). I am all for calling out the sexism and Double Standard in this very common depiction, but let's be clear on what exactly the Double Standard is.

Bottom line: I think we ought to re-work this as Abuse Is Funny When It Is Female On Male. The description needs to change. Right now, it's a screed, because the entire premise of the trope is "this terrible terrible thing that happens because people think women are better than men." Which is pretty hard to back up, and nowhere near as prevalent as "it's funny when girls hit guys", which is what most examples are geared towards.

edited 12th Sep '11 3:11:02 AM by Tyoria

Seconding Abuse Is Funny When Its Female On Male, for accuracy.

Nope. It is funny, yes, but it is also shown as OK because its funny. The Double Standard being that a guy getting abused by the girl is supposed to laugh it off instead of calling her out on it.

Edit: I dunno about the Anime (Tsundere) examples, but the ones I am familiar with in the trope are in line with what I posted.

edited 12th Sep '11 6:26:15 AM by Falco

Tsundere (especially the Shana Clone types and strong type A) is seen as Funny as well, and lovable Moe (on both sides of the coin) YMMV on this factor if your not from japan. As well as most of the time its a running gag, that people around them are familiar with them are ok with. The victims tend to find it odd and out of place when the abuse doesn't happen.

edited 12th Sep '11 8:56:00 AM by Raso

Nope. It is funny, yes, but it is also shown as OK because its funny.

That's the difference between explicitly condoning something and implicitly tolerating it. It's what Comedic Sociopathy thrives on. It's okay, because it's funny. WHY is it okay for being funny when the reversed Male-On-Female scenario would be Dude, Not Funny!? That's where the Double Standard comes into play. The trope alleges that the Double Standard exists because it portrays women as morally superior to men and thus justified in abusing men. It doesn't back this up. Largely we see women hitting men laughed off due to the fact that under normal conditions, we don't expect women to be able to seriously hurt men. The very absurdity of this notion is played up to extremes, with girls casually megaton punching guys into the stratosphere.

The thing is, I'm not saying we don't still call this trope out for being a Double Standard. I'm saying, the Double Standard isn't, "women are better than men and thus violence is morally okay". When you're talking about Comedic Sociopathy, you aren't talking about morality. What this trope does is downplay and trivialize the reality of female abuse by playing it up as exaggerated and absurd.

The Double Standard being that a guy getting abused by the girl is supposed to laugh it off instead of calling her out on it.

A guy — nay, any person — placed in the position of Butt-Monkey as the victim of Comedic Sociopathy isn't being held up as the reasonable and responsible way to deal with abuse. That's for the Very Special Episode. Most of the time, we (unreasonably) expect all victims of Comedic Sociopathy to bounce back and not take it more seriously than the humor or plot requires. Again, the point: This is a bad thing, yes. The reason it's a bad thing isn't being correctly addressed. The actual attitude the article presupposes — that women are "okay" for doing this because they are "morally superior" isn't on display for 99% of the examples.

I'm okay with a split. Mostly because I don't like mixing comedy tropes with tropes that are serious.

If you're going to do a split, I recommend 'Abuse is Justified When...' and 'Abuse is Funny When...'

I don't, theoretically, object to a split, I just find it hard to sustain the "okay" as in "literally morally justifiable" definition at all. I specifically brought this up in TRS because of the insanity we've been going through in Image Pickin'. Women hitting men in ways which are NOT meant to evoke any sympathy for the guy, are not in any way comedic or absurd and all in all suggest women have some innate moral privileged over men — are incredibly hard to come by. The article seems geared towards fighting a stereotype that doesn't exist, and it's furthermore OUTRAGED about it.

I think the "justified" half of the trope would be most likely to show up as somebody invoking it(and hopefully called out), rather than a stance the show itself takes.

edited 12th Sep '11 4:33:29 PM by 20LogRoot10

I don't see a split going well... If it's "Funny" or not is YMMV and people RAGE against this trope so to them it's never funny, this trope is a natter and Flame Bait magnet as is.

Whether something actually IS funny is YMMV.

Whether it's Played for Laughs is generally not.

I guess my objection boils down- is really every example Comedic Sociopathy?

"The article seems geared towards fighting a stereotype that doesn't exist, and it's furthermore OUTRAGED about it."

I disagree highly. The idea that female-on-male violence is not as bad as male-on-female violence does exist. That women are morally superior and that explains why their violence is justified is just one theory advanced as to why this double standard exists. If you don't like it, remove it.

Don't delete the whole trope. Because it exists.

"I guess my objection boils down- is really every example Comedic Sociopathy?"

How often is the physical abuse of a man against a woman portrayed as Comedic Sociopathy? The fact that one is classified as comedy and the other is drama, is the essence of this trope.

edited 12th Sep '11 7:44:52 PM by MercuryInRetrograde

The idea that female-on-male violence is not as bad as male-on-female violence does exist.

I've never denied this. I've reiterated it.

That women are morally superior and that explains why their violence is justified is just one theory advanced as to why this double standard exists.

One? It's the main thrust of the article. The very first sentence boldly asserts Somewhere down the line, it has just become a common assumption that each and every instance of physical and psychological abuse was absolutely "justified" (and in some cases even sexy) ... as long as it's a woman dishing it out to a man.

And goes on to list every other possible explanation as secondary. Thus the examples of female abusing men, of which there is no shortage, are mostly geared towards this hypothesis which is never actually proven at all.

If you don't like it, remove it.

That would require restructuring the entire trope. That's why I'm bringing it up here instead of making huge unilateral changes to it.

Don't delete the whole trope. Because it exists.

The trope as in, the marginalization of the seriousness of violence coming from women when it is extended to men, exists. I've really tried to go out of my way to assert and assure people that I believe this and don't intend to try and scrub the mention of it off Tropes.

I am not at all certain that the widespread belief exists that all violence against men by women is justified and this is the attitude that drives any and all examples of female-on-male violence we see in media. The article is less documenting a trope than getting on a soapbox — unabashedly, considering that pothole to Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped. I like how we have such little respect for our readers that we have to hand hold them through a concept like "it shouldn't be okay for women to engage in blatantly abusive behavior towards men."

The trope right now is Its Okay For Abuse To Be Funny When Its Female On Male. This is equivalent to Abuse Is Funny When Its Female On Male, not Abuse Is Okay When It’s Female on Male.

But that means that this trope is, literally, Abuse is Funny When It's Female On Male. The implication of the current title is a trope that says "it is all right for a woman to physically injure a male"; that trope is not a real trope and has no real presence anywhere.

The actual trope is "it is ridiculous to envision a woman harming a male" — that is to say, when Futurama plays giant Amazons breaking males' pelvises for laughs, this is played as a joke not because it is saying that abuse is ok when it's female on male, but because the entire idea of a female being able to injure a male is comically absurd.

The subtext is not, ever, "abuse is OK". Never. That's not a real trope, that's someone's crazed ranting in trope form.

The subtext is "this is so bizarre and wacky, because it could never really happen!" Obviously, it can and does.

But the trope here is Abuse Is Funny When Its Female On Male. Abuse Is Ok When It's Female on Male is not a real trope, as the example list illustrates; we should change the description and title to match its examples.

Additionally, and more generally: The description is too long and trying too hard to make a larger social point out of one specific trope. It needs to be more narrow and less rant-y.

I removed a section from the description that I would roughly call "a man is not a victim" — it seemed tangential to this trope, since it applies regardless of whether the man was victimized by a woman or not. It could perhaps be put through YKTTW as its own trope, but it seemed out-of-place here, especially given how the description of this trope is already long, convoluted, and ornery.

edited 25th Sep '11 8:39:16 PM by Aquillion

Also: Someone needs to go through and clean up the examples. Just from a quick glance, a lot of them clearly don't apply (many seem to involve Butt-Monkey characters who are abused by everyone, for instance.)

That depends on the Butt-Monkey, like MM the main character for girls only (and he likes it) guys however it's treated 100% different and seriously not ok. Or Keitaro in Love Hina who is a complete Butt-Monkey to the girls and the only other guy in the plot, seta, becomes his martial arts teacher and Seta gets the treatment too from his old flame.

Any guy on guy abuse should get treated differently for it to count in this trope. (more serious, less ok, more willing to hit back etc)

Anyway I would support a split of "It's Funny" and not or rename. Also a split or rename would really also help clean up the description I mean seriously it's seething with hate.

edited 25th Sep '11 10:20:32 PM by Raso

I agree completely that the name is unfortunate, as, per the discussions above, most of the (numerous) examples that exist and I know off stem mainly from the idea that a woman is merely too weak to actually hurt someone; I've rarely encountered the idea that a woman is justified in applying violence, although it's not unheard off.

As such, I'd support a rename of the trope to something else, akin to Abuse Is Ok When Its Funny For A Woman To Hit A Man and/or a possible split (the other title could be Abuse Is Justified When Its Female On Male), if enough examples of 'justified' violence can found.

A re-write of the trope description would also be welcome and necessary to reflect these changes, however, it would be a good idea to (no matter what changes are applied), to keep the point that there is a real problem that stems from this/these trope(s); when this sort of thing does happen in real life, for whatever reason, it's most definitely not a good thing and it's not a stretch to conclude that the existence of this/these trope(s) <may> make things worse (as per the video in the 'Others Examples' shows).

The reason why a woman abusing a man is funny in part because it's seen as justified.

This. "Portrayed as funny" and "portrayed as justified" do not always correspond, but they tend to, because the latter is a major source of the former.

I'm not sure that it's always played for funny. Sometimes it seems like it's treated almost as if it's supposed to be treated as an awesome moment. Like you're supposed to be rooting for this woman as she stomps all over the man. It's not quite the same as funny though. More like played for awesome if that makes sense.

Indeed, and it depends on the works in question.