Men hitting back in self defence?

[tittytittyhanghang]

Have just been shown a shocking video on you tube of a girl attacking a man (i assume it was her friends taking the video on their mobiles?) and the man punched her back and knocked her out. AIBU to think that it served her right? DP seems to think IABU and that man should have just run away. I kinda feel conflicted now, violence is never good but i am struggling to get past the feeling that she reaped what she sowed.

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO7GIQ5Udk8&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3DAlcoholic%2BPa-Punches%21%2BLesbian%21%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CEcQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.youtube.com%252Fwatch%253Fv%253DCO7GIQ5Udk8%26ei%3DhM8KUNCXG8nO0QXyjKzlCg%26usg%3DAFQjCNGXi-4LUZfb-1SKLejv5iqpDCoDSQ this is the video here if you want to see it but i found it rather shocking)

Just to add, her relative was defending her on her Facebook saying things like 'she was pissed she's sorry she was just trying to have a mess about' blah blah yada yada.

If that's her idea of a lark about she needs removing from society for the safety of innocent people. She's a disgusting creature.

I think she deserved it. It's human instinct to fight back if someone hits you. Remember John Prescott and the egg incident.

If they just randomly attacked him for a laugh then her and her friends deserved a lot more. Scum.

The back story is that the girl are her friends were pissed and decided to attack a man who is well known for being disabled.

I recognised the man, it is set in Liverpool City Centre, that's howi knew he was at the top of steps and there wasn't any other way to go, because the girls had him cornered.

It is becoming the norm to take pictures of people with LD's/MH obvious problems and take the piss out of them on FB.

He couldn't have restrained her, touch these girls looking for trouble and they threaten the man with the police, for cash.

I worry about my DD (14 with LD's) walking around on her own, attacks by groups of girls are more of a worry than sexual assault has ever been.

Birds. - how sad and how depressing. Awful you have to worry about this crap on top of everything slde.

Yeah I recognised it birds is it near St Johns?

My DD and her friends (all with various LD's) are capable of going shopping, to local fairgrounds etc, but it is these incidents that mean that they cannot be as independant as we would like.

Vulnerable people are targeted by these groups. One good thing about Liverpool (i cannot comment on anywhere else), is that other people will still get involved.

Where they have got this man to, is a closed shopping centre,out of the way of the main walk through.

Poor man, so glad she got what she deserved

Yes, it's outside the discount shop, at the top of the stairs in St. Johns.

As a feminist I came on this thread with a preconceived response, however I also recognise this guy and believe the prevailing power dynamic here is not about man v woman, its about a pack of able bodied NT people attacking a vulnerable person with learning difficulties for their own entertainment. Pure hate driven violence.

He is clearly trying to walk away, they persue him, they outnumber him, she showers him in punches, you can see how slow his cognition is, he looks confused, puts his arms out and finally resorts to punching her. It appears to me to be a case of self-defense. Restraint is no good when you're outnumbered, and even if it were, any perpetrator who decides to attack a person with learning difficulties has to accept that their victim may not have the initiative to think about restraint and the social implications of a man hitting a woman.

:( As a sister to someone with severve learning disabilities this terrifies me, these attacks are becoming all the more common, on the learning disabled, homeless etc. This kind of violence is not always gendered but it is absolutely disablist (theres a debate to be had about intersectionality here but I doubt I'm gonna get it in AIBU).

This man often appears to be drunk, so the worry is that people will ignore what is going on.

I have numerous homeless/LD/MH men come into my voluntary job with bruises on them and when asked, they have been attacked by gangs of young (13-17 usually girl instigated) year olds purely for entertainment.

Birdsgottafly :(

I saw this kind of bullying against my brother when, as kids he'd play out on the street/ fields with the rest of us. It also included sexual violence at times but of course the Police were never interested as the perps were 'just kids' and people with LDs are not considered reliable witnesses. If we do nothing to stop these behaviours as children we shoudn't be surprised that a minority of young people grow up to behave as seen in this clip.

Society as a whole should be ashamed of itself.

I wil say that the police that i have dealt with, on Merseyside are taking Hate Crime seriously and will persue this line, even with the under 16's.

There are a lot of good kids about, more than bad when it comes to bullying the vulnerable, though and in Liverpool, luckily enough, a lot of these are as mouthy/aggressive as those that are the bullys, so step in, when they see it.

If a woman thinks she can go around hitting and slapping men, she should expect some form if retaliation. I would not be in a relationship where I lashed out at OH, or vice versa. Sounds destructive and fucking exhausting.

Greenblue -"As a feminist..."

Being a feminist has fuck all to do with the OP. Being a feminist isn't about being sexist, it's about equality. Therefore, a woman punching, kicking and slapping a man should expect some form of retaliation. He's a human being FFS.

Calm down minty, I didn't even state my position as a feminist, I moved swiftly onto a point about disabilism. I agree any person has a right to self defense/ restraint if they're being attacked, irrespective of gender, that's just common sense.

As a feminist I came on this thread with a preconceived response

So some people really actually do that then?

I always suspected some people did...although why is anyone's guess.

People do open threads with a preconcieved response.

I do, when it involves CP or benefit bashing, but sometmes the title is misleading.

I somewhat did in this case, because whilst we all have the right to defend ourselves, it doesn't mean that you have to take that defense to an attack level, you do enough to stop someone.

Is it surprising that a feminist has a position on gender violence? Obviously my position is not so rigid that I can't consider individual circumstances. I have positions on euthanasia, eugenics, disability, social justice, rape etc too, not all from a feminist perspective but just cos like, I'm a human and I tend to think of these issues in RL not only when prompted by threads on MN.

greenblue
ask yourself this, if the situation was described to you and you haddnt seen the video footage, would you have sided agaisnt the guy?

No, I would have said restraint is far preferable to attack as attacking back rarely stops violence, it only escalates it (thats what i anticipated i might come on here and say). I'm a feminist not a lunatic, I have actually seen men being subject to violence, I don't live in some fantasy world where women are never aggressors. How odd that as someone who gave perhaps one of the most compassionate responses to the man in the OP people are challenging my views :S

OK GB, fair enough, just a question. wouldnt for a second think you were a lunatic because your a feminist.

How odd that as someone who gave perhaps one of the most compassionate responses to the man in the OP people are challenging my views :S

was this aimed at me? i diddnt think i said anything noticably compassionate?

the sex of the participants is irrelevant.

A bunch of youngsters out for a bit of fun attack a person in the street. Some of them choose to film the phone on their phones, perhaps so they can have a good laugh about it later, who knows?

Every time they do that and the person runs away or doesn't hit back the gang is learning they can get away with it. What fun!

Having looked at the clip the victim is quite burly but looks to me to be terrified. Let's hope they won't attack him again.