Confessions of a Wimp!

Last week, I commented on a post from Break the Silence Against Domestic Violence.  The post concerned why men were taking the Blow the Whistle Challenge!  I wrote the following:

Confessions of a Wimp!

She slapped me,

I didn’t slap her back,

Because I don’t hit women!

She punched me,

I didn’t punch her back,

Because I don’t hit women!

She beat me with a club,

I didn’t beat her back,

Because I don’t hit women!

I escaped, I grew, I found happiness. I am a survivor!

And I hold my head high,

 Because I don’t hit women!

If that makes me a Wimp,

I wear the title proudly!

The administrators at Break the Silence saw fit to post my words along with my photo on their page….the response was overwhelming.  The post drew over 1500 “likes” and over 135 comments!  A majority of the comments were positive, many stating that I was not a “wimp” but a “real man!”  Most of the positive comments came from women, but there were also men supporting the notion that men should not hit women.   But then, of course, there were a few negative comments, all from men.  Overall, it made for a positive post, reaffirming the concept that men should not hit women.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t my entire point.

I waxed a little too poetic….but in order to get my point across, I would need something like, well, something like this, a blog post to explain my thoughts.  But as I contemplate how to explain my “point” I realize why it is difficult for people to understand it, because in many ways, I'm a dreamer!

My primary concept is that I don’t hit women for ANY reason!  That is how I was raised, and that is how I live.   I believe it so strongly that, even when she gave me, perhaps the only justification for hitting her, I would not allow myself to do so.  Those who were negative pretty much followed the same point, that I should have “defended” myself.  In my mind “defense” is to protect oneself from harm.  Responding in kind is not “defense,” it is “offensive” in nature.  Especially if the person responding has the physical advantage!  In other words, hitting her because she hit me, is merely an excuse to hit her…if that makes any sense.

Let me try to explain with a silly hypothetical example.  My father taught me woodworking at a young age (I started working with him when I was probably 6 or 7 years old).  He taught me the proper way to swing a hammer.  I can, with fair consistency, drive a 16 penny nail into a 2 x 4 with one or two strikes using a 16 ounce hammer. Suppose my 7 year old grand daughter challenged me to a contest in driving nails.  She can barely lift a 16 ounce hammer, let alone swing it properly, but hey, she challenged me!  I win the contest easily, I dance around the shop, I talk smack to her “ha ha, I won!”  In reality, I used her “challenge” as an excuse to embarrass a little child.  I accomplished absolutely nothing! 

It is a simple fact of nature that men and women are built differently.  I am 60 years old, and out of shape….but I can’t think of too many women I would not be able to hurt in a physical confrontation.  A woman such as MMA sensation Ronda Rousey may be able to beat me to a pulp, but I probably could, without competitive rules, be able to hurt her before she did so, or maybe not…but the point is, in most cases, men have a physical advantage over women.  (As a side note, I commend Ms. Rousey for saying she would not fight a man, saying, “I don’t think it’s a great idea to have a man hitting a woman on television.”…from ESPN.go.com “Rousey: Bad idea to fight a man”).  So, just as in my example above, when a man beats up a woman, what has he accomplished (or proven)….absolutely nothing!

Getting back to the point I was trying to make with my Confessions of a Wimp blurb…If men start with the assertion that they will not hit a woman, even in “self defense,” then they will not find ANY reasons to hit women!

Perhaps the most common comment on the Break the Silence post was “REAL men don’t hit women!”  Which begs the question:  What is a “real” man?  Unfortunately, the statement “Real men don’t hit women” has, in many ways, become a slogan, oft repeated, but not always followed.  When a slogan is repeated often enough, it loses its meaning…and becomes just a “slogan” without definition.  How does one define what constitutes a “real” man?  Unfortunately, society has far too many ideas of what a “real” man is.  Real men don’t take “stuff” from anybody, Real men love sports, Real men hunt, Real men love cars, Real men don’t fear anything, Real men fight, Real men have a job, Real men support their families, Real men wear the pants in the family, Real men control their women, Real men are patriots, Real men…………….I could probably fill many pages with conflicting statements starting with “Real men are…”

Humans are far too complicated to be defined with simple slogans.  My Father taught me that the only thing that really defines a person, is integrity. According to him, integrity consists of honesty, responsibility, and morality.  Furthermore, he had a simple concept of morality…”you just know when something is wrong, and hurting people is just plain wrong!”

Perhaps I am naïve, but I cannot understand the “why” of Violence in general.  I made the strong statement that “I don’t hit women,” but the plain truth of the matter is, I don’t hit anyone!  In my entire life, I can truthfully say that I have only hit one person with the intention of hurting them…and then I only did so at the insistence of another!  (You guessed it, my abuser.  She insisted that I punch out her brother for spreading lies about her “sleeping around,” which, as it turned out, were not lies.)  I abhor violence in any situation, and I cannot understand why people feel that violence is necessary.  I am not so naïve to think that everyone will think as I do, far greater men than I, such as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., advocated non-violence in eloquent fashion…but the world remains a violent place.

I guess in the final analysis, the point of my Confessions blurb was this:  I was driven to silence by people calling me a “wimp” because I didn’t “stand up” to my abuser.  I have broken that silence because I now realize that not resorting to violence is not a weakness, and I want to help other men understand that as well.  However,  I wasn’t trying to set myself up as something special because I don’t hit women.  I wasn’t trying to say that I was a victim of abuse because I don’t hit women (there are many other factors involved, which I hope to address in another post).  I wasn’t saying that people should not defend themselves against violence.  My point was that, if men would only draw a hard line and accept that there is absolutely no reason or excuse for hitting a women, then they won’t find reasons or excuses to hit women.  If nothing else, I suppose I wanted to shame any man who thinks that beating up someone weaker than himself is some kind of accomplishment.

Far too many men believe that they are justified in hitting women for various reasons: to prove that they are a “man,” to make sure the woman “respects” that he is the “man,” to punish her for some real or imagined transgression because he is the “man” in charge, or the most ridiculous of all, to show that he “wears the pants!”  Violence proves absolutely nothing, except that the offender is as bully, and is incapable of finding better ways to solve problems. 

If the standard is non-violence, then violence becomes a thing of the past.  In the words of John Lennon:  "You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.  I hope some day you will join us, and the world will be as one."

And I stand by my statement:  If not hurting others makes me a wimp, then I am proud to call myself a Wimp!

Gustaf (Gus) Brock