Gender and Fighting

Earlier this semester I went down to Virginia Tech to visit some friends of mine and take in the downtown scene. While I was there I witnessed two fights. The first night was a pretty heated fight between two men and after a brief tussle, one of the men hit the other man over the head with a glass bottle. Needless to say he was pretty much down for the count and after the police got to them, I’m sure they were out of the downtown scene for a while. What was noteworthy wasn’t the fight, but the reactions of the crowd and the people around me….

As soon as the two men became confrontational, the crowd began to gather for the show, everyone pressing in closer for a look. They were not only enjoying watching these two men become more and more confrontational, but they cheered them on. When the glass bottle was brought into the fight, there were actual cheers and shouts of encouragement, people yelling “Do it!” and laughing. I’m sure that in part this was largely due to a culture that uplifts violence and a masculinity based on violent strength and that evening, I simply attributed it to that.

However the following night I got to witness another fight, except this one was between a man and a woman. It was very heated and super violent. There weren’t any glass bottles involved but the woman was thrown quite violently. More important I think to note are two key things: 1. For some reason that I’m still not quite sure of, I found this fight much more disturbing than the one the night before and 2. So did the rest of the people who witnessed it.  Women and men alike were yelling at the man that it was super messed up to hit/fight a woman. “He didn’t deserve to live, he was the worst of the worst, a scumbag”.  And I agree. Completely. But at the same time I cant help but ask, “ Isn’t it just as tragic and wrong when men are violent towards each other? Why can’t I or don’t I react to violence between men in the same way?”

Then there are fights between or violence between women. We have all seen the way “ cat fights” get glorified. I have to confess to watching a lot of “The Jersey Shore “ lately and one thing I’ve noticed is that when the men get in fights, everyone else acts fairly concerned and while some people do gather to watch, a good amount also try and break up the fight. However, when the women get in fights, there are a lot more jokes made about it. It’s funny, it’s amusing to watch women fight. Sure they might break up the fights eventually, but odds are they’ll let it go at least a little bit so they can get in some entertainment. No granted, this is “The Jersey Shore” so I don’t have very high expectations for their reactions to handling situations like fights. But when Snooki got punched by a man in Season one, I did notice dialogue that paralleled what I heard from the crowd and my friends in Blacksburg. “He was a scumbag who didn’t deserve to live, he should be allowed to walk this earth.” But no one said anything like that when Ron got in a fight with another man on the boardwalk or when Jenni punched Sammi in the face.

I feel like I’m missing something here so please, any thoughts? Am I the only one noticing this?