Alternately.....

If the one who first laid hands on the other were charged without appeal, the victim's testimony dismissed, and the parties issued permanent restraining orders based on who shoved who first; then I suspect that fewer men would face such charges.

But the law is all to willing to let the battered man remain in a relationship of his own free choice. Since the law treats the man's consent as an always valid and the woman's consent always in doubt in such cases it is sexist.

As it is, our system is f*cked in its dismissal of violence against men. And in its acceptance that a woman's initiation of the use of violence in lieu of words is nullified if the party receiving the initial blow is male AND strikes back.

Either its pull them apart for life, or don't treat domestic violence as one-sided by dismissing the order of the actions and just deciding it based on the genders.

Me? I'd never stick around for blow #2. But the law has to realize that not all couples claim to feel that way. And since its not in the relationship anulling business, it might try to see how stuff started.

.... of course if he resorts to fists its because he's the lout who invented the beatdown for the first time. If she resorts to fists its because she was abused or groomed by seeing louts do it. Her violence is his fault.

BTW, my stepdaughters were taught before puberty to be able to cripple or kill an assailant. They know nothing about fighting for sport or fun or social status. They just know what it takes when the first blow or worse is coming how to aim to cripple or kill.

Dante