Moonlight Butterfly said:
Considering in the law men and women are equal when it comes to assault we don't have this magic privilege you seem to be so envious of. In fact in my personal experience men are always too keen to beat on women.
Your personal experience in its limited sample size (while unfortunate, given what I think you are implying) does not change the fact that it is not representative of reality as a whole. There exist a non-trivial number of people who believe men should never strike a woman under any circumstances, even in self defense, and this in turn enables a lot of violent behavior in women. A woman who strikes someone that can't defend themselves is a bully, irrespective of whether or not the reasons behind it or biological or social.
Since we're trading personal anecdotes, I'll return the favor. Around five years ago, I witnessed a male police officer have to forcibly restrain and arrest a near-rabid female. I was a civilian with the Calgary Police Service at the time, so I can certify with 100% accuracy that he followed the "use of force" guidelines exactly as required, eventually using nothing more than small joint manipulation to break apart her clenched hands so he could handcuff her. The crowd, which had nothing to say while this woman was punching, striking and kicking the officer, started screaming "abuse!" and "she's a woman!" while getting out their cell phone cameras. I seemed to be the only person who was willing to publicly point out that she was also violently resisting arrest. In the end, I can only speculate how many false claims of police brutality I was able to circumvent by simply providing witness to the incident, but even if it was just one, it was a lunch hour well spent.
With all due respect, I stand by my claim that my experience is more accurately reflective of society's views on inter-gender violence. I suspect we'll just have to 'agree to disagree'
... finally, as a side note: the law that men and women are theoretically equal under is, in practice, anything but. All other things being equal, the "gender gap" in both conviction rates and sentencing rates (in favor of female criminals) is larger than either the "race gap" or the "wealth gap". So no, I don't think "they're putatively equal under the eyes of the law even though they aren't" in any way disqualifies the reality that society, as a whole, is enabling of violent female behavior.