A man and his girlfriend are in the elevator, and the girlfriend starts assaulting the man. What do you think would be the best course of action for the man?

Tell her she doesn’t matter. Women hate that.

Jay Z elevator incident, as promised:

http://www.tmz.com/videos/0_6lrpg6kh/

Why are you screwing with me. I have long arms, I can cover very well. I don’t want to hurt anyone.

Uhm…I would use my strength to restrain her lol. I’d literally grab her arm and hold it til she calmed down.

Or you know…not date violent women.

There’s no way to come out of it well. You’ve already lost.

The closest example I can think of is when a car hits a pedestrian or a bicyclist. Initially it doesn’t matter what the other person was doing, or even if they jumped in front of the car intentionally, the driver is at fault until it’s absolutely proven otherwise.

I was walking in my neighborhood last month and heard someone shouting across a busy street, looked over and a woman was wailing on the back of a man’s head as he walked away, screaming every name she could think of. They were close in height and she had him outweighed by at least 50 pounds. He just kept walking. She took out her phone and started hitting him with it on the side of his head. He got caught and got angry and turned around to hit her back, stopped himself, and she goaded him to hit her so she could call the cops. He turned and ran across traffic. She got in her car and drove off, I’m assuming they came together.

As it stands that was his best option. To get pounded.

“Do you think if the woman throws the first punch, the man is justified in hitting her as hard as he wants to? ”

Abso-freaking-lutely. Unless you’re willing to switch the roles and claim the same.

”...a discussion about whether or not it was prudent for Ray Rice to knock his girlfriend out”

Prudent
acting with or showing care and thought for the future.

Nothing stops an attack faster than overwhelming lethal force against it. It is most prudent for the immediate future to stop an attack quickly. I’d do it to protect my children, or my grandmother. I’d also consider it to protect myself. It would be my first consideration.

In a confined space the size of an elevator it might well turn out that someone out of control winds up clocked. If you can’t escape from a woman kicking and clawing at you, what are your alternatives?

My ex-wife is the only person that I’ve ever hit in my life. After receiving or blocking multiple slaps over a period of months, the next two times she slapped me, I slapped her back with an open hand, giving her a bloody nose both times.

Not much longer after that, we went to a female marriage counselor. After the initial greetings, the counselor said, ‘I have to get this question out of the way: Has he ever hit you?’ I let my ex describe the two scenarios, and when she was done, I acknowledged that her descriptions were reasonably accurate.

The counselor turned to my ex and said, ‘If he had knocked your teeth out instead of just giving you a bloody nose, I wouldn’t have any sympathy for you. Quit hitting people, or you’re going to get hurt.’ And that was that.

This was in the eighties, and domestic violence seemed to be coming out of the closet. Once the counselor mentioned the subject, I thought I was a dead duck. I was quite surprised by the counselor’s reaction.

I hate that violent women are simply accepted in many cases. Completely unfair.

However, it is not all right to reciprocate with a lot more force. If a child attacked me, I definitely wouldn’t hit back until I’m seriously threatened – and even then, I’d hold back.

If a woman hits, claws, scratches, bites, chokes or kicks a man, he has a right to reasonably defend himself and keep himself safe- that is just enough reasonable force to be safe. I don’t think women who get violent should be entitled to ANY protection from the man acting with reasonable self defense.

However, we have taught our boys that they might have the impulse or the right to protect themselves, but in this day and age, no. They will be demonized and destroyed if they try to protect themselves—the last thing they need is a legal mess to work through, so the guy mentioned by @funkdaddy who crossed the street did the best thing he could do—in today’s society.

flick her on the forehead it’ll end quick.

For some time now, I hear nothing but how women are equal to men. I would treat her equal to a man. If that is inappropriate, then stop yelling equality at me, and stop creating laws that force private citizens to ignore difference (to treat any two things equally requires the ignoring of differences, otherwise it’s segregation).

Assault is assault. At one time I would have, in my chivalrous days, refrained from hitting a woman. But it seems that women want to force men to treat them equal in every regard, even by law, until it doesn’t suit them, and suddenly gender reenters the picture.

Feminists changed my ways. I now treat women equal to men, and if a man slaps me, hits me, etc. I’m going to defend myself by striking back. Whether s/he gets knocked out or not is irrelevant. Once an aggressor (the victimizer) has been established, the victim is the victim by default, and any actions taken in defense no matter what end they produce are rightly self defense.

I attack you with a club. You disarm me before I land a successful hit, take the club, and beat me bloody until you feel that I am no longer a threat. Someone arrives while you are beating me… all too often this person assumes you are the victimizer, and I am the victim. And in a court of law, and all the news, my suffering will be an argument that I was the victim. And you find yourself trying to defend yourself from both public and legal conviction.

I disagree with any reasonable force laws in the circumstances of direct physical assault. I would prefer anyone have the right to go to any extreme to defend them self, because it ends up that victims of assault have to defend their application of force as reasonable. Why is the victim having to justify anything? Because people feel bad for the loser even when he was the victimizer… sympathy. That sympathy isn’t spurred by the victim that bears no marks, only the person who attacks and suffered spinal injury and paralysis.
“The victim must have gone overboard, because the attacker is now paralyzed for life.” That’s absurd. The defender has to gauge their strength, be careful not to harm their attacker too much? I don’t think the attacker was really exercising the same self control, otherwise they wouldn’t have attacked at all.

I think if people were free to defend themselves to any extent, a lot more people would exercise self control before assaulting others. But I only think defense applies up to the point where the threat is no longer felt as such, and yes, I leave that to the victim to decide.

I actually don’t have an opinion on what is best for the man to do, I simply make my decisions for me. I have no problem with any course he may take once he is being victimized. And I certainly don’t think one course is better than another in any objective sense. I think the same for every animal in existence.