Would Hit a Girl

Ms. Manface: You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?
Batman: The hammer of justice is unisex.
[Pow!]

—Batman: The Brave And The Bold, "Night of the Huntress!"

The aversion and occasional subversion of Wouldn't Hit a Girl: a guy (good or evil) has no problems with violence against women. If he's good, it's either because he's just not sexist and he believes in beating people up equally, or because he knows that holding back against female opponents is a good way to get his ass kicked or killed. In earlier works, a male character would make up the point of "you're no lady" if the female in question has previously attacked him first (mostly female antagonists), in which case he will be allowed to attack. If he's evil, it's because... well, he's evil.

Of course, more modern female heroes tend to go into battle fully expecting to be hit. If anything, many of them would probably be insulted if a male villain went easy on them because of their gender.

In terms of censorship and editing on TV, any scene of male physical violence on females sometimes vary, including flashes, cutaways, or even trimming or cutting out the scene all together, to maintain a tasteful image for the sensitive.

When hitting girls is Played for Laughs it can be a case of Slapstick Knows No Gender.

When used in Video Games for Fetish Fuel, it's known as Ryona.

Examples of Would Hit a Girl include:

Anime and Manga

  • Done without lampshading in Excel Saga. Il Palazzo shoots Excel with a pistol and a bazooka. This is a rare example of man-on-woman violence being (very) funny, perhaps because Excel herself doesn't make a big deal of it.
  • Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist has no qualms about hitting girls, much to his younger brother's horror.
    • Not to mention Roy Mustang in the manga and second anime when he burns Lust repeatedly until she dies.
    • All of the villains. Though what would you expect from the Seven Deadly Sins, Father, and Kimbley?
      • Except Greed.
  • Mazinger Z: Kouji would definitely hit one girl if he was angry enough -and the girl usually hit back-. Baron Ashura also did, although it can or can not count when he hit himself/herself/itself. If it counts, then Dr. Hell also did.
  • Saint Seiya: Ikki does not care for his adversary's gender, and he is perfectly willing hitting his enemy is that person is a woman. It doesn't mean he's happy when someone else hits a girl in his vincinity, and specially if they're bystanders: he was pissed when Esmeralda was fatally struck down by Guilty, and later in the anime Filler when little Helen, a 12-year-old girl, was tossed alive into a volcano by Agora and Shiva.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho has an instance in the anime where Yusuke reveals he holds this attitude, in contrast to Kuwabara, asking what gender has to do with fighting somebody who wants to fight and declaring there to be no purpose in treating an opponent differently because of their sex. The edited dub plays this straight, while the original Japanese/unedited dub implicitly averts by revealing that the demon Miyuki, the cause of this, is actually a Villainous Crossdresser transsexual, though Yusuke's precise dialogue could be taken as him telling Kuwabara the truth about Miyuki's gender only to keep him from starting a pointless brawl due to being so outraged over how.
  • One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy has a notable track record of this. As early as chapter two, he's attacking female pirate "Iron Mace" Alvida. In Little Garden, he and Zoro give Miss Valentine and Mr. 5 an almost Offhand Backhand, and Luffy's the one who hits Valentine. In Alabasta, Luffy hits Vivi after Vivi gets angry at him for not wanting to run around pointlessly. Most recently, Luffy had to fight the Boa sisters, Sandersonia and Marigold and did so without holding back. He was also fully prepared to fight Hancock.He also recently told Big Mom that he would kick her ass when he gets to the New World.
    • Most members of the Straw Hat crew don't seem to have any problem with female opponents. Usopp in particular has fought against several female opponents, in one case only losing because Chivalrous Pervert Sanji stopped him from attacking. Zoro spent a large part of his childhood (unsuccessfully) trying to beat a girl, and even berated her for thinking that being a female made her any less capable a fighter. The only other member of the crew with reservations about fighting women is Chivalrous Pervert Sanji.
      • Ironically for Zoro, arguably the one most fine with hitting girls, due to his refusal to fight Marine Swordswoman Tashigi because she looks pretty much identical to the girl he kept trying to beat when he was young before she died, he gets accused of being sexist about swordswomen whenever he goes out of his way to avoid fighting Tashigi.
        • Zoro's interesting in that while he'll certainly fight a female warrior in battle if challenged or attacked first and won't hold anything back, he really disapproves of just attacking innocent women for the hell of it. He flips his lid when Eneru fries Robin just for speaking out of turn because "she's a woman" and gets even more pissed when Eneru responds that he doesn't care.
    • A particularly unpleasant example would be Spandam, who not only hits Robin, he beats the living hell out of her, first making sure that she was completely helpless to fight back, of course.
  • Dragon Ball
    • Young Goku knocks out Launch, who is in her violent Kushami mode, after she tries to shoot him for sharing a futon with her.
      • When Goku grows up, he has no problem hitting Chichi out of the arena during the World Martial Arts Tournament.
      • Vegeta doesn't hold back at all against Android 18.
      • Trunks destroys all of the future androids without mercy, killing Future Android 18 with an energy blast point-blank.
      • Super Buu couldn't care less about his opponent's gender; he turns Chichi into an egg and brutally crushes her, and also threatens to kill Videl when she provokes him.
  • Naruto has no problem with this considering he challenged Tsunade to a fight after she insults the Hokage, and mocks his dream of becoming the Next Hokage. Granted, he doesn't manage to defeat her, but in their rematch he wins her over, and manages to get a kiss on the forehead from her, because she admits that his dream of becoming Hokage will eventually become reality.
    • Tobi also counts considering his fight with Konan, when he actually kills her at the end of it.
    • And then there's Neji, who almost kills Hinata during their fight after, with some help from Naruto, she shakes off his Hannibal Lecture and fights him back.
    • It's quicker to point out that Shikamaru is the only character in the entire series with reservations about fighting women, and he does it anyway. (Though he sometimes uses his shadow powers to have the girls hit themselves, like he does to Kin Tsuchi.)
    • Of course, it makes sense that this trope applies to almost every Naruto character. There are plenty of female ninja in the Narutoverse, so anybody that really Wouldn't Hit a Girl would probably get themselves killed (or fired) fairly quickly.
  • Quite likely the only time anyone would ever cheer for a young hero slugging a nun is in A Certain Magical Index, during the scene where Touma belts Agnese one. Okay, most convents wouldn't exactly call her worthy of wearing the habit, but still...
  • Sagara Sousuke from Full Metal Panic!. Being a Heroic Sociopath Crazy Survivalist, he displays no reservations towards violence against women. Granted, he tends to prefer shooting at or bombing them instead of engaging in fist fights with them, but this appears to purely be his tactical preference more than anything else (seeing how he's rather physically underwhelming, and has the tendency to rely more on firearms instead of muscle). In one instance, he showed no hesitance in tackling Kaname's female teacher down a flight of stairs. And in another instance, he's shown to put a knife to the throat of an innocent old lady (though Kaname stopped him from doing anything).
  • Train Heartnet during the beginning of the Black Cat anime, while he was still emotionless and working for Chronos. Right in the beginning, he is shown beating down and assassinating a bunch of nuns (though...they apparently weren't actually nuns, considering that they pulled out a bunch of guns and tried to kill him) during a mission.
  • Tenjou Tenge. In the infamous 'Nothing But Fist' scene, Muscle Bound Aloof Older Brother Mitsuomi punches the Evil Bitch Priestess Inoue so hard in the mouth that teeth spray everywhere.
  • Bandou from Elfen Lied, who proves himself an asshole by immediately back-handing a random female secretary for approaching him from behind, calling her a "stupid bitch" afterwards. In fact, the only people that the man has hit in the series are girls. He even lampshades it at one point, telling a girl that he is assaulting that he really doesn't give a crap whether she's a little girl or not.
  • In the Bamboo Blade manga, Toyama likes to Kick the Dog by beating up on new kendo club members, and Kirino mentions "Boys or girls, it doesn't matter to him. In fact, I think he picks on the girls even more." Of course, this makes the reader cheer that much harder when Tamaki beats his ass.
  • In one episode of Rune Soldier Louie, Genie is getting increasingly frustrated because Louie doesn't take their fight against a horde of enemy soldiers seriously and always steps in front of her when she's about to attack. She accuses him of doing it because she's a woman, and punches him in the face. To make it perfectly clear that he isn't thinking of her like that, he gets back up and promptly punches her back into the face. After that they continue to beat each other to pulp.
  • Touma of A Certain Magical Index has no problem hitting women at all if their motivations involve the harming and murdering of decent human beings, and decks one female enemy (who was about to start a full scale war between Espers and Magicians that would result in the death of innocent millions) in the face at least twice in the same arc, knocking her out. See it here
    • In fact, it seems none of the male characters have a problem fighting women.
  • In GetBackers, Ginji of all people ends up doing this to Sakura when she gets in his way, electrocuting and torturing her. Of course, the only way that this happens is because he went berserk and reverted back to being the Lightning Lord. Even Akabane is surprised that Ginji would do something so ungentlemanly as to beat the shit out of a girl.
  • Tsukasa Domyouji from Hana Yori Dango will hit a girl just like he'll hit anybody else, whether it's his Tsundere Love Interest for ticking him off or in the middle of a fight, his equally Tsundere older sister for hitting him first, or some Rich Bitches who have abused others.
  • The characters of Hellsing are prime examples, especially Alucard.
    • Alucard does not hesitate to shoot Seras when she says that she is a virgin. However, the most notable example of this is the brutal murder of Rip Van Winkle: Alucard impales her on her own gun, drinks her blood, and finally absorbs her into his body. He also punches her in the face beforehand. In the TV series, Alucard kills a rogue female vampire without batting an eye. Additionally, he shoots Baobhan Sith to dispel her.
    • Jan Valentine intends on killing Integra when he and his brother storm the headquarters of the Hellsing Organization. He thinks nothing of it, and even claims that he may "skullfuck" Integra's corpse.
  • In Immortal Rain, resident Ax Crazy Dora Folk is stated outright to be willing to do anything to win - even punch a woman or knock over a child. Which is kind of an understatement of exactly how far he's willing to go, considering that he was revealed shortly after to have forcefully impregnated a woman with demon spawn from hell, which caused her to go insane and die.
  • Hei of Darker than Black is a consummate Combat Pragmatist and has no problem fighting female opponents. Veering into the villain version of this (he's a pretty ruthless Anti-Hero), on several occasions, when sufficiently angered, he has also struck defenseless female characters.
  • In the manga of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, one of the village chiefs hits Rena when she hits him, after hitting Keiichi. Needless to say, everyone was being Hot-Blooded.
  • Black☆Star from Soul Eater appears to be this, since he had no problem with punching Maka in the face when she told him to Hit Me Dammit.
  • Despite widespread Fanon to the contrary, Ranma Saotome of Ranma ½ is quite willing to fight girls, though he does say once or twice that he doesn't like to do so and, for various reasons, goes easier on them than guys. For example, the whole mess with Shampoo started because he challenged her to a fight and then kicked her in the head off of the challenge log (and if he had been thinking to change back to his real form first, he wouldn't have gotten the Kiss of Death). He usually doesn't get to fight women particularly seriously because the matches he gets into opposing them tend to be goofy Martial Arts and Crafts stuff, and even if this contest involves physical combat he'd rather defeat them by ring-out or Defeat by Modesty than by actually hurting them. When push comes to shove, however, and the woman in question becomes a real threat to his or his friends' safety, he's perfectly willing to fight hand-to-hand with everything he's got—or bury them in a rock slide, whichever works.
    • Recurring opponent Pantyhose Taro outright says that he has no problem at all hitting girls. However, this means that he fights them exactly as he fights men—spending only as much energy and effort as necessary to defeat and subdue them. Therefore, after kidnapping Akane, he easily disarms and overpowers her with a few well-placed strikes; when fighting Rouge, he goes all-out, whether she's in her demure and harmless Yamato Nadeshiko human form or in her psychotic Ashura form.
  • Fairy Tail characters in general seem not to see sex or gender as an obstacle to beating the crap out of people. Occurs most notably when Psycho for Hire-turned-Heroic Sociopath Gajeel spends several gleeful minutes slapping a bound and helpless Lucy around just for the hell of it, but even then no one seems to care that Lucy is a girl so much as that she's chained to a wall.
  • Done in the first chapter of Highschool of the Dead by The Hero. To be fair, this was a Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! moment.
  • Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro: Neuro is just fine hitting Yako, breaking her neck, throwing her out the window, using her as a chair, and just generally making her life hell.
  • Most of the characters in Mahou Sensei Negima don't have a problem hitting women. Yes, most of the heroes are women, but their enemies are happy to fight back, and the main (male) character doesn't flinch at beating up female villains. The one exception is Koutaro, who is a bit of a Technical Pacifist when it comes to women (he'll knock a female opponent out of the ring with the air pressure from his punch, but he won't actually hit her), but everyone else treats him like an idiot for making such a stupid lifestyle choice.
  • For Guts in Berserk, there is no such thing as chivalry when he deals with female opponents. But then again, holding back against women like Rosine or Slan would be plain suicidal.
    • His first on-screen kill is a female demon after getting it on with her, sticking his Arm Cannon straight down her throat before blowing her brains out when she transforms to eat him alive like she previously did to Corkus during the Eclipse.
      • It is played straight during the early flashback arc. Future love interest Casca attacks him after finding out he had to strip her naked to treat her wounds, and he tells her that he'd knock her on her ass if she wasn't a woman. Of course, Casca's far less of a threat to him than demons, and it was more of a fit than a fight.
  • Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Both Battler and Hideyoshi, according to the third arc. To be fair, both girls (Beatrice and Eva-Beatrice, respectively) were being rather mean at the time.
    • The Furnitures have no real qualms about the genders of their rivals during their fights, either. i.e., the Goat Men from the second arc kill Rosa and Maria after the first goes Mama Bear moment.
  • Ryuunosuke's dad from Urusei Yatsura strikes his daughter (quite hard) on many occasions. Then again, it's because he insists that she's a man and she will most certainly fight back due to how tough she's gotten from this treatment. The whole thing, amazingly, is Played for Laughs.
  • Sentou in Fight Ippatsu! clobbers Plug with a baseball bat on their first meeting. This becomes a casual Running Gag that develops when he starts headcracking Arresta with it...and she likes it so much she begins to look forward to it.
  • Slayers: Zelgadis more or less believes in this, more so before his Heel Face Turn in season 1; he fights Lina for the Orihalcon Statue with little remorse. He even Dope Slaps Amelia for acting out once. Contrast Gourry, who isn't keen on sword-fighting a woman in season 4.
  • Kyon tried to punch Haruhi for going way too far in messing with Mikuru.
  • Agon of Eyeshield 21 has this as part of his establishing character moment. When Mamori turns down his advances he shoves her to the ground.
  • In Gundam Seed Kira Yamato slugs Cagalli after she gets a bunch of her friends killed, and then tries to belt him when he calls her out on it. And of course, Muruta Azrael has no problems with slapping a girl (Flay) for not obeying his orders. Or shooting her a half-dozen times in the gut (Natarle). Neither does Rau Le Creuset, who actually kills Flay as well as others.
    • In Gundam Seed Destiny Kira ends of the being the one who kills Stella, though whether he was aware of her gender is up in the air. During the finale, neither Neo nor Athrun has a particular problem with tossing Lunamaria Hawke around like a ragdoll, and Anti-Villain Shinn Asuka makes a pretty determined effort to kill Cagalli Yula Atha during their one fight.
  • The world of Pokémon Special has no gender issues as evil guys have no problem attacking heroic women and good guys have no problem attacking evil women. It helps that it's (usually) the Pokemon themselves that are doing the attacking, but it's worth noting that the girls take just as much damage as the guys.
    • Brock actually hits Misty twice and comically in the episode "Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village" when she's teasing him about having a crush on Melanie. She gets him back in the next episode, kicking him in the face after a fake bug scare.
  • Austria from Axis Powers Hetalia is a milder example. During the time when he believed that North Italy was a girl, the narrator explains that Austria would step on Italy if he didn't listen to his instructions. OTOH, Austria doesn't even seem to think of beating up his maid and partner Hungary... most likely because he knows she's perfectly capable of beating him back. (Despite what badfics say.)
  • Baccano!'s Claire Stanfield considers himself an equal rights activist: he fights for the right of people of all genders to have their asses kicked by Claire Stanfield.
  • In Gundam Wing, Dorothy Catalonia tries to Invoked Trope Wouldn't Hit a Girl against Heero Yuy during a fencing match. He quickly proves her wrong with a thrust that snaps his foil like a twig and embeds it in Dorothy's mask about an inch away from her face.
  • In Bleach, Ichigo introduces himself to Rukia with a foot to the back. Generally, if males go to fight females, few guys will show much hesitation into fighting them; a good example would be Yamamoto against Halibel's Amazon Brigade, whom he almost torches alive. All of the villains apply, especially Grimmjow and Yammy.
    • Grimmjow stabs Rukia with his hand to see how strong she is. He also ambushes Loly and Menoly when they are torturing Orihime: he kicks Loly in the stomach and tears her leg off; when Menoly attempts to attack him with a cero, he counters with one of his own and incinerates her upper body, killing her.
    • Yammy is just as ruthless. In the episode he first appears in, he smacks Orihime so hard he sends her flying, and then aims a cero at her and Yoruichi. In a later episode when an arrancar nurse finishes restoring his lost arm, he slams her into the wall with such force that she is killed instantly (in the manga, he crushes her head with his fist). Even later on he attacks Loly and Menoly for no reason whatsoever, first punching Menoly so hard she crashes through the wall and then beating Loly to near death.
    • Discussed by Jackie and Renji when she asks him if her gender is a problem for him in their fight. Then Renji ziggazs the trope: he tells Jackie as he defeats her that gender does NOT matter in the battlefield, but then refuses to finish her off because of her being a female.
  • Ayumu of Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? will have no problem Chainsawing you to death if you mess with his friends.
  • Okabe Rintaro of Steins;Gate punches an emotionally disturbed Moeka right in the face in episode 19.
  • Discussed in the manga The King of Fighters: KYO (based on the KOF games). When Athena tells Kyo's girlfriend Yuki that she lost in a fight to Kyo and that's why she transferred to their school, Yuki is pissed at Kyo for hitting a girl (and one younger than both of them), which actually offends Athena since she thinks Yuki sees her as Just a Kid. Played more seriously later when Yuki tells Iori "Go Through Me" when he insists on fighting Kyo and he takes her hostage as a reply -- but when Kyo says "You Wouldn't Hit a Girl who can't fight back!", he agrees and lets her go.
  • In the 13th Detective Conan movie, Ran gets beaten up by Irish, even being slammed against the wall, after losing the upperhand in the fight to protect Conan. And her opponent also beats the shit out of Conan himself.
  • Black Butler: Dark Action Girl Grell Sutcliffe kills Madam Red when she refuses to harm Ciel, stating that she is "disappointed in her" for being so soft. She also writes Matilda's name down on her 'death list' for sleeping with Sebastian.
    • Alois also has few qualms with physically punishing his maid Hannah, even taking out her eye.
  • In an episode of Sekirei Season 2, an Ashikabi is seen leaving the hospital with his Sekirei, and treats her terribly, berating and hitting her. Minato, Tsukiumi, and Yukari all see his treatment, and are utterly disgusted by it. He later tries to pull a knife on Yukari, but Tsukiumi destroys it, and allowing Yukari to kick him in the groin.
  • Nako's manipulative uncle in Poor Poor Lips, who strikes Ren in the face when she stands up for Nako, with the entire sequence framed like a scene of domestic abuse.
  • Almost every male in High School DxD has no problem with hitting, slicing, stabbing, kicking them on the ground, or punching the girls through a wall or window.

Comic Books

  • Done beautifully in a Justice League International issue, where time-traveling new recruit Booster Gold has caught the female villain. She asks him if he really would hit a girl. He goes "Well... You see, it's like this..." the next panel shows her on the ground after being punched in the face by him. "Where I come from equality of the sexes is a given, so we can hit anyone."
  • Dwight McCarthy from Sin City, though he's quite violently protective of them, has no problems with hitting or shooting a woman. Marv is usually the type that Wouldn't Hit a Girl, but he'll do it if he has to such as punching out Wendy, Goldie's sister, in order to spare her from watching him torture Goldie's killer, Kevin, to death, or mercilessly executing a madam who has taken to exploiting underage girls (in Silent Night).
  • Watchmen: Edward Blake hits women. And then tries to rape them. He may even kill a woman that he left pregnant. Ozymandias also kicks people in the stomach when they try to shoot him. Schoolboy heroics are redundant in his new world.
  • The Incredible Hulk has no qualms with your gender at all. If you've wronged him or pissed him off, you are to be smashed. Hence, Moonstone, Vapor, Mercy and Animus are treated accordingly.
  • In Ultimate Spider-Man, Spidey beats up a Mother-daughter team of mutants who rob banks with their powers. Even the fact that the daughter was a little kid (a potty-mouthed, exploding-powers enabled extremely dangerous little kid) didn't stop him from beating them both up and handing them over to the cops. Later in issue 8, Spidey, Human Torch, Iceman, and the newly empowered Rick Jones encounter a quintet of lizard/girl hybrids stealing items from the Pegasus facility and don't even think twice about attacking them head-on, including full punches to the face. Although Johnny does keep trying to get that Lizard girl's phone number...
  • Classic Spider-Man, meanwhile, started out as a Wouldn't Hit A Girl type back in The Sixties, which caused him some problems with Princess Python of the Circus of Crime. He eventually shed this viewpoint, best highlighted in Secret Wars in The Eighties, when he simultaneously gives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and a Reason You Suck Speech to villainess Titania.
  • Gideon Graves from Scott Pilgrim does not hesitate to brutally stab Ramona (What a dick!). Todd Ingram punches out Envy Adams after she gave him a well deserved Groin Attack for cheating on her. Scott himself cut Roxy in half
  • Spider-Girl's enemies don't pull their punches when they fight her. If they did, she'd probably be insulted.
  • In Power Pack, when Katie Power is bullying the (younger) Franklin Richards, Katie's brother Alex tells Franklin to hit her back if she hits him. Franklin follows the advice.
  • A female terrorist tries the "You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?" line on Superman. He knocks her out with a flick of his finger, saying something like "No, but then again no lady I know would carry C4 in her purse."
  • Deadpool. Street Fighter. Shadowcat all up in his face. Do the math.
  • In New Avengers #27, while fighting Elektra, Luke Cage, Hero for Hire promptly gives her a swift kick courtesy of Daredevil. [dead link]
  • Dick Tracy often punched out female villains, sometimes after cautioning them "Don't make me forget you're a lady!"
  • Cassidy in Preacher has a history of striking women. This is not excused at all and is treated as an absolutely unforgivable sin. When Jesse discovers this, it fully cements Cassidy's Face Heel Turn.
  • In an issue of Young Justice, students from an all-girls school held down Red Tornado's adopted daughter (and former heroine Arrowette, who had tried to intervene) and cut off some of the girl's hair, Superboy knocked the whole crowd down with the sonic boom of his landing and then threatened to break backs and/or jaws if they didn't back off and shut up. I think it's safe to say Superboy Would Hit a Girl.
  • In the French comic Alpha, after heavily insulting him, the acting director of the CIA ask Alpha if he would hit a woman. He answers that she shouldn't talk about sex equality right now.
  • A terrorist once said to Captain America, "Patriotic fool -- you would not hit a lady!" He decked her while saying, "Lady, you're no lady!"
  • Popeye: Poopdeck Pappy slugged Olive Oyl when they first met. Olive never forgave him for it and the two have been at odds ever since.

Fan Works

  • Ashton from New World is a borderline psychopath who thinks he has the right to treat people under his station like tools for his pleasure and has no problem with savagely attacking Maddie when she rejects his advances.
  • Spider-Woman's enemies don't have any problem going after her with everything they've got, up to and including laying into her with No-Holds-Barred Beatdowns if they win.
  • In the Firefly fic Forward, Mal shows he is perfectly willing to punch River in the face when she goes berserk and starts shooting up the scenery.
  • In the Harry Potter fanfic Geoffrey Hunter and the Secret Society, the main character breaks at least one rib in a witch who tries to kill him.
  • In Episode 1 of Final Stand of Death, Manson has five Football Clubs logos that represents the each of the Spice Girls, as that's their hometown teams. This confirms who he had no guilt of killing on Celebrity Deathmatch, which the fan-fic is on. Any guesses on what music group returns the favor?

Films -- Live-Action

  • In Tim Burton's Batman Returns The Dark Knight chased after Catwoman when she blew up Max Shreck's department store, and when he reached the top of the gothic architecture building, that Catwoman had climbed up to, she violently attacked him out of nowhere with a flurry of kicks and punches until Batman had had enough and finally struck her back!
  • James Cagney, absolutely. Typecast as badass gangster with a heart of gold, he inflicts hurt on men and women in equal doses. Most famous example is smashing a grapefruit into Mae Clark's face in "The Public Enemy." It happens in half his movies.
  • There's a scene in Ghost Dog: The Way of The Samurai where two Mafioso are speeding down a road and trying to get to a hospital because one of them has been shot and is dying. They get pulled over by a Meddlesome Patrolwoman and one of them tries to convince her they need to get to the hospital, but to no avail. The second simply shoots her the moment she tries to talk to him. When his partner expresses shock about shooting a woman, he says something like "They want to be equal...I made her equal."
  • Mad Max, in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, is reluctant to hit Anna Goanna, teenage leader of the feral kids, but he does so anyway in an attempt to stop her going to Bartertown. She goes anyway.
  • During the climactic fight in Godzilla Final Wars, Commander Gordon is fighting a female alien cyborg who asks him, "Are you really going to hit a woman?" He pauses a moment to relax his fist into an open palm, says "Yeah" and breaks her neck.
  • The Wicker Man remake. Nicolas Cage's character punches one woman while wearing a suit and tie, punches another while wearing a bear costume, kicks Leelee Sobieski, and bikejacks another woman at gunpoint. Which has all been condensed here. To said character's defense, he thinks they're all conspiring to burn a little girl alive. That's what they want him to think.
  • After discovering Charlotte Rampling's betrayal in The Verdict, Paul Newman slugs her in the face.
  • Poor Ariel in Footloose.
  • Most slasher movie villains.
  • Once Were Warriors features some pretty brutal instances of spousal abuse.
  • Bryan Mills, Taken's resident Badass, has no problem hitting a girl if it convinces her husband to help him find his daughter. Lucky for her it was Only a Flesh Wound.
  • James Bond. On the other hand, he notably avoided killing a woman in cold blood (hey, it's James Bond, that shows restraint) for a considerable chunk of his career—IIRC, up to one of the Pierce Brosnan films.
    • Pierce Brosnan's Bond has two female villain kills to his credit. The first is Xenia Onatopp from GoldenEye, whom he kills by blasting the pilot of a helicopter with her AK-47, causing her to get yanked off him and into a tree where she strangles to death because of her safety harness. The other is Elektra King, one of the two Big Bads of The World Is Not Enough, whom he flat-out guns down.
    • The Living Daylights has an incident which other characters take for him not being willing to shoot a girl, at least not a beautiful one. Bond has another explanation: he could see she wasn't a professional, and he only kills professionals or in self-defence.
      • On the other hand in the following film, he threatens to shoot the Bond girl at one point because he thought (incorrectly) she was in league with the Big Bad; earlier, he came across the Big Bads kept girl in her bedroom and told her to keep quiet or he'd cut her throat. He doesn't make good on either of these threats and both end up on his side by the end, but its still noticeable. In the same movie the villains kill a female ninja, but she was in full "not taking me alive" mode.
    • Sean Connery indirectly killed a girl in Thunderball, a psychopathic Femme Fatale who was trying to have him shot while they danced. Bond noticed the gun and used her as a human shield. He smacked around a photograper in Dr. No correctly surmising her to be a spy, and he had a...rough...relationship with Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, culminating in a brief judo scuffle between the two.
    • Roger Moore was probably the nastiest to women, though mostly in his early movies and the actor wasn't very comfortable with it. In Live and Let Die he manipulates two women into sleeping with him to gain a tactical advantage over the Big Bad, and threatens to shoot the latter when he's finished ("I certainly wouldn't have killed you before") if she doesn't talk because he knows she's The Mole. In The Man with the Golden Gun he corners the Big Bads mistress and nearly breaks her arm for information, then forces her to lead him to the villain if she doesn't want him to know about their "little meeting", just in case he ends up killing her for it. He blows up a helicopter pilot assassin in The Spy Who Loved Me, and he tries to kill May Day in A View to a Kill but since she is The Dragon and a Hot Amazon who nearly kills him several times (and actually kills several of his allies), its pretty justified. And she pulls a Heel Face Turn before that happens.
  • William from Saw VI has no qualms about hitting his female lawyer, especially because she's coming after him with a portable saw to cut him open because the key to unlock the device which is going to kill her is sewn in his side.
  • Subverted and played straight in The Boondock Saints. Il Duce will never kill a woman, but apparently has no problem hitting one over the head to knock them out (It was actually a male FBI Agent in disguise, but he didn't know this). Same goes for the McManus twins, as towards the beginning of the film Murphy punches a Straw Feminist in the face after she kicks Connor in the balls, and taser their target's wife.
  • In The Other Guys Hoitz (one of our heroes) is involved in a brawl with several bad guys including the ridiculously beautiful Brazilian Dark Action Girl. We don't actually see him hit her but he obviously does so hard enough that she's still unconscious several minutes later when the scene ends.
  • Used to great effect in an Establishing Character Moment in Intermission - Colin Farrell's character is charmingly flirting with a shop girl when entirely out of the blue, he brutally punches her to the ground and robs the till.
  • Played for laughs in Con Air, when Nicolas Cage goes into something of a Foe-Tossing Charge towards the prison plane's cockpit. After pwning three or four burly inmates, he is accosted by the resident drag queen, pauses just as he's about to hit him... then just slaps him in the face.
  • Heathers has JD kneeing Veronica in the head while fighting her in the boiler room.
  • In the Die Hard films, John McClane has no qualms about hitting a woman, just as long as she's a terrorist.
  • In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Todd punches the highlights out of Knives's hair as his Kick the Dog moment (though it was Lynette Guycott who did this in the comic). Gideon beats on Ramona to establish himself as the Big Bad of the film. Whenever he hits a girl, a videogame voice says "Bad!" to lampshade it. This is all in direct contrast to Scott, who refuses to hit a girl even when she's trying to kill him.
  • In Hot Fuzz Nick Angel has no qualms about vaulting a stone wall and kicking an old woman in the face when she has a shotgun pointed at him.
  • In Paul Graeme punches the Big Bad played by Sigourney Weaver in the face; it's hilariously ineffective and she quickly shows she's much more badass than he is but Graeme certainly doesn't lose any audience sympathy for at least trying to deck her.
  • In Kill Bill, none of the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad have any qualms about hitting (or shooting, stabbing, or otherwise killing) a girl; the story is about the female protagonist's Roaring Rampage of Revenge after they attempted to murder her.
  • Mr. and Mrs. Smith has the eponymous couple fighting where both end up with cuts and bruises of course for a pair of superspies, this is foreplay.
  • In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Angel Eyes, the titular Bad has no problem beating a hooker in order to extract information, and prove how evil he is. Despite the film being made decades ago, this still holds up rather well, as it is set in The American Civil War, a time period when hitting a girl would have been proof of just how bad you were.
  • What's Love Got To Do With It is a Tina Turner biopic. Enough said.
  • In the third Terminator movie, the antagonist is a female (at least in appearance) robot. Arnie beats her like she stole something.
  • Leroy in Mystery Team.
  • In Brotherhood of the Wolf, Mani will defend himself from a girl if she's attacking him, but he'll pull his punches (considering he's Mark Dacascos, that's probably a good idea). Fronsac is not so courteous when he goes on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge after Mani is killed. No one is safe from his blades of doom.
  • In Little Shop of Horrors dentist Orin Scrivello beats his girlfriend and tortures his dental patients regardless of gender. He gets his comeuppance though.
  • In Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, Ashtray's grandmother dares him to hit her as hard as he can, which he naturally refuses at first. Then he suddenly hits her so hard that she flies over to the other side of a table.
  • In Gilda, Johnny slaps his wife Gilda across the face when she performs a striptease in his casino.
  • In Out of the Past, gangster Whit slaps his moll, Kathie, after learning she murdered a man and lied to him about it.
  • In the original Cape Fear, Max beats Peggy up so badly that the actress who played her sustained back injuries.
    • He also beats and rapes Diane, and at the beginning of the movie, he's just finished serving an eight-year stretch in prison for assault and rape. Immediately after getting out of prison, he beats and rapes his ex-wife.
  • In The Thin Man, Nick decks his wife Nora to get her out of the field of fire when a gun-wielding man bursts into the room. Later, while rubbing her jaw, she criticizes his tactics but accepts his intentions.

Literature

  • "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens has one of the characters – the ruthless Bill Sikes, the town bully – beats many people, including his prostitute girlfriend, Nancy. Despite his abusive behavior that borders on satanism, Nancy stays with him, believing he is a stable force in his life. In the end, she sees that he is nothing but a despicable person and leaves him to take care of Oliver. Bill, in one of the most heinous acts of 1800s English literature, barbarically kills Nancy. It isn't long before Bill is caught and put to death ... this despite his taking Oliver hostage.
  • Simon Templar usually doesn't apply his personal brand of justice to women, but this was mainly due to a little trope known as High Heel Face Turn. When he did, in fact, shoot a couple of women (the leaders of a drug ring), he notes that this is the first time he's ever actually done so.
    • He has been known to Spank the Cutie, however.
    • On a couple of other occasions, he has no compunction about hitting a woman carefully on the back of the head to knock her out for a while.
  • Females in Warrior Cats are functionally equal to males. You'll find females leading Clans, females leading patrol parties, and females suffering the same wounds. The only time they're given special mercy is if they're pregnant.
    • Even the "mercy for the pregnant" has been averted once to give Breezepelt a Kick the Dog moment.
  • In Harry Potter, during a Quidditch match, Oliver Wood tells Harry to stop being a gentleman and just knock Cho Chang off her broom already.
    • Chivalry might not be his only problem there - although the crush he has on her is not mentioned until the next book.
    • It might not have even been that. Harry just didn't want to crash into he while she kept cutting him off. Had it been anyone else (okay, maybe not Draco) he probably would have done the same. Slamming into someone else at high speeds hundreds of feet above the ground doesn't exactly sound like a good idea.
  • Gentleman Bastard Sequence Locke Lamora is willing to punch out an eighty-year-old woman. She's the Magnificent Bitch head of the Duke's spy ring, who had stabbed Locke with a needle dipped in a slow-acting poison and was offering the antidote in exchange for selling out his friends. He didn't have time to trick his way out, so he went for the direct method.
    • It's implied that the reason this worked is because he is known for his brains, not brawn, and it never occured to her that she might not be safe alone in a room with him.
  • In Splinter of the Minds Eye, pretty much anyone is willing to hit Leia. Grammael does it to get Luke to talk. Vader cuts her in their duel - yes, she fought him with a lightsaber, and though she came off worse it wasn't a Curb Stomp Battle. Even Luke hits her, slapping her when she's very agitated and about to blow their cover by leaving.
  • In Ceremony, Spenser and Hawk fight their way through an orgy. Hitting men and women alike, Spenser comments, "No sexist, I".
  • In the Sword of Truth series, at various points Richard has pointed out that he's perfectly willing to fight women, as he knows they can be just as dangerous as men, if not moreso.
  • All the time in A Song of Ice and Fire
    • In Game of Thrones, Viserys frequently threatens Danerys, who lives in terror of 'waking the dragon'
    • King Robert punches Cersei in the face in a drunken rage.
    • None of Joffrey's Kingsguard seem to have any qualms with beating the 13-year old Sansa on the king's orders.
    • More recently, Ramsay Snow's treatment of his many female prisoners along with both of his wives has been used to characterise him as a Complete Monster.
  • Taken to an extreme in Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury: Mike Hammer deliberately shoots Charlotte Manning, a woman, in the stomach to avenge the similar murder of his Army buddy. Although this is sometimes passed off as self-defense, because she was secretly reaching for a gun at the moment of the killing, Fridge Logic shows that Hammer had already explicitly told her that he intended to kill her, and thus it is her actions, not his, that are self-defensive.
  • Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels: Several male villains, like John Chai from Vendetta, Karl Woodley from The Jury, Mitch Riley from Hide And Seek, and Maxwell Zenowicz from Fast Track would happily use women like punching bags, and this is naturally used as a combination of a Moral Event Horizon and a Kick the Dog moment to make you hate them! Interestingly, one exception occurs in the book Hide And Seek. Jack Emery was rescuing Lizzie Fox from the FBI, and Lizzie wanted him to rescue Judge Easter from them, too. Jack tried to point out that they needed a plan to rescue her and that they could not just charge back out there. Lizzie, refusing to be amenable to reason, makes the ever-so-mature decision to pull a gun out on Jack to make him help her rescue Judge Easter now. Jack managed to knock her out with a karate chop to the back of her neck. He did send a silent apology to her later on for that.
  • Legacy of the Force: In this series of books, Jacen Solo ends up killing at least 4 female characters! Apparently, the three authors working on that series subscribed to the idea of Wouldn't Hit a Girl, and used this trope to demonstrate how much of a Complete Monster Jacen had become.
  • Given that the Honor Harrington novels are set far in the future, gender equality is considered normal in most of the galaxy. Plenty of people that are killed on all sides, are female. Noteably, the planet Grayson is a giant aversion to this trope.
  • In Ron Goulart's Calling Dr. Patchwork, private detective Jake Pace knocked out a female criminal in front of several witnesses, whom he told he was a federal cop. One of the bystanders asked, "Does the government now sanction coldcocking a woman?" and was promptly scolded by his wife: "We're equal now. I got as much right to be coldcocked as you do, Oscar."


Live-Action TV

  • An episode of Eastenders featured a heated argument between Sharon and Phil. Sharon slapped Phil, resulting in a few half-hearted gasps from the people around. Phil hit her back. Cue outcry, with people dragging him back and screaming "you can't hit a girl!".
  • Several episodes of Adam-12 feature officers Malloy and Reed responding to domestic disputes; the very end of the male protagonist hitting the woman—before the officers break it up—is seen in at least a couple of episodes.
    • In the episode "X-Force," both Malloy and Reed spot an unconscious 6-year-old girl in the living room of a suspected child rapist; the girl is not seen explicitly on screen, but the reactions of our two protagonist officers make it clear what they witnessed. (Malloy is so disgusted that later, when the suspect makes a smart remark about how his victim got what she wanted, he blows his top.)
  • Several episodes of COPS have depicted male-on-female violence, with the officers responding to stop the proceedings.
  • Several of the bail jumpers pursued on Dog the Bounty Hunter are alleged to have committed violence against women. One of them even threw Lyssa Chapman to the ground when she attempted to apprehend him.
  • Methos in Highlander the Series had no problem hitting, or even killing women. And while he was morally ambiguous sometimes, he definitely fell on the gender/sexual equality end of this trope.

Kristin Gilles: "Who the hell are you?!"
Methos: "A man born long before the age of chivalry."

  • Blakes Seven - in "Mission to Destiny", Avon does this, then says "I really rather enjoyed that!"
  • Adam Adamant Lives is notable for being so chivalrous that he refuses to believe any woman could be a villain, even though there's a female villain in virtually every episode. When he is presented with evidence of their duplicity, however, he doesn't tend to pull his punches: the very first episode ends with him pushing a female villain off a roof when she threatens Georgina, noting he's never killed a woman before but she's forced him to do so.
  • In Battlestar Galactica, when Kara Thrace slugs Lee Adama in the face, he's more than happy to slug her right back. One of many instances on the show.
  • Bonanza: In the 14th-season opener, "Forever," Little Joe finally gets married to a beautiful young woman named Alice. However, Alice's brother is an indolent gambler being stalked by a ruthless gambler named Sloan and his thugs ... and they eventually learn that Alice has married into the wealthy Cartwright family and have more than enough money to pay off Sloan. When Alice refuses and one of Sloan's stooges tries to steal a music box, she resists and flees to the bedroom ... only for the designated giant of the group (a 6-foot-8, 300-pound muscle man) to stalk Alice. Although not seen on camera, it is later implied that the giant brutally beat Alice (5-foot-5 and 120 pounds tops) by slapping and punching her repeatedly and crushing her ribs, before breaking her neck and killing her ... all this before the baddies burned down the house that she and Joe shared. (Incidentally, "Forever" was meant to showcase Dan Blocker as Hoss was the intended bridegroom, but Blocker's sudden death in May 1972 forced hasty rewrites by episode writer Michael Landon ... and his decision to put Joe in the shoes of Alice's husband-to-be.)
    • Despite the lack of male-on-female violence—the scene had ended with Alice looking scared, before a cut back to a ranch scene (Joe and the others unaware of what's going on at his house) -- CBN, which once reran Bonanza, refused to air the episode due to the implied violence.
  • In season one of Heroes, Nikki Sanders meets Nathan Petrelli a second time and warns him that he's walking into a trap. Then she tells him to knock her out. Nathan hesitates, and Nikki tells him that if he doesn't, Jessica will take control again. So, Nathan punches her in the face.
  • On Leverage, when the team faces their Evil Counterparts, Eliot's is an Israeli woman. When they finally fight for real, she asks "You wouldn't hit a girl, would you?" and he responds in Hebrew "Not unless she hits me first." When she does, he says "That counts" and they fight, with a lot of Clothing Damage on both sides.
  • Thirty Rock is one of the few shows that plays men hitting women for slapstick humor.

Dr. Spaceman: GO TO SLEEP! SLEEP, JENNA! SLEEP! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

  • In Lois and Clark, Superman's powers have been transferred to a guy who uses them to become a superhero for hire, and later a villainess who replicates Supes' powers for eeeeeevil. At the end, Supes Wouldn't Hit a Girl, and is at a total loss as to what to do... and then "Resplendent Man" slugs her.
  • Inspector "Sledge Hammer!" was always willing to hit or shoot women. In the first episode of "Sledge Hammer!", he shoots a female terrorist, then tells her, "Call me a feminist." Later episodes subverted his willingness to fight women twice: in one first-season episode, he fights a woman who turns out to be a man in disguise, and in a second-season episode, he fights a man who turns out to be a woman in disguise.
  • Modern Kamen Riders have absolutely no qualms about fighting female monsters regardless of alignment, a stark contrast to old-school Riders, who are reluctant to fight women. That said, female monsters are still pretty rare.
    • In a more specific example, Kamen Rider Double's second movie features a woman as part of the villainous mercenaries set on taking over the city. Shotaro doesn't fight her as a human because she's a better fighter and has flame powers, but when they're transformed the playing field is more even and he fights back.
  • Sam Axe Turns out will hit a girl if she's trying to take away his shotgun, even if only after a fair bit of provocation.
    • Another episode had Michael slapping Fiona across the face in order to maintain a cover. He was quite apologetic, however.
      • Possibly because Fiona is an Axe Crazy woman who keeps C-4 in the trunk of her car. Michael was hovering over the line between being apologetic and being afraid of her.
    • and Michael will hit a female assassin attacking him with a knife in the face with a steel lined briefcase.
  • Nobody had a problem trying to hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, very few actually managed to lay a hand on her Good Old Fisticuffs style, and those powerful enough to usually relied on magic attacks and weapons.. Notable exceptions are Spike (which eventually transforms into foreplay when Buffy and him become a couple), Caleb, and Angel (who slugs Buffy after she's asked him to do so during a sparring match.)
    • Xander also punches Cordelia once.
  • Similar to Buffy, none of the monsters in any of the Power Rangers series have any problem attacking the female rangers. This is likely helped by the fact that in many Super Sentai, the Yellow Rangers are male, so a monster hitting a man in Japan is only hitting a girl in America. In one rather infamous example, when the Evil Green Ranger hijacks the Megazord cockpit, he punches Trini across the face so hard she flies across the cockpit.
    • As an inverse, the male rangers have no problem hitting the female monsters, such as Madame Woe, Lip Syncher, or Dischordia.
  • A joke in the pilot episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun. Mary engages in a literal Slap Slap Kiss with Dick, and—being an alien with limited understanding of human culture—he follows her lead and smacks her after the second kiss. (And then leaving the party, he responds the same way to the poor hostess kissing him on the cheek.)
  • Judging from the first episode of Unnatural History, Henry would. Though it's Justified Trope considering she tried to kill him before.
  • In Supernatural, Dean and Sam have no problem hitting women when they're possessed or another supernatural nasty. Hell, Dean at least has had to hit children in those circumstances.
  • Played for Laughs in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Prometheus Unbound." Vala expresses surprise that Daniel hit her during a fight she started and he replies, with understandable annoyance, "You hit ME!"
    • A similar exchange occurs between Buffy and Angel in the Angel episode "Sanctuary."
  • Male characters in Rome seem to have no problems hitting women. It's notable that an underplayed moment in the pilot episode involves Octavian casually backhanding a slave girl who accidentally bumped him with a chair, showing the attitude to violence in general in the society. Specific incidences include Caesar striking Servillia twice, hard, after she responds to his telling her their affair must end by slapping him repeatedly, and Mark Anthony instantly and heavily backhanding Atia when she slaps him while they have an argument in bed.
  • Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly. Femme Fatale with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder who tried to to steal your ship suddenly show up again conning one of your old war buddies? There's a solution for that.
    • In much more of a Kick the Dog fashion, Jubal Early hits Inara after she tries to intuit his motivations and talk him down from his hunt for River.
  • John Casey of Chuck will not hesitate to attack a female enemy, and is implied by sheer amount of force used to have killed one or two.
  • In Human Target, Guerrero pretty much introduced himself to Ames by punching her in the face. (It wasn't totally unreasonable in context, but it also wasn't his only option.)
  • The title character of Merlin has no problem fighting female enemies, and has thus far dropped a chandelier on a witch, killed a member of the Sidhe while she's unarmed, made rocks fall on Morgana, blown up a pixie in the form of an elderly woman, electrocuted Nimueh to death with a bolt of lightning, and thrown Morgause into a pillar so hard that she was left disfigured and dying slowly over the course of the following year.
    • Uther hits Guinevere around the face when she gives him sass.
  • On Star Trek, McCoy has no problem slapping a pregnant woman across the face (but only to get her to cooperate).
  • Smallville: There are plenty of female Meteor Freaks and metahumans out there, meaning that this trope is in full effect. It would be easier to list the guys who won't hit back, as everyone from Lex to Oliver to Clark is more than willing to. It's never really discussed either; in a world full of superheroes, it's just an occupational hazard.
  • Walker, Texas Ranger: Seen here. This, however, was exceedingly rare, as usually female villains and lackeys would either go into custody without resistance or be dealt with by several of the female Rangers.
    • While Walker was (almost) always a gentleman and never struck a woman, this trope was ignored fully by the male villains, who regularly struck women and had no qualms about putting their lives in severe danger. (In one episode, a brute smacks an elderly woman across the face after she warns that God will deal with him for his crimes.)
  • In Season One of Glee, Karofsky casually shoves Tina into Kurt when the two of them are wearing their Lady Gaga outfits, only to get told off by a scared but determined Kurt for hitting a girl. By the second season, however, Karofsky has moved into both Armored Closet Gay and Stalker with a Crush territory, and ignores Tina to shove Kurt, who is walking with her, into the lockers.
  • Jeff and Troy in Community episode "Epidemiology", if that girl were a zombie.
  • Jersey Shore had a moment early in its first season when a patron at the bar that the group was at took their drinks. Snooki went over to tell the guy that the drinks were theirs and he randomly punched her in the face. This got him in a heap of trouble, not only getting him arrested but also nearly beat up on the street by a bunch of other bargoers that were gonna mess him up for hitting a girl.
  • In the trailer for Danger 5, Jackson decks a Nazi woman who is trying to kiss him.

Jackson: Get your fascist mouth away from me!
Nazi Woman: You hit a woman!
Jackson: I hit a Nazi.

  • In The Twilight Zone episode "Two," the man gets into a fistfight with an enemy soldier, who happens to be a woman. He knocks her out cold.
  • Discussed in Life On Mars. While Gene seems to draw the line at striking women, he isn't averse to using other aggressive tactics on them. One episode features a suspect who was seen pushing a woman out of a car; Gene defends him against Sam's accusations by saying that doesn't make one 'a bad bloke'.
  • In The Wild Wild West's opening credits, James West decks a woman who was about to stab him in the back (in said opening credits he knocked out one enemy and shot another, so this is still a step down on violence). This is a change from the season one opening credits, where he's such a good kisser that she renounces stabbing him. It should be noted that in the series itself the only time Jim actually did hit a woman was in "The Night of the Running Death" - and "she" turned out to be a man.
  • Agent Cooper isn't apposed to taking out a woman if she poses a threat in Twin Peaks. At one point he forced a woman to show her the way a hostage and then knocked her out cold after she attempted to attack him with a knife.


Manhwa

  • In Veritas, Gangryong WILL hit a girl or at least tries to, if she pisses him off.
  • Jin-Ho Myung, the protagonist of the Manhwa, Unbalance x Unbalance. He has no objections to hitting a girl, and will in fact beat the crap out of them should it be provoked (which it was in one occasion). He even rants about the double standard of not hitting girls.


Music

  • The music video for Garth Brooks' "The Thunder Rolls" includes a graphic domestic violence scene, where a young family man—returning home after a rendevous with a stripper at a local hotel—is confronted by his wife about where he's been. When he realizes she knows he's been cheating on her, he beats her senseless. (Most of the actual strikes take place in between lightning strikes, as the house loses power just as he loses patience with his wife.) When the man sees that his daughter has been awakened by the commotion and begs her daddy to stop beating mommy, he begins to go after her ... until she grabs her gun and shoots him dead.
    • Brooks—who in addition to performing the song onstage with his band as omniscient observers, plays the wife-beating, philandering husband in the action scenes—used the "wife-beating" scenes as a response to Capitol Records' reluctance to include the song's third verse (with the domestic violence themes) in the studio recording. Brooks would later peform the song with the "wife beating" third verse in concert. Critics and many others (including women's advocates) have given virtually unanimous praise to the video and the full version of the song as a powerful statement about the prevalence of male-on-female domestic violence, and it would win the Country Music Association's Video of the Year award in 1991.
  • "Independence Day" by Martina McBride. Like "The Thunder Rolls," the video to "Independence Day" contains graphic depictions of a drunken husband beating up his wife (for questioning his behavior), said scenes being intertwined with clips from a Fourth of July parade where two clowns engage in comic mock fighting. The lyrics are also quite frank ("She tried to pretend he wasn't drinkin' again/but daddy left the proof on her cheek").
    • Much like "The Thunder Rolls," "Independence Day" (both the video and song) won universal acclaim for its statement against domestic violence.
  • "Gunpowder & Lead" by Miranda Lambert—the lyrics in the song indicate that the female main character was physically abused by her much-larger boyfriend (Slapped my face and shook me like a rag doll); the brute was sent to prison as a result. (Just like "The Thunder Rolls" and "Independence Day," the song ends with a death—this time, of the antagonist, as the woman is standing ready to greet her bloodthirsty ex-boyfriend with a gun.)


Professional Wrestling

  • Although angles involving men hitting women were used very occassionally throughout professional wrestling history, one of the best-known early examples came in the early 1980s, when comedian Andy Kaufman began "wrestling" women during his performances. He proclaimed himself the "World Intergender Champion" and "defended" his title during his shows—usually, a hired actress or local model in a rehearsed bit; Kaufman would then "select" his female opponent at a given point in his show and offer them $1,000 if they could defeat him (a prize that was never claimed). Although an attempt to bring his act to the World Wrestling Federation didn't work out, Kaufman did gain the interest of Jerry "The King" Lawler, and eventually a storyline was worked out where Lawler would be annoyed that Kaufman never took on male wrestlers ... leading to a feud that gained mainstream media attention and a spot on Late Night With David Letterman.
  • Jeff Jarrett is probably the most triumphant example in wrestling, making a career out of breaking guitars over the heads of women.
  • Miss Elizabeth, the valet (and one-time real-life wife) of Randy "Macho Man" Savage, was often fodder for physical attacks by the WWF's most dastardly villians ... although more often than not, she was merely stalked and/or threatened with serious harm until Savage or another good guy (almost always, Hulk Hogan) ran out to her rescue.
    • During a 1987 match with Savage (who was cementing his turn into a babyface), The Honky Tonk Man shoved Elizabeth to the mat when she tried to stop Honky and his cronies The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) from breaking a guitar over Savage's head. (Honky was ultimately successful in using his guitar as a weapon, while Elizabeth fled ... to retrieve Hogan and run the bad guys from the ring.)
    • On at least two occassions—in August 1988 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena and again a month later at New York's Madison Square Garden -- Andre the Giant grabbed Elizabeth by the ankle to pull her from the ring apron; before he could grab any other part of her body, Savage ran over and beat Andre away. (Another match from around the same time had Andre grab Elizabeth (he outweighed her by 400 pounds!) by the hair and try to pull her into the ring to maul her, only to be run off by another do-gooder, Jake "the Snake" Roberts, who used his snake to send Andre running off in sheer terror.)
    • During Savage and Hogan's feud with the Twin Towers (the Big Bossman and Akeem), Elizabeth's safety was in grave danger many times, the most prominent time coming during a December 1988 taping of Saturday Night's Main Event; the Big Boss Man and Akeem had beaten Savage to a pulp, then Boss Man grabbed Elizabeth's wrist, handcuffed it and began thinking about using his nightstick ... until Hogan ran in to stop the villians.
    • In late 1991, Roberts—who ironically saved Elizabeth from sure mortal injury three years earlier—once slapped the WWF's most beautiful woman during a match against Savage at the "Tuesday in Texas" pay-per-view event. Roberts, who in 1991 had turned into a demonic heel and immediately began targeting Savage by calling him (in essence) a wimp and coward, beat Savage severely before Elizabeth begged Roberts to stop. Roberts was apparently amused and aroused by Elizabeth's groveling ... until he quickly grew tired of it, grabbed Elizabeth by the hair and slapped her hard across the face. (Gorilla Monsoon angrily shouted, "This is disgraceful! This is despicable!" as pro-bad guy color commentator Bobby Heenan, himself stunned at what was happening, teased, "He's gonna DDT Elizabeth!")
  • While the WWF's announcers routinely and roundly condemned male wrestlers who even so much as mildly threatened Elizabeth with harm, they enthusiastically cheered whenever villianous female valet/wrestler Sensational Sherri was struck by a male wrestler, most often after she tried interfering on Savage's behalf during his matches (Savage took on Sherri as his valet-manager after his falling out with Hulk Hogan, over Hogan's friendly behavior toward Elizabeth.) The most frequent Sherri-beaters were Hogan (who once struck Sherri with her own loaded purse at SummerSlam 1989), "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan (at least once) and most often the Ultimate Warrior.
    • In the Ultimate Warrior's case, his most extensive beating of Sherri came during his 1991 steel cage match against Savage at Madison Square Garden. Sherri repeatedly interfered in the match on Savage's behalf, causing Warrior to repeatedly beat her back or smack her head against either the steel bars or Savage's head. After Sherri ultimately caused Warrior to lose the match, he stalked Sherri and, after shoving aside numerous WWF officials and security officers, grabbed her by the neck and press-slammed her as hard as he possibly could to the mat. (Fortunately, real or kayfabe, Sherri was not seriously injured.)
    • Sherri also was spanked by Andre the Giant in a 1991 skit that aired on WWF Superstars, although this was a comedy skit—Sherri was trying to seduce Andre, who quickly put her against the bar and swatted her behind five times—and not an attempt to inflict life-threatening harm.
  • Averted on a 2007 episode of WWE Raw. Following a match pitting divas Candice Michelle vs. Melina where another diva by the name of Ashley Massaro interfered ... the Great Khali (a 7-foot-3, 450-pound brute) came to the ring for no apparent reason other than to grab Ashley by the neck and shake her like a rag doll. Khali teased slapping Ashley—a full two feet shorter and 335 pounds lighter than Khali—across the head with his trademark brain chop move, a move that would surely have killed her had he struck her with Real Life force ... but Jerry "the King" Lawler ran in to take the slap as Ashley was pulled to safety.
  • In a 2006 match on WWE Raw pitting 375-pound Samoan brute Umaga (Eddie Fatu) against the incredibly sexy Maria (all of 125 pounds, and a future Playboy model), Umaga slammed Maria and did his trademark turnbuckle squash (a move where light was clearly shown, although the "impact" was played up) before he teased using his trademark thumb poke to the throat move to strike Maria's throat (which surely would have been fatal had Fatu mistimed the move and actually struck Maria's neck). Fortunately, John Cena ran in to make sure Maria would not next be seen lying in a casket at a funeral home in her hometown of Ottawa, Illinois.
  • Bubba Ray Dudley had a thing for power bombing people through tables. He only drew the line at 80 year old grandmothers, that is until one provoked him.
    • Most of the old ECW roster would attack women, though in some cases it was in defense, as some of them would frequently interfere in matches and go for a Groin Attack with a cane (such as Beulah McGillicutty)
  • In CHIKARA, Mike Quackenbush and Daizee Haze played with this trope. Daizee absolutely beat the hell out of some guys a few times in the match and every time it looked like they were going to fight back, she invoked Wouldn't Hit a Girl and pleaded for mercy. Finally, Quack knocked her flat with a palm strike. He proceeded to have a What Have I Done moment as the fans were evenly split between booing him and chanting his name. As for Daizee, she nearly pinned Quack with a schoolboy a bit later, and followed that by dropping Lince Dorado right on his head.
    • However since both Haze and Del Ray have joined up with the BDK, the faces have had less of a moral problem fighting back, playing this trope straight for the majority of the roster.
  • Chyna ran absolutely rampant over most of the men on the WWF roster—until Stone Cold Steve Austin kicked her in the gut and gave her the Stone Cold Stunner. In a later shoot interview, Chyna credited Austin with making her career by making it OK for men to hit her.
  • Stephanie McMahon has taken repeated slaps and punches from several wrestlers in storylines, most notably Triple H (her future real-life husband) and her father Vince McMahon; she has also had matches against Brock Lesnar, and has taken several "stunners" from Stone Cold Steve Austin.
  • Beth Phoenix has gotten hits from a few of the men on the roster, notably JBL, Batista, Kofi Kingston, MVP, and CM Punk.
  • John Cena often used the FU on Lita.
  • Kane and The Undertaker have often Chokeslammed and Tombstoned women.
  • During Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho's 2008 feud, Jericho ended up punching Shawn's real-life wife Rebecca and legitimately busted her lip. Jericho spent weeks bragging about it and mocking Shawn and Rebecca, causing Shawn to go into Tranquil Fury and give him a hellacious No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at Unforgiven 2008.
  • Randy Orton infamously used the RKO on Stacy Keibler and Trish Stratus, and once gave Stephanie McMahon a DDT from the second rope. Yet these cannot compare to his RKO'ing of The Fabulous Moolah, a woman nearly 60 years his senior (she was 80 and he was 23 at the time)....although he did visibly go easier on her, making the RKO look more like a DDT.
  • Edge has used the Spear on Candice Michelle, Lita, and Vickie Guerrero, among others.
  • Abyss from TNA has no problem with Black Hole Slamming women, and once chokeslammed Daffney through a board covered with barb wire.


Tabletop Games

  • The Legend of the Five Rings rulebook explicitly mentions that Rokugan has far less rigid gender roles as Japan- it's entirely acceptable for women to be bushi, fight on the front lines, duel for their honour and so on.
  • Anyone engaging in Close Combat with the Sisters of Battle in Warhammer 40,000.
    • KHORNE CARES NOT FROM WHENCE THE BLOOD FLOWS!! ONLY THAT IT DOES!!!
      • Blessed Emperor, why must that instantly inspire terrible period jokes?


Theater

  • The stage adaptation of "Oliver Twist," called Oliver! features the abusive behavior of Bill Sikes toward his girlfriend, Nancy. Throughout the play, Nancy is a punching bag and the beatings grow progressively worse. In the end, Nancy tries to leave with Oliver, but Bill follows them and confronts them by London Bridge. Oliver tries to stop Bill from trying to grab Nancy, but is unsuccessful; Bill – in an unprecedented display of barbaric savagery – brutally clubs Nancy to death (in the original stage play; she has also been strangled, stabbed and/or had her throat slit). Bill takes Oliver hostage and uses the lad as a bargaining tool to ensure his freedom, but Bill is still caught and killed.
  • Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, although Your Mileage May Vary on how serious he is:

"I swear I'll cuff you if you strike again."


Videogames

  • The original Battletoads play this straight with the Dark Queen for obvious reasons (she's the final boss).
  • Both, the heroes and villains in the Double Dragon series, have no qualms about beating up women. Williams punches Marian before taking off with her during the opening of the original game, while the Lee brothers are required to beat up the whip-wielding Linda enemies (among the various other thugs they face) in order to fulfill their mission.
  • Bully. If you want, you can punch any random girl in the face, but doing so instantly maxes out your Wanted Meter and causes prefects to spawn out of nowhere to bust you. As such, most players Wouldn't Hit a Girl, if only for practical reasons.
    • For the record, in Bully you can also punish your girlfriend for cheating on you by shooting her in the face with a spud cannon. And the next time you want a kiss from her, all you need is some flowers. Unless you're a great artist, in which case she'll kiss you for free.
  • In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you can sucker punch (or slice up) anyone that takes your fancy, male or female. This includes homeless people and patients at the hospital.
  • Fable II The bully terrorizing the dog at the beginning, though instead of punching your sister, he headbutts her.
    • Which might actually be worse if you think about it.
  • The Fallout series has the Lady Killer perk, which aside from extra dialog options means the (male) player does extra damage to women. There is of course a Distaff Counterpart for female characters.
    • In Fallout 3 you get all kinds of nasty women attacking you, from homicidal cannibalistic raiders, to slavers to mercs who are contracted to kill you. They'll happily attack you with baseball bats, knives, pistols, assault rifles and grenades. Killing them (preferably by exploding their heads) is necessary for your own survival. Sexism is most definitely obsolete in the wasteland.
  • The Final Fantasy series. Pretty much everyone. The exceptions are listed on the Wouldn't Hit a Girl Page;
    • Final Fantasy VII Sephiroth would absolutely hit a girl. Or stab, whatever.
    • Final Fantasy IX The closest to someone who wouldn't is Zidane Tribal, the Chivalrous Pervert who has an ability called 'Protect Girls', and in Dissidia Final Fantasy says when up against Terra 'A girl? This'll be tricky...' but with no effects on gameplay. However, in his own game he has no compunctions about fighting and killing the Alexandrian soldiers when they're invading Cleyra or trying to stop him from rescuing Dagger.
      • As proven with General Beatrix and Lani, he will fight women without a problem, and in some cases flirt with them too.
    • Dissidia Final Fantasy lets us know that Garland has no trouble "knocking down" Terra, despite being a former knight.

"Expect no chivalry here, woman!"

  • The God of War series. Kratos has no problems whatsoever harming women or men alike, because he sees everyone as equally worthless. Yes, he's pretty much a Villain Protagonist.
    • Very slightly averted at times, specifically when said woman reminds Kratos of his late wife or child for whatever reason. That usually cools him off a bit. Maybe. And temporarily.
  • The Hitman series. Not only does Agent 47 take innocent women hostage, but it's mandatory to knock out and even kill a number of them throughout the games. 47 actually shows his first ever sign of anger towards a female character, we're pretty sure that if he got ahold of Diana before he passed out, things would have been pretty damn messy.
    • Agent 47 would pretty much kill anything if it compromised his line of work.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Sora doesn't pull punches against female opponents, be they actual villains (Maleficent, Ursula, Larxene) or sparring partners (Selphie, Yuffie, Tifa). Likewise, none of Aqua's male opponents go easy on her. Not that they need to.
  • The Legend of Zelda series. Ganondorf not only kidnaps and imprisons Zelda repeatedly, he is indeed willing to backhand her.
  • MadWorld Jack apparently has no problem with hitting women. From female boss fights to the mayor's daughter. Although the finishers on the female bosses are quite a bit less violent than those of Male bosses, however that's not saying a lot for this game.
    • However they cater heavily to the Ryona fetish, his style of finishing them is to spank them or force him out of their sexually suggestive attack to their deaths.
  • Likewise, his predecessor Gene from God Hand had no problems fighting female mooks. Sometimes they just need a little spanking.
  • Super Mario Bros. series. Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi? There's plenty of main female villains in the series for Mario and Luigi to fight, and your battles against them go the exact same way as against any other enemy or boss.
    • Wario too, at least his willingness to just as well battle Captain Syrup every third or so boss battle in Wario Land 2.
  • In Mass Effect, Shepard—regardless of gender—has a Renegade option to punch a female reporter who has been asking him/her trick questions aimed to either ruin his/her reputation, or to estrange humanity from alien species. As the reporter in question was exceedingly punch-worthy for reasons unrelated to her gender, the punch is often considered a Crowning Moment of Awesome and the option was even repeated in the second game.
    • The series in general follows the trope, as many enemy and friendly combatants are female (and not just the feminine Asari). Nobody, Renegade or Paragon, seems to have any qualms about gunning them down.
  • Max Payne. At one part in the first game he meets Rico Muerte (a hitman) and Candy Dawn (a hooker) in the tenement building bar. A fight starts, and both Rico and Candy pull a gun. In the ensuing firefight, Max takes them both out. And let's not forget about how he deals with the Big Bad, Nicole Horne.
  • The Meat Boy series Dr Fetus who loves to do that on regular basis.
  • The Metal Gear Solid series has plenty of female bosses. In MGS4, four of the six human bosses are female, as are the FROG troops. It's wonderfully subverted in MGS2 with Fortune - Snake and Raiden would like to hit her but can't because of her forcefield.
    • Not to mention the first boss of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is Olga Gurlukovich, who both the player and Snake know is pregnant. Snake tranqs her, but solely because he doesn't have a more lethal weapon handy.
    • Volgin in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a villainous example, hitting anyone he wants any time he feels like it. Poor Tatyana seems to literally be his latest punch toy.
      • MGS3 has the several times Big Boss/Naked Snake fights the Boss, his former mentor. The first few times they tangle, he fails to land a single punch—not because he's deliberately holding back, but because (as he acknowledges) she is simply much, much better than he is; typically she just casually breaks his arm without looking like she's even trying. And his reluctance to face her in the end has nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with his love and respect for her. She's portrayed throughout the game as about as Badass as it gets, never as someone who needs your chivalry.
  • This is discussed via Travis Touchdown, the protagonist of No More Heroes. Although he is hesitant to kill women, he sees no problem hitting them. He battles five female assassins and kills three of them. However, he didn't kill the first he fought; the second was the one who chastised him for not killing her, calling it weakness, not mercy, before killing herself. There were some form of circumstances with the other three as well the first killed his master in front of him, the second bled out after making him admit defeat, and for the last, "It's Personal".
    • He goes on to fight even more women in the sequel, killing a total of 27 and knocking one out because she was just a teenager. (Also of note is that 24 of them transformed into a Humungous Mecha being piloted by a man, and were the only female mooks in the series. After the fight he comments "I gotta admit though, this leaves a bad aftertaste. I mean, ripping through a bunch of mostly harmless cheerleaders?", though at the prospect of his victory being nullified, he says "Whoah, wait! I mean, they weren't that harmless. You can tear some shit up with a pompom.")
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver/Crystal and HeartGold/SoulSilver has Rival Silver, a mean kid abusing his Pokémon and most of the time pushing the player out of the way and even seemingly even kicking one in the butt. You can play this as either boy or girl in Crystal, HeartGold and SoulSilver.
    • For that matter, everytime a female Pokemon goes into a battle against a male Pokemon.
  • Postal gives the player the ability to kill anybody.
  • Played with in Sonic Adventure Series 2. Knuckles has no problem attacking a woman if she threatens the Chaos Emeralds. Following Knuckles' battle with Rouge, she shames him for attacking a lady. However, she slips and almost falls into a vat of lava, from which he rescues her and apologises - reluctantly - for hurting her.
    • Of course Rouge had been attacking him just as much, so it might qualify for a case of self-defense. Not to mention he apologized to Rouge, after she gave Knuckles back his Master Emerald pieces to thank him for saving her, even if she doesn't openly admit it.
  • Splinter Cell Conviction: In the story, Sam Fisher punches Anna when he finds out that she faked the death of his daughter to make him less distracted. He then hits her again. The first was because she deserved it. The second was to make sure she was hurting.
  • Tales of Monkey Island: Near the end of Chapter 5, LeChuck strikes Elaine for trying to protect her undead husband Guybrush. Note that Elaine is the woman whose hand in marriage LeChuck's sought for over a decade. It's mysterious how he expected her to accept him after that, but then again it's pretty mysterious how he ever expected her to fall for an evil undead criminal with a long history of attempting to kidnap her and force her into marriage.
  • Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Polimar has no qualms of hitting women, as seen in his winning quotes.
  • Tekken 5: In a cutscene during Story Mode, as Feng Wei prepares to fight Asuka Kazama, she protests that not applying Wouldn't Hit a Girl would be a disrespect. He answers that, as fighters, if he held back, that would be disrespect.
  • Thrill Kill: Mammoth not only has to beat both genders of people to death in the game to get out of hell, but, in a fit of beastly aggression once back on Earth, grabs a little old lady from the street and relentlessly shoves and pounds away at her body until she is completely inside a postbox.
  • The Warriors, (See Film for more details)
  • Mega Man presumably has no compunctions against this, as he fought Splash Woman in Mega Man 9 without any more concern than for the other 7. Every boss does this if you play as Roll in Mega Man Powered Up (Though Cut Man's reason for attacking her is that he's outright terrified of what Roll will do to him if he doesn't defend himself).
    • Zero is also an equal-opportunity killer in his own series, though the one girl he fights during the Mega Man X series happens to have been his girlfriend and thus causes serious BSOD when he is forced to kill her.
  • The game version of Ultimate Spider-Man is played straight with the titular character and Venom's boss fights with Silver Sable.
  • In Dragon Age Origins you can kill female enemies in just as gory a fashion as male ones.
  • Return to Krondor plays this trope straight. Bear not only hit Talia, but he murdered her and worse. There are only a few enemies that are female, but your male characters can kill them without any comment (the one female character you play makes no comment about that, either). Those few female enemies would cheerfully kill you anyway. The mostly male enemies are completely willing to kill anyone, regardless of gender. In fact, Big Bad Bear says "You will give me the Tear, or we will slaughter you to the last man! And...wooman!" That does not even cover the goblins, vampires, ghouls and other creatures.
  • All Mortal Kombat characters.
  • In Prototype, there is exactly one female optional target in the Web of Intrigue, and Alex will attack, kill, and eat her the way he will every male target: viciously. Depending on the player, he'll extend the courtesy to female civilians. Elizabeth Greene is not excluded from being beaten to death and devoured, though refraining from hitting her probably doesn't count as chivalry. Alex likely doesn't care either way because he's a bastard and because gender-specific human rules like chivalry are stupid when you're not human, lack inborn sexual characteristics, and can switch gender like switching hats.
    • The Blackwatch creed does not make exceptions for comrades, countrymen, or non-combatants; it definitely makes none based on sex. If they may be contaminated, women get gunned down just like men.
  • Parodied in the NES game Day Dreamin' Davey, when Davey has to destroy the Cyclops in the "Ancient Greece" dreamland by striking him in the eye. It turns out that the "Cyclops" in his imagination is a girl in class... whom he just hit in the eye! Oh Crap!
  • Starfy from the Starfy series has no problem with hitting and defeating female enemies like Numan and Puchi Ogura #5 (From Densetsu No Stafy 2), Dejeel (Big Bad of Densetsu No Stafy 4), and Snips (From The Legendary Starfy).
  • Cole in In Famous hits Sasha in the first game. In the sequel, it's Kuo or Nix in the end, depending on which alignment he is on.
  • Through at least its 2011 release, most of the WWE's video game releases allowed men to fight against women, with—save for match types specifically for women—no restrictions were placed on the match type or stipulations. This means a player could (for example) set the game to have The Great Khali battle Kelly Kelly in a no-disqualification, first blood match; Beth Phoenix take on The Big Show in Hell in a Cell (a modified steel cage match); or Kane vs. AJ and Kaitlyn in a handicap Ambulance match (a match similar to the stretcher match, where the objective is to injure your opponent to the point where they are taken from the arena in an ambulance). It is unclear exactly why the more recent WWE video games have disabled the option of "man vs. woman" matches.
  • With the inclusion of female created players in NHL '12, this is now possible in the NHL Hockey series.
  • In The Godfather games, while there are no onscreen female mobsters, several store owners are female and it is perfectly possible to visit the same "negotiation" techniques on them as on their male counterparts.
  • Alpha Protocol: although most of the enemies in the game are male or, if female, are soldiers/fighters, there is an option during an early mission where the player can choose to perform a stealth knockout (with punching) or even a stealth kill on a pair of innocent female bystanders (dancers on a yacht).
  • Any fighting game with a mixed-gender roster is going to have this, whether it's invoked or not.
  • In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the player character will frequently fight and kill female opponents. This is not considered unusual or socially unacceptable in the setting. The player can also sometimes perform "finishing moves" on enemies that result in fairly gory kill sequences, and these can be performed on female enemies the same as male enemies.
  • In the The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings you have a chance to take place in a tournament, generally beating up the strongest soldiers in the army camp you're currently staying in. After defeating a couple of opponents one of your female allies will ask to fight you. She'll comment on how she's glad you didn't go easy on her and then sexy times await.


Visual Novels

  • Kaine in A Profile at one point assumes that Masayuki refuses to hit girls. He's very wrong, as is proved approximately five seconds later. It's not that he doesn't hit girls, he just never felt like hitting the girl in question until then.


Webcomics

  • The Amazing Adventures Of Bill, a Journal Comic, explains the principle of chivalry involved.
  • Girl Genius Airman Higgs has no problem going up against Zola in a vicious fistfight after she stabs Zeetha through the torso with one of her own swords. And now Tarvek has gotten into the act.
    • Ardsley Wooster seems to be okay with the concept, too.
  • In Two Weeks Notice, the hero Adrian sucker punched a blind girl. Twice. [dead link]
  • Questionable Content: A rare female subversion with The Vespavenger's lack of a Double Standard on the subject in this strip.
  • Max is probably the only one who Wouldn't Hit a Girl in Precocious, and that's more from not wanting to hit anyone. The rest? An early strip shows one detail of the Fight Cloud as Bud popping Autumn in the jaw with an uppercut. Even the beauty pageant queen Dionne will dive in when sufficiently angered.
  • Danced around in Gunnerkrigg Court once; in an earlyish storyline, Eglamore says he doesn't want to fight Jones, even just as a quick demonstration for some students. Antimony gives him a Look and asks if it's because Jones is A Woman. "No, because in an enclosed space like this, Jones would wipe the floor with me." Note the implication that he'd be totally down with it if they were outside.
  • Almost all the evil guys in Union of Heroes: Manero, Ahres and The Wittener.
  • In Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic, Yapp the gnoll boy punches a troll girl who boasts about how women rule the mountain. "Women may rule, but braggarts always go down."
  • Cucumber Quest: Tomato threatens this, but Almond doesn't give him the chance to follow through.

Tomato: I should warn you, kid, I'm not too chivalrous to hit a girl. In the face. With a sword.


Web Originals

  • Wash of Red vs. Blue has absolutely no problem with hitting a girl if it's necessary. Or shooting one in the face. In both cases, however, the women he's fighting are also Freelancers (so very skilled, very dangerous fighters), and in one case, she's undeniably a better fighter than him anyway. And also not technically human.
  • The Nostalgia Critic punched the Chick once in Kickassia. In fairness, this was after she repeatedly hit him with a baseball bat and even then he apologized.
  • After a crossover review of the Asylum's Sherlock Holmes, The Cinema Snob punched Obscurus Lupa in the face when she asked him if he wanted to watch another movie with her. An after the credits outtake shows Brad accidentally not pulling his punch, and hitting Lupa in the face; causing him to immediately start apologizing profusely.
  • Somewhat less apologetic than the last two is Ask That Guy With The Glasses, who'll hit, torture and rape men and women without prejudice.


Western Animation

  • Everyone on Avatar: The Last Airbender, especially since the characters of both genders tend to be martial arts experts, possibly with elemental manipulation powers. Hell, The Dragon and her two friends are female, and it would really get in the way if Aang or Zuko refused to fight someone throwing lightning at them.
  • Cartman from South Park has no scruples about anything else, so it's no surprise he accepts Wendy's challenge to a fight, and he gets in a few good hits...at first. He's so out of shape that he's winded after about ten seconds, and his performance goes downhill from there, leading to a supremely deserved No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
    • Kenny is also shown hitting a female bully in the episode, "Poor Kid". DO NOT mess with his little sister, Karen McCormick.
  • American Dad: In a first season episode Stan beats the crap out of some strippers after trying to convince Hayley to not become one of them.
  • Batman the Animated Series: During the climax of the first part of a 2-part episode, "The Cat and the Claw", Batman finally comes face-to-face with Starter Villain Red Claw, a mysterious international terrorist leader who turns out to be a woman. During their fight, Red Claw asks if he's surprised to learn that she's a woman. Batman knocks her down with a sweep kick and quips "I'm an equal opportunity crimefighter."
    • At least two counts with Poison Ivy. In her premiere, Batman decks her while tangled up in her plant monster to get at the antidote. In "Almost Got 'im", Batman punches Ivy away to prevent her from trying to take off his mask.
    • In "Mad Love," The Joker hits Harley Quinn across the face so hard she flies across the room. And then he pushes her out a window.
    • In "Chemistry," Poison Ivy is about to give Batman the kiss of death, then Robin interrupts and says "kiss this!" before knocking Ivy upside the head with a pipe.
  • Batman the Brave And The Bold: When Mrs. Manface gets her mech disarmed, she tries the line, but Batman only says: "The Hammer of Justice is Unisex!" and floors her.
    • In a Freaky Friday episode, Batwoman (a corrupt heiress, not the usual one) has switched bodies with Batman. Amusingly, Batman (in Batwoman's body) tries the "Batman would never hit a defenceless woman" line. Batwoman (in Batman's body) simply responds with "Funny, I don't have that problem" and decks him.
  • Danny Phantom: Danny has no problems fighting Ember, Desire, or Spectra and knocking them around in the same way as his male adversaries.
  • Family Guy lampshades this in an early episode where Lois learns martial arts and an all family brawl breaks out. Later, Peter can be seen tossing Lois into the trunk of a car, Smashing Connie D'Amico's face into a fire extinguisher, and shoving Meg to the floor for no reason. Peter has also been known to mercilessly beat 8-year-old Lucy (of Peanuts fame) in retribution for pulling the ball away from placekicker Charlie Brown, a parody of the recurring comic strip gag; he gives her one final kick—to knock her unconscious—for not being a licensed therapist.
    • And in the beginning of the infamous family brawl scene, after Peter hits Lois:

Lois: You can't hit me! I'm a girl!
Peter: Sometimes I wonder.

    • While most of Peter's physical abuse toward women was (ahem!) played for laughs, it is played straight and dramatically in episodes featuring Quagmire's sister trying to flee her abusive ex-boyfriend. It's all over now.
  • Kim Possible: The male characters are generally not above hitting a hostile female if given the chance. Not that any of them are good enough to actually land a hit on either Kim or Shego...
  • The Powerpuff Girls: The villains have no problem not only attacking three girls but three kindergarten-aged girls.
  • The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest: In one episode Race gets into a fight with Julia, knocks her out, and then says "Pop always said it's not nice to hit a lady. But then again, Miss Julia, you're no lady."
    • Jonny also has no problems with trying to display his martial arts skills against the Daughters of Zin.
  • Superman the Animated Series In the "Livewire" episode, Superman tackles the titular villain through a wall, and she says "At least we know you hit girls!"
  • In Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes, the team has no problem going all out on the Enchantress.
  • Boog from Fanboy and Chum Chum is fully comfortable with beating up a much younger Yo.
  • In X-Men: Evolution, Avalanche or any of the Brotherhood boys has no problem fighting female members of the X-Men. Though not actually hitting, Avalanche does one better and used his power to create earthquakes to attempt to kill Kitty twice before Season 2 rolls in.
    • The Girls' Night Out Episode "Walk on the Wild Side" has the girls form a vigilante group. When confronted by a chop-shop gang, Amara mockingly reprimands the boss about his mother telling him not to get in fights with girls. He responds it's too bad he never listened.
  • Implied in Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy's Big Picture Show with Eddy's Brother he mistakes Edd for a girl and not long afterwards he uses Eddy as a club to pound him into the ground.
  • Justice League Unlimited: Mostly everybody. Hawkgirl gets knocked out a lot.
    • Played with when a giant woman suddenly asks Superman if he would hit a girl. Superman stops in midair, unsure of what to do... and then Wonder Woman takes the giant woman down
  • In The Smurfs episode "The Smurfette" (a cartoon adaptation from the comics), Hefty attempts to hit Smurfette when she admits she's taking orders from Gargamel. Sort of justified in that Smurfs had no idea what a female was in regards to their own kind at that point.
  • The Batman: Behold, Batman Punches An Old Lady In The Face. Of course, she's not actually human,, but there's no way he could have known that; well apart from being Batman, of course.
    • Batman being Batman isn't enough of an explanation for you?
  • In the finale of Total Drama World Tour Cody attacks Courtney to try and prevent her from helping Alejandro win the game. Of course since Courtney happens to be one of the strongest contestants in the entire game, he gets pinned down within seconds.
  • Several of the male bots in Transformers Prime get into many fights against the two femme bots (Arcee and Airachnid) and hardly have any problems fighting against them. It helps that Arcee is an Action Girl Waif Fu and Airachnid is an Dark Action Girl Psycho for Hire.
  • The Specialists in Winx Club have no problem fighting girls, especially the Trix.
  • Miraculous Ladybug; the title heroine shouldn't expect any quarter from a male Villain of the Week, nor should a female one ever expect less from Cat Noir.

Real Life

  • Chris Jericho once punched a woman who attacked him in the face.
  • Sean Connery is fine with hitting a woman, if she won't shut her mouth.
  • Chris Brown famously beat Rihanna, cut an apology song or two, then wrote a song ("Deuces") about how an unnamed ex-girlfriend brought a ton of drama into his life and made him miserable, compares her to a vulture, and talks about how women lie, etc.
  • True for all wars that include female combatants.
  • Ike Turner.
  • Numerous ex-boyfriends of perpetually troubled country music star Mindy Mc Cready.
  • Some parents have realized the dangers of teaching their sons to never hit a woman even in self-defense; and have so taught their sons to not hit women unless they are doing so in self-defense.
  • Far-right Greek party Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris.
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