Kalvan

Because a man who is acting morally/ethically protects the weak (women, children, elderly). In general men are better suited physically and psychologically to physically protect a society from attack. To use that power to physically attack a woman is a betrayal of a trust, in a sense, and if it is widespread it is detrimental to the society. So society seeks to program males not to bully or batter women.

meritocrat

No offence but that is stereotypical claptrap. Men may be stronger than women on average, but people are different. Some women may be stronger than some men.

Tom Sawyer

There is a huge difference between attacking a man hitting a woman and a man hitting a large guy. That difference is that (in general) women are much less able to fight back than large guys are.

While both are wrong morally, I feel it is much worse to hit someone who can't fight back against you than it is to hit someone who can. Also, the majority of violence against women is done by their domestic partners, who is someone who the woman has put in a position of trust and by hitting her, he is abusing that trust as well as her.

People should always try and help those who are weaker than them and those who have put them in a position of trust. Guys that go around beating up women betray both those things.

Regarding meritocrats question in the OP about it being OK to hit a woman of equal size and strength, if she attacked you on the street then yes, it would be OK to beat her down just like you would a guy.

Kalvan

No offence, but that is politically correct claptrap. Statistically speaking, men are bigger so they have more reach and more weight; a woman only has 50-75% of a man's upper body strength; and they generally have a slower reaction time. The vast majority of 100-150-lb women are not going to be able to benchpress a 180 pound man off of them while his fingers are wrapped around her throat. Yes, there are the occasional women body-builders (definitely the very rare exception) who may be able to compete with the average man, but never with the biggest, strongest and fastest. There is a reason that men do not compete directly against women in sports where those factors make a difference. Yes, there are female martial artists who may be able to defeat a man not trained in that discipline, but she is maximizing her potential to beat his untrained "average". Organizations like the Army have typically had to lower their physical standards to retain women. The sample of large, physically powerful women with a "kill people and break things" attitude is statistically insignificant compared to the huge numbers men with the same capacity.

Having said that, go back and look at your original question. I was answering why it is a societal norm to tell boys not to hit girls.

Michaelson

If, as seems to be the consensus, there is no difference between hitting the linebacker or the scrawny geek, how about if we replace the scrawny geek, with a six year old scrawny geek?

enrious

The problem is that the linebacker tends to swing back...and it hurts when he hits.

The linebacker can defend himself; the societal/moral taboos are to protect the nerds.

Would it be wrong for me to walk up to The Hulk and hit him? Morally, yes. While he slams me into the walls and bounces me off the floor we can consider me walking up to an striking Ritchie Rich (even I could take the little bugger). Since it's unlikely RR could whip me, I would suffer no penalty.

On the other hand, my dentists bills alone would serve to punish me for Hulkgate.