You may not say so yourself.  That's a mightily extreme position, and if I'm going to accept it, I'd like to see some sort of evidence (preferably something scholarly where I can see methodology) other than "I'm pulling percentages and ratios out of my nether regions and you should take it as gospel and the point from which to argue."  I could accept "The average man is 50% or more stronger than the average woman."  That may not be completely unreasonable.  The quote above is, to put it bluntly, BS, and I don't mean Brandon Sanderson.

No, it's not a mightily extreme position. Why don't you show me some "scholarly" information where I can see "the methodology"?

 

Many years ago I visited the national competition for female powerlifters. They were extremely weak, compared to the men's competition. Even regional competitions, not even national. At sixteen years of age, when I had trained only 3 months, I was stronger than all but one of the female powerlifters. I wasn't even one of the stronger ones that trained at the gym. And the woman in question probably weighed 40 or 50 kilos more than I did. And she was not stronger than me by any wide margin at all. So, yes, there really is a great difference between men and women.

Because I'm not the one making numbers up.

And I haven't trained at all, haven't set foot in a gym in twenty years, and every one of them could probably out lift me.  So what.  One anecdote proves nothing.

Once again, though, you're completely missing the point of what the whole thing was that the post I was responding to was taking the extreme position that "A woman wielding the one power isn't defenseless.  A woman without it is." and Since we are larger and stronger hitting a woman is hardly a fair fight.  Its no different than beating a child." Along with "I do not believe in hitting a woman, for any reason.  Period." 

Those present a very specific and extreme argument.  No man should ever hit any woman, because women are weak and incapable of defending themselves, like children.  The fact that there are any women at all who aren't weak and defenseless when confronted by any man, shoots a big hole in that argument, since it's evidence that his rationale isn't always true.  Of course, he's admitted at this point that he recognizes that there's an element of irrationality to his belief, and I can accept that.  The exact relative difference in strength levels between most men and most women is tangential to the point, at best, and the fact that you've made it your main point of contention is somewhat perplexing to me.

Personally, I haven't ever hit a woman, and can't imagine that I ever would, except perhaps in a situation where the safety of my family was somehow involved, and I haven't hit another male since I was 13.  I can't imagine a situation other than self defense where I would do that either.  My own position is just that hitting people is wrong in the vast majority of cases, regardless of the relative strength of the hitter and hit.  The conditions that would make it acceptable to hit someone (self defense, defense of another, etc.) again are (to me) independent of strength.  If I was to walk up to the world's strongest man and hit him for no reason, it probably wouldn't hurt him any, but it would still be wrong.

Moving back to the original topic of the thread though, I'll admit freely that I didn't much care for the Perrin hunting for Faile or Faile as prisoner sections of the later books.  I think the original post did hit on a large part of why.  Once it's over and you can see the big picture of where it put him (allied with Seanchan, Shaido destroyed, etc.) you can see what the point of the whole thing was.  Unfortunately, while it was going on, it mostly just felt like a whole lot of space that was completely disconnected from everyone else and everything else that you'd come to care about.  Even after having gotten to the end of it, I'm still not certain what the point was behind chronicling Faile's developing Stockholm Syndrome while she was with the Shaido.

As for not getting Rand's help... I see that as evidence that he's not as single minded as he says (or even thinks).  He'll do anything, but despite that, he's not really going to screw up Rand's preparation for the last battle... that, and with how hard Rand's gotten he's really not so sure that Rand would help.

They are, on average, weaker, even significantly weaker.  They are not, however, always weaker, which would be the necessary state to assert that it's always wrong to hit a woman because women are weaker.

Maybe "not always", but rather "more than 75% of all men are at least twice the strength of more than 75% of all women". Or something like that. That would be a close enough estimation, if I may say so myself.

You may not say so yourself.  That's a mightily extreme position, and if I'm going to accept it, I'd like to see some sort of evidence (preferably something scholarly where I can see methodology) other than "I'm pulling percentages and ratios out of my nether regions and you should take it as gospel and the point from which to argue."  I could accept "The average man is 50% or more stronger than the average woman."  That may not be completely unreasonable.  The quote above is, to put it bluntly, BS, and I don't mean Brandon Sanderson.

Nightstrike, your points are not at all relevant.

I had no other point than to respond to the comparison of men's and women's strengths.

 

Women aren't always weaker, therefore it cannot be considered wrong to never hit them on the grounds of them beng weaker.

Uhh... They are weaker... and it's wrong to hit them (on any grounds)...

 

And it does not follow that weaker equals incapable of defending oneself.

No, I agree on that.

They are, on average, weaker, even significantly weaker.  They are not, however, always weaker, which would be the necessary state to assert that it's always wrong to hit a woman because women are weaker.

There are also other issues that come in to play.  Compare the strength of 50 male seventy-five year old couch potatoes to those of 50 twenty-two year old women who keep in good physical condition.  Which group is going to be stronger?

If a person goes with the average man being 50% stronger than the average woman (which is about what you posited) then assuming standard bell curves for distribution, somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of women will be stronger than the average man.  Fifty percent of women would be stronger than the weakest 15-20 of men.  Sorry, I just don't see that as insignificant.

As for hitting a woman being wrong.  Sure, hitting a woman is going to be wrong 99.99% of the time, but then hitting a man is also going to be wrong 99.99% of the time, and that has more to do with the fact that hitting people is generally wrong than it does with their relative physical strengths.

Take a look at those sprinting and weight lifting records again.

Most women are less than half the strength of most men. Powerlifting records are a bit less representative. But, still, those records say that (even at the top levels) women are a whole lot weaker than men.

 

The average man may be somewhat larger, stronger and faster than the average woman, and the strongest men somewhat stronger than the strongest women, but that's certainly a far cry from all women are weaker than all men and therefore defenseless when confronted by the average man.  To put it bluntly, there are a whole lot of women out there (those female power lifters included) who could kick your butt (and mine) up and down the street.

Change "somewhat" to "a whole lot", at least when you're talking about strength. Especially upper body strength.

Even accepting that at face value, that particular nitpick doesn't change the major point.  There are, have been, and will continue to be a not insignificant portion of women who are stronger than  a not insignificant portion of men.  Considering that the post I was responding to asserted that the reason that it was ALWAYS wrong for ANY man to hit ANY woman is that men are stronger than women, the existence of some women who are stronger than some men essentially nullifies his extreme, absolutist argument.  

Perrin187, you do understand that the Wheel of Time is a series of books, and not reality right?  I do not believe in hitting a woman, for any reason.  Period.  However, in the real world women don't have the one power.  If they did it might change my opinion.

 

A woman wielding the one power isn't defenseless.  A woman without it is.  Are you familiar with the term sexual dimorphism?  It means that in our species men and woman are physically different.

 

We have a lower center of gravity, higher percentage of muscle mass and are generally larger and stronger.  That's not to say that every woman fits that stereotype, but as a species it generally holds true.

 

If you need facts to back this up look up the Olympic records for sprinting or weight lifting, and see what you find.  Since we are larger and stronger hitting a woman is hardly a fair fight.  Its no different than beating a child.

Take a look at those sprinting and weight lifting records again.  

The average man may be somewhat larger, stronger and faster than the average woman, and the strongest men somewhat stronger than the strongest women, but that's certainly a far cry from all women are weaker than all men and therefore defenseless when confronted by the average man.  To put it bluntly, there are a whole lot of women out there (those female power lifters included) who could kick your butt (and mine) up and down the street.  

Sweeping generalities that compare women to children in categorizing them as universally incapable of defending themselves when confronted by a man are not chivalrous.  They're condescending, insulting, misogynist, and quite frankly offensive to most people in the western world in the 21st century.

Having said that, is hitting a woman wrong?  Sure, hitting a woman is the wrong thing to do in nearly any situation.  Of course, hitting a man is also the wrong thing to do in nearly any situation.  Hitting a woman being wrong has more to do with the fact that violence is, in general, a poor tool for solving most personal social problems than some notion of having to protect the poor weak and feeble females of the world.

Now, to bring this back to the topic of the Perrin/Faile relationship.  Are they the most stable relationship in the world?  Of course not.  They're two people in the early "head over heels", passionate stages of their relationship, in a war-torn, violent world that's falling apart.  While they're still working everything out in terms of how their relationship is going to be, one of them is kidnapped and basically enslaved.  Is Perrin's reaction to that unnatural?  Not so much.  As for the spanking... clearly that's what Faile wants out of the relationship, and as far as I'm concerned, however two consenting adults want to define their interactions with one another, that's up to them.  I've known people who enjoy a spanking every now and then.  If it makes them happy, who am I to judge.  I'd imagine that (assuming the DO doesn't win, the world doesn't end, and both of them survive), that their relationship will end up at a point not terribly different from that of Faile's parents.