Male violence against women. It’s one of feminism’s biggest issues. Our right not to be hit, punched, pushed, physically hurt, raped or killed by a man is one of the core things that all different strands and variations – and all the different waves – of feminism totally agree on.

And yet smacking, and the way in which we discipline our children, is a bit of a “no go” area. Certainly, to criticise a mother for smacking her child is seen as disrespecting her parenting choices and her right to punish her own children as she sees fit.

(With that in mind I’m aware that what I’m writing might actually be controversial and ruffle a few feathers in places. Obviously, my views are my own, and not necessarily the views of all the writers here at Mothers for Women’s Lib.)

And yet the correlation between adult violence and childhood violence is there, and it’s a powerful one. And an obvious one if you think about it for any longer than a brief moment.

We know our children mimic everything we do. This is how they learn. It’s well known – from the joke about the parent who screams “stop fucking swearing!” at their child, to the (very gender stereotyped – but a subject for another post) UK anti-smoking advert which shows a child watching her parent have a cigarette, pretending to do exactly the same with a crayon – everyone knows that children do as we do, not as we say.

And yet, we want our little boys to grow up to be men for whom hitting a woman would be an anathema. We want our little girls to grow up without equating pain and violence with love.

But then we hit them. Sometimes we even hit them for hitting – and the irony, and inherent hypocrisy in that somehow escapes us!

Please bear in mind that the “us” and “we” do not necessarily mean you or I. I have never hit my son, though I was hit often myself as a child. I mean “us” as a society, and the fact that here in the UK we sanction the hitting of children under the guise of “reasonable chastisement”. You or I may not hit, but “we”, as a society, hit our children.

And those children will be very likely to grow up to hit. For some reason, boys that are hit tend to grow up to be violent, whereas girls that are hit are more likely to internalise it and expect to be hit – perhaps the difference between the way in which the sexes react to childhood hitting is a product of society’s expectations rather than the way they’re hit. Either way, hitting your child will ensure they equate a loving relationship with pain.

So yes, smacking is a feminist issue.

I just want to run a few phrases by you:

“But if we ban all domestic violence, this will criminalise good husbands who perhaps only hit their wives now and again, say, if it’s all got too much and they’re at the end of their tether.”

“But what is a man supposed to do when his partner just won’t do what you tell her?”

“But it works! I smack my partner sometimes – all my mates comment on how good she is.”

“My Dad hit my Mum – are you saying my Dad was a criminal?!”

“I only ever hit my wife as a last resort, when all attempts at explaining have failed.”

“I’d never hit my own wife, but I don’t judge other men who do hit. I certainly wouldn’t want them criminalised.”

“I don’t condone it when someone actually beats their wife up, but a small, loving smack from a well-meaning husband – what’s wrong with that?”

“I would never hit my wife in anger. I always wait until I have calmed down and hit her then. I always tell her when I’m going to hit her, and explain why I’m doing it.”

“How a man disciplines his wife is a family matter, not a matter for the state.”

“I was smacked by my husband but only when I deserved it. It never did me any harm.”

Don’t these phrases sound awful? You probably would have heard phrases like this back in the days of the “rule of thumb,” where it was joked that a man could legitimately beat his wife with a stick as long as it was no bigger than his thumb (there was actually no such rule – but it has not always been illegal for a man to hit his female partner). Thankfully, a man can now be prosecuted for domestic violence. It’s illegal to hit your wife. Even a “small smack”. Even if the man is at the end of his tether. Even if his wife won’t “behave”. There is no excuse. Things still are far from perfect – we’re only just tidying up the loopholes in the law for example, and there are other problems – but we’re on the right track.

Unfortunately, all the phrases I gave as examples above are used regularly to defend the legal smacking of children. “Reasonable chastisement” is still legal. How is this any different than the “rule of thumb”? It’s legal to hit your child… as long as it doesn’t leave a red mark. So the darker the child’s skin, the more okay it is to hit them? So it’s better to hit a child on the head than on the hand? This is not a clear rule – because there can be no clear rule. Because while there is still a “grey area” people will still abuse their children and get away with it.

And because, just as a man and a woman can have a great relationship, where each understands and respects the other, so too can a parent and child.

We must call an end to the legal condoning of hitting children by their parents, just like many years ago we made illegal the hitting of women by men.

Because if we hit our children:

We teach them pain and love go hand in hand

We set them up to expect pain in a loving relationship

We teach them that those who are smaller or in other ways more vulnerable than them are there to be controlled and overpowered

We risk turning our boys into men that hit women

We risk turning our girls into women that expect to be hit

(And that’s before we get into what it might do to our parent/child bond.)

Let us call a halt to it. Sign up to the NSPCC’s full stop campaign and join them in their campaign against smacking. Join the “Children are Unbeatable” alliance. If you do smack, learn alternative methods of parenting (there are plenty of resources out there). And when you think up a reason for why smacking shouldn’t be banned, apply your reasoning to a man hitting a woman, and ask if that would be a reasonable excuse.

Ruth Moss

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