We get it from biology and from culture. Humans have an instinct to protect women, and culture perpetuates it (boys are taught to never hit girls).

Probably, it came from biological conditions of our prehistoric ancestors, where female lives were more valuable, or less disposable, than male lives.

In modern times, it is something I am completely against. I've seen time and again social experiments (hidden camera experiments) where men and women react with shock and disgust when a man acts out abuse of a woman, and will even violently attack a man who is hitting a woman, but react with laughter or indifference when seeing a man getting beaten.

I'm also disgusted by the "End violence against women" campaigns popular in the US, Australia, or UN. There is no reason, beyond sexism, why it can't be "End violence" without a limiter. If telling black people to end violence against white people is racist, then telling men to end violence against women is sexist.

If you want to tell bigger, stronger, people not to pick on smaller, weaker people, then that's one thing. However, if acceptability of violence is based on sex/gender, then it is simply wrong.

I'm not going to muddle around the details (yes, some women are phyically stronger than some men. No, men should not have to meekly tolerate a physically abusive woman, no matter how small she is or how large they are).

The gist of it is this: people shouldn't use violence, they should use words. And when a physically larger person attacks a physically smaller person to resolve a fight (again, we are not going to muddle in details), it is pathetic. It does not simply involve men and women (which itself is a rough way of putting it, as other commenters are pointing out), it involves adults and children, healthy people and handicapped people, exc). Functional societies are ones that understand that power is responsibility, not a license to act as a jackass.

I've noticed that Chinese don't have a similiar concept. When people get a little bit of power here, the first thing that they do is start to abuse other people with it. I won't pretend that there aren't those in Western culture who don't do the same thing--but it is not nearly as pervasive or as accepted as it is in the PRC. People in my country wouldn't stand around in a massive crowd and stare while some guy repeatedly hit a smaller woman across the face with a bag, for example. I saw that happen, and my male (Western) friend was the only one who intervened (he pushed himself between the two, grabbed the bag, and then yelled at the helpful Chinese men who wanted to watch a woman get smacked around).

I wonder sometimes, if Confusionism doesn't play some small part in it. I remember attending a seminar on Confusionism, and hearing a fable about a Chinese boy who lived with his parents. They were too poor to afford mosquito nets, and the story goes that the boy stripped the clothes off of himself to attract the mosquitos away from his parents bodies. I think it was supposed to be a positive story about filial piety--all I could think is, 'what kind of messed up parents would let that happen?' It's pretty *&$#ed that, not only do two adults who should provide for a child let their kid sacrifice his own body for their convenience, but a culture could see anything praiseworthy about it. Adults take care of children, not the other way around. Children are not fodder to serve personal interests of parents (though they are treated that way in China all the time). It's not just parents and children though--look what passes for a 'work culture' here. There is no responsibility, just a bunch of people who will screw over anyone they have the power to screw at the moment (if we want examples, my first employer in Beijing was an up and coming primary school. It was brand spanking new, so the owner advertised positions for local teachers all over China. Then, the management told everyone who applied that they were hired. A bunch of young Chinese people uprooted their lives and moved to Beijing, some from as far away as Yunnan. And my employer proceeded to pare them down, until he got the handful of people that he wanted. As for the others, the ones that moved to Beijing with the expectation that they had a job and then got tossed out on their asses within a week? I'm sure he thought, 'screw them, they shouldn't have trusted me.' If he thought about them, at all). Look at how they treat pets (It made me happy for 3 months. Now it is not a tiny puppy anymore, so I am putting it out on the street! It is all about mmmmeeeee!).

Do the ideals of Confusionism actually set up this tragically corrupt system where people eschew responsibilities and simply take whenever they are given the opportunity? I would be interested to hear from people who actually know more about Confusionism than I...

If a good hard chuff rodgering without a pillow to bite down upon while a gang of your fellow inmates tie your hands behind your back with prison towels (hopefully previously used to wipe the toilets down) before further augmenting the experience with a donkey punch to the back of the head doesn't send the message home then I don't know what will.

Women = People

Hitting people because you are angry/frustrated = bad

Why it's bad => if every body does this, life becomes quickly a mutually inflicted hell

I guess you can put that in small stories for kids. It's the kind of lectures we had circa kindergarten (public, state-run ones).