Hitting a girl is okay in self defense

SummaryThis debate was about whether it's okay for a man to hit a woman in self defense. Of course it's okay for a man to defend himself from any kind of attack, whether it be by another man or by a woman. His defense must be reasonable and proportionate, though.Con argued that women can't hit as powerfully as men and so hitting a woman in self defense is never okay. I disagree with this statement for two reasons:1. Sometimes a woman can be a threat to a man, for instance, she could be armed or the man could be weak, sick, elderly, or disabled in some way. 2. Self-defensive violence must be proportionate, so if a woman does not pose a real threat to a man, punching her would not be "in self defense". Only those cases where hitting would be necessary to defend himself should be considered.In the final round, Con introduced the idea of defending property. He argued that it would not be okay for a man to punch a woman for trying to steal his candy bar. Of course, the same considerations related to reasonable threat and proportionate response still apply. Punching someone unconscious - man or woman - for trying to steal your candy bar would be considered disproportionate in most circumstances to most reasonable people and therefore wouldn't be "in self defense" but rather plain assault. Con wrote: "This debate was spurred from an earlier conversation, so it's extremely clear to my opponent what's supposed to be being debated here. It should be clear despite that anyway."This is beyond absurd. This debate was open to be accepted by any challenger, the earlier conversation he is referring to is not one that I'm aware of, and may not even be one on this site for all I know.Con wrote: "This attempt my my opponent to use the legal definition of the term self defense is precisely an attempt to snipe the resolution. This should be considered a forfeit and I should be awarded all points. Not to menion it's a new argument not mentioned until the final round."The phrases "in self-defense" and "hit" were not defined in Round 1, which means that standard, or common sense definitions should be used. "In self defense," would normally be interpreted as meaning to defend oneself from attack or harm, and "hit" would mean to strike someone with force, usually with a hand or fist. Con's first two rounds seemed consistent with this understanding, and it was only in Round 3, that his intepretations deviated from this standard usage.In particular, he took my comment that strength difference should be considered in assessing the morality of the self-defensive action as "a concession". It was not, of course, and that is why I needed to explain to him the concepts of immanent threat, and proportionate response. If a woman is too weak to pose a threat, then hitting her would not be "in self defense", because in that case a man would not be defending himself by doing so. Another example of this was the toddler with the baseball bat - reacting violently to harm the toddler would not be considered self-defense because the threat is not significant enough. It would just be plain assault.Con also wrote that I was "actually trying to redefine hit. This is called smacking the arm away a hit actully involves striking somebody and in this context punching somebody.knocking a girl's arm out of the way doesn't qualify." This statement is hard to understand. Smacking, striking, punching, hitting are fairly synonymous. In any case, even if smacking the arm didn't count as hitting, it is easy to substitute an example of a man hitting a woman's arm, which is what would matter for this debate.Anyway, THIS is the final round, and so my opponent's complaint that I introduced arguments last round wouldn't hold up even if it were true. Thank you.