To-do list:

• Clean up the on page examples and remove examples that don't fit the new definition.
  • Main.Would Hit A Girl
  • WouldHitAGirl.Video Games
• Remove wicks that don't fit the rewritten definition. Progress is being tracked using the Sandbox.Would Clean Wicks sandbox.

Edited by MacronNotes on Aug 15th 2023 at 11:22:31 AM

I feel lately we've been ungendering a lot of tropes because they don't feel noteworthy in todays standards but could have been a big deal some time ago.

Anyway, to help reducing ZCE and "not meaningul" I'm throwing a suggestion to require contextulizing why Would Hit a Girl would be noteworthy (target demographic, Values Dissonance, the setting has Matriarchy, character abandons their Wouldn't Hit a Girl standards, Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male getting reversed, the victim is a villain trying to pull Fake Cutie, etc).

Edited by Amonimus on Jul 7th 2022 at 1:45:56 PM

This trope probs needs a slight rework for us to get across this point and definitely a wick clean to get rid of the misuse

It's not just that a character would hit a girl, it's that the character hitting a female character is considered In-Universe to be a step too far / a Kick the Dog moment that shows just how villainous or evil a character is because it violates social norms regarding women being women inherently more innocent and fragile. It's the gender version of Would Harm a Child.

Good/heroic characters apologizing before fighting female characters would be related but not sure if that falls under invoked or discussed. But also heroic characters harming female villains in the name of a higher moral code / justice would also count as an explicit exception to the rule / Playing With the base trope = female villains aren't innocent so they lose their protective status, etc. Point is, there is an implicit moral justification that relies on the "goodness" / innocence of the female character and when that gets violated it's either because the person doing the hitting is a villain (and doesn't care) or the woman getting hit is evil and therefore its justified

Might be worth changing the name to reflect that too. Evil Characters Hit Women? Villains Hit Women?

Edited by amathieu13 on Jul 7th 2022 at 8:35:39 AM

What about the cases when it's to show how unscrupulous Anti-Hero is when they are willing to hurt women, even if others would've objected to it?

i just amended my post to discuss that

I haven't considered it a inherently negative trait, male heroes punching a female villain that pulls a "you wouldn't hit a Dark Chick dontcha" card is common among '90s Anti-Hero and Combat Pragmatist.

Anyway, I'm thinking of some sort of "Women Are Delicate aversion" (It may be a pretty straightforward defenition actually).

Edited by Amonimus on Jul 7th 2022 at 3:42:12 PM

Yeah, I wouldn't limit this to villains. I think we can include morally gray characters/people who don't abide by social norms.

A rename might help too.

I agree with Amonimus's proposal, and maybe a rename would help.

For what it's worth, this was originally proposed as a Not Tropeworthy thread, and I went with Needs Help instead because the decent amount of examples in the "correct examples with clear notability" category made me feel that this could be salvaged. I just didn't voice my disagreement at the time because I wanted to wait to see if anyone else had any ideas.

I also agree with amonimus' proposal. Sometimes this trope does have meaning and it's important to preserve that

to Amonimus's proposal along with what I already agreed to

Yeah, this pretty much has the exact same problem as Action Girl- it was tropeworthy once upon a time, but times have changed and now it is no longer noteworthy to have a male character willing to hit female opponents, much like how it is no longer noteworthy for a woman to be a fighter. Amon’s idea seems the best.

Edited by MasterN on Jul 8th 2022 at 7:21:28 AM

Could you have something like Would Hurt Innocents with male female etc subtropes? Or am I just talking out of my behind?

A Would Hurt Innocents supertrope could possibly be taken to TLP, but we can't turn this into it because all of the examples in the first folder of the wick check (the ones that feature characterization aspects) fit the trope name instead of featuring anyone other than women being hit.

I feel like it might be a good idea to rename Would Hit a Girl to something that indicates that the examples in the first folder (which feature characterization aspects) involve the man hitting the woman without being provoked, with sexism often being involved, and cut examples that don't feature characterization.

Edit: To clarify what I said in my previous post, when I said "I just didn't voice my disagreement at the time", the disagreement I was referring to was my disagreement with the OP, since I disagree with the original proposal to deem the whole concept Chairs and cut it. The reason I posted the thread was because it was the next thread in the TRS Queue after I closed a thread, not because I agreed with it. If I close a thread, I always fill the newly vacated slot with the next thread in the queue if the OP gave permission for others to make it (otherwise I PM them in the meta thread).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 8th 2022 at 9:58:29 AM

I think that, for this trope, the type of girl doesn't really matter, it's the type of person the guy (attacker) is. (Is this Always Male?)

I am, unfortunately, extremely tired right now, so I doubt I would get my point across well enough. I will try later.

Yeah, I think this would be Always Male, which is why Designated Girl Fight is a thing (women fighting other women is seen as okay even when men fighting women isn't).

I've been considering a snappy name, but can't get anything better than what's there currently. Or being effectively an entire sentence.

I don't think we need a rename here (but if we find a name that's better than the current I'll consider it). Just a tighter definition and cleanup.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 8th 2022 at 12:28:25 PM

That could work.

Do we have any crowner options other than rewriting (as Amonimus proposed here and here, and as amathieu13 added to here) and renaming?

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 11th 2022 at 12:14:44 PM

I support the narrowing. Also, it might be a bit too late, but would it be too complicated to suggest merging this into an aversion category of Wouldn't Hit a Girl? Since it basically operates as why violating that trope is seen as a bad thing in-universe.

No, it's not too late since the crowner was hooked so recently. I added it and I'll edit and bump the ATT bulletin to account for it.