This is not a debate about fairness. This is not a philosophical exercise about redefining power. This is about one simple fact: abusive men operate because they believe the consequences of their violence are manageable. They are wrong.
The Reality
Every abusive man eats food prepared by someone. Most abusive men eat food prepared by the woman they abuse. She cooks. He eats. That is the structure of their intimacy. And in that structure, she has something he doesn't have: access. Proximity. The ability to put something in his food that he cannot see, cannot taste, cannot know about until it is already inside his body. That is not abstract. That is the actual architecture of domestic life.
A man can be bigger. A man can be stronger. A man can overpower a woman physically. But once he eats food she prepared, the physical hierarchy becomes irrelevant. His strength stops mattering. His size stops mattering. His ability to overpower her becomes meaningless.
Why He Thinks He Is Safe
An abusive man operates from a specific assumption: I can hurt her and face minimal to no consequences.
He has internalized a hierarchy where his physical capacity translates into impunity. He can hit her. She will absorb it. She will stay. She will try to manage him. She will work to keep him calm. She will blame herself.
The cultural narrative supports him. Women are taught to be afraid of men's bodies. Women are taught to absorb violence quietly. Women are taught that reporting is futile, that leaving is impossible, that they should give him chances, should try to change him, should do the emotional work to fix the relationship.
So the abusive man feels safe. Not because he has actually eliminated the risk. But because the woman has been so thoroughly programmed to absorb the risk that she appears to pose no threat.
Her silence reads as acceptance. Her staying reads as consent. Her attempts to manage him read as agreement that the violence is somehow her responsibility to solve. He has learned: I can do this. There are no real consequences for me. That belief is what allows the abuse to continue.
What Nobody Talks About
Women are not non-violent in majority because they lack the capacity. They do these things because they have been programmed to believe the cost of retaliation is higher than the cost of enduring. But that calculation only works if the threat of retaliation remains hypothetical. The moment retaliation becomes real — the moment an abusive man learns that beating a woman can result in his potential death — the entire equation changes.
Fear becomes the deterrent. And right now, abusive men are not scared enough.
They are not scared enough because women have internalized the message that their violence in response to his violence makes them monsters. They have internalized that the only appropriate response to abuse is to leave, to report, to seek legal protection, to do everything within the system designed to protect them.
But that system fails. Repeatedly. Catastrophically. So women are left with a choice: endure or escalate beyond what the system permits. And most women choose to endure because the cultural cost of female retaliation is astronomically high.
The Retaliation
Let me be direct about what this means. If a large number of violent men started suddenly dying from poisoning at a grand scale, that would be a tectonic shift in society.
Not because the deaths themselves would be surprising. But because the entire psychological architecture that keeps abuse functional would collapse. A man could no longer assume:
I can do this with impunity.
He would have to incorporate into his thinking: this action could result in my death. And that single thought — that anticipated vulnerability — changes everything.
It is not about justice. It is not about revenge. It is about the one form of deterrent that actually works:
fear for your own life.
Right now, abusive men do not have that fear (but women do). They have calculated that the risk is acceptable. That women will absorb it. That the system will fail to protect her. That he can continue. That calculation only works because women have been taught that retaliation — real, lethal retaliation — is unthinkable, monstrous, unforgivable. But what if it became thinkable?
The Question That Changes Everything
What percentage of women do the cooking in households worldwide? This is not a rhetorical question. This is the structural reality.
In the vast majority of households, a woman is responsible for preparing food. That woman has intimate access to everything her abuser eats. That woman knows his routines, his preferences, his vulnerabilities.
She has more power over his survival than he has over hers.
But she doesn't recognize it as power because power, in her mind, is supposed to look like his body. His strength. His ability to overpower her. She has been trained to see the form of power that would actually protect her — the form that operates through proximity, access, knowledge, and consequence — as something monstrous if she dares to use it.
The Architecture of Impunity
This is why the language matters. When a woman becomes violent against an abuser, the language says: she is a monster.
When an abuser is violent against a woman, the language says: a sad event took place.
One language collapses her into the act. She becomes aberrant. She becomes proof that women are unstable, dangerous, untrustworthy. The other language allows the man to remain human. He did something terrible, but he remains a person. His violence doesn't define his humanity. That asymmetry exists because the society needs women to fear retaliation more than men fear consequences.
The society needs women to believe that if they poison an abuser, they are monsters. While the abuser is permitted to do the unthinkable to a woman and remain simply a man who did a bad thing. That is the asymmetry that keeps abuse functional.
The Tectonic Shift
If women stopped accepting that retaliation makes them monsters. If women stopped internalizing that their lethal response to lethal violence is unforgivable. If women started calculating: what is the actual consequence to me if I use the access I have?
Then abusive men would have to recalculate their own risk. And that recalculation — that moment when a man realizes that abusing a woman might result in his death — would change behavior before it even happens.
Because deterrence doesn't require that the consequence be carried out. It just requires that the consequence be believed. An abusive man who believes that his abuse might result in poisoning will think twice. An abusive man who believes that his violence could be returned with lethal force will modify his behavior.
That is how deterrence actually works. And right now, that deterrence doesn't exist because women have been programmed to believe that the only acceptable response to violence is submission, reporting, leaving, or legal action. All of which fail regularly.
Behavior changes when people anticipate consequences they actually fear. And right now, abusive men do not fear women enough.
They do not fear women's physical retaliation because they are stronger. They do not fear women's social retaliation because the system excuses male violence. But they would fear women's lethal retaliation if they believed it was real.
The Deprogramming
Stop believing that retaliation makes you evil.
Stop believing that your lethal capacity — the capacity that exists because you have proximity, access, and knowledge — is something to be ashamed of.
Stop accepting that the only acceptable response to violence is to absorb it or flee it.
Stop internalizing that if you use the power you actually possess, you become the aberrant one.
The abuser is betting everything on your belief that your own power is ‘monstrous’ meanwhile doing monstrous things himself. He is betting that you will never imagine yourself as someone capable of consequence. He is betting that fear will keep you in place and prevent you from using the access you have.
Fear — actual fear for one's life — is the only deterrent that changes behavior. Not shame. Not legal consequences. Not arguments. Not appeals to his goodness. Fear.
The Abuses That Go Unpunished
Physical assault. Rape. Strangulation. Forced pregnancy. Forced miscarriage. Sexual coercion. Psychological torture. Financial control. Isolation from family and friends. Threats. Degradation. Stalking. Every form of violence and domination — this is what abusive men do.
Then they continue living.
A woman goes to the police and stands in front of a man in a uniform who questions her credibility before questioning the abuser's. A woman goes to court and watches a judge accept the man's narrative while scrutinizing hers. A woman reports rape and the prosecutor declines charges because "there's not enough evidence" or "she was drinking" or "they were in a relationship."
The system is not made for her protection. It is made to cover for him. So the abuser learns the lesson: I can do anything. Nothing will happen to me.
He beats her and faces no charges. He rapes her and faces no conviction. He strangles her and walks free on bail. He destroys her psychologically and the courts do nothing. Then he moves on. ‘Falls in love’. Gets married. Has children. Builds a respected life. Meanwhile, she lives with the trauma he created. This is not rare. This is society standard.
The Power You Have
A woman needs to understand something: you are not powerless.
You are the most powerful person in the household. Not because you are stronger. But because you control proximity, access, and consequence.
When a man is retaliated against, that retaliation needs to be calibrated to the offense.
Low retaliation corresponds to low offense. Disrespect. Dismissal. Boundary violations that don't cross into abuse. Low retaliation is proportional. It is a response that matches the transgression.
Medium retaliation corresponds to medium offense. Psychological abuse. Emotional manipulation. Mental torture. Isolation tactics. Control. The retaliation here crosses boundaries and is escalation.
High retaliation corresponds to high offense. Physical violence. Rape. Strangulation. Torture. The retaliation here is severe because the crime was severe.
A woman needs to understand this calibration. Otherwise, retaliation becomes recklessness. Becomes abuse of power. Becomes the thing she is punishing him for. But if you calibrate correctly — if you respond proportionally to the offense — then you are not committing abuse. You are restoring balance.
How to Do It
If a woman ever finds herself needing to retaliate, she needs to be smart about it. Not reckless. Not emotional. Not impulsive.
Smart. Strategic. Cold-blooded.
Abusive men operate cold. They calculate. They think about consequences for themselves. They plan. They execute. Women can do the same thing. Think twice. Strategize. Map out what you are doing and why. Understand every step. Know the risks. Know the exit. Know what you will and won't do.
Then act. Act without emotion showing. Act without warning. Act without hesitation.
Do not signal. Do not tell anyone. Do not confess. Do not hint. Do not let anyone see it coming. After it is done, you never speak about it. Not to your best friend. Not to your therapist. Not to anyone. It is between you, and God. It is between you and your values. Because if you are going to do this, you do it in silence. You do it alone. You carry it alone.
The Values Check
Before you do anything, ask yourself:
Do I believe this man deserves this?
If the answer is no — if you have any doubt — do not do it. Do not retaliate just for the sake of retaliation. But if the answer is yes. If you believe, genuinely believe, that what he has done warrants a response in kind. If you believe he deserves the consequence you are about to deliver. Then do it. Do it right. Do it smart. Do it cold. And do not get caught. Because the system will not protect you. So you protect yourself. That is the only language he understands.