I would argue

that what Cord discovered is not that women need to be popped in the face on occasion so that everything is equal between men and women. What he learned was that when it comes to the patriarchy, sexist men will enforce the rules not just on women, but on other men who seem insufficiently committed to the art of oppressing women. There are a number of ways men keep each other in line. They call each other “pussy” and question each other’s manhood if someone objects to the sexist milieu in any way. They demand showy displays of masculine callousness to get into the club. And sometimes if a man pushes back against sexism---or even seems to---they whip out violence. Cord wants to blame women for thinking they’re “precious” for getting hit. But he and everyone else knows that it’s sexism that’s to blame. He knew it going in, because he tried to escape the violence by agreeing that women should be sexually harassed by strangers to these guys. But the mere fact that he was willing to get involved apparently dissuaded them from believing in his commitment to maintaining high levels of sexual harassment, so they popped him. The lesson here is not that women should be more eager to be treated like subhumans. The lesson is that sexual harassment is a dominance display, and the harassers will often resort to violence to maintain the dominance they desire.
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