I think that’s a certain amount of projection talking - but if you need me to trigger warn for parasols, I am happy to do that for you.
See, nobody here mentioned men, still less attacking men, let alone abusing known men in the house. (Domestic violence is a specific term - the aggressor must be attacking someone they know, in a domestic setting.) Women - bless us - are quite capable of attacking one another; and even in the year 1900, women were often observed outside of the home. I think that extrapolating “women abusing men in the home” from “women using weapons” is a purely psychological thing on your part - I’m happy to help you by trigger warning for weapons in the future, but I think you might benefit from talking to someone about it. If you can’t look at a discussion of unconventional weapons without setting off your own feelings about domestic abuse, then it’s officially Above Our Pay Grade to help you.
For those interested in the actual post topic of unconventional Edwardian/Victorian shenanigans: Parasols and umbrellas are mostly defensive in nature, used in public by both men and women to fend off attacking dogs or combat purse-snatchers; articles written in the 1900s by the Vignys, a married couple, explained various ways for men and women to resist robbery and assault with their umbrellas. These crimes used to be fairly common, and people took a real interest in socially acceptable forms of self-defence. Baritsu, a form of self-defence that Sherlock Holmes took an interest in, includes some ladylike - and gentlemanly - moves based around the Defensive Umbrella. (“Parasol of Pain” is the TV Trope.)
Hatpins were famously used as self-defence when women were assaulted on public transport. There were entire marketing campaigns around the use of hatpins for self-defence! Broom handles were traditionally used to drive Robbers and Ruffians away from the kitchen door. Sex workers supposedly favoured carrying domestic scissors or table knives as weapons; if they were stopped by law enforcement, they could state that they were simply carrying the item to be sharpened. Ditto female criminals and pickpockets, who certainly existed and needed to be armed!
And it wasn’t just city streets that termed with chaos - the mistresses of country houses were positively aching for the chance to repel a constant stream of burglars. Any piece of media with a Victorian setting features at least one woman really LUNGING for the burglar in the library. This is likely just a fictional device, but there is clearly some kind of Emotional Resonance happening. I feel like if I was staying at a country house and someone said “there’s a burglar in the library!” Then I would charge down there armed with a poker, NO HESITATION.
Items such as hairbrushes, hand mirrors and the nursing bottle (!) do imply that they were used as improvised weapons in the immediate domestic sphere. However, we don’t know whether it was the nanny defending the baby from a dog, an angry mistress throwing a mirror at her maid, a woman attacking her sister-in-law with a hairbrush, or a suffragette throwing a random item from her handbag at a police officer. (Women at political protests in the 1900s favoured ranged weapons over melee.)
So in conclusion, just because women used weapons, doesn’t mean they only used them to abuse their husbands. Claiming so is more of a personal psychological problem. Regardless, my new tags “cw: parasols and umbrellas” and “cw: weapons and armour” are here to serve you; and I genuinely apologise for not using “cw: violence.”
