On screen, Cameron Diaz stands in her underwear in a driveway, while Ed Burns towers above in his boxers on a balcony.

“We might as well be honest with each other. Just tell me,” Burns pleads. “Did you sleep with him?”

“OK, I slept with him. You happy?” Diaz responds.

Burns is next shown coming out of the house straight toward Diaz.

“Did you just say, ‘am I happy?’” he asks.

She rolls her eyes, then there it comes—Burns punches her in the face.

She reels back shocked, and barely gets out “You gotta be—” before Burns punches her in the face again, this time knocking her to the ground.

Disgusting. Unacceptable. Correct?

Well, you might have figured this out, but the characters’ actions were actually reversed. In the 2006 film “The Holiday,” Diaz was the burned one, while Burns was the one knocked onto his back in the gravel. This should be equally disgusting and unacceptable, but for Hollywood, it’s not.

You see it in movies all the time where a woman hits a man because he has scorned her. A more recent example of this type of violence includes “Sex and the City,” where after being left at the altar, Sarah Jessica Parker slams Chris Noth with her bridal bouquet until it is destroyed. This action seems to be presented as an acceptable reaction for a person so hurt.

But this depiction of women in film is unacceptable for two reasons.

First, it perpetuates the idea that domestic violence against men is OK. This is actually pretty easy to let slide, however, when you consider statistics from the Department of Justice. Between 2001 and 2005, on average only 4 percent of nonfatal violent victimizations were committed against men by an intimate person, compared to 22 percent against women. The statistics are a bit worse with homicides—out of murders committed by intimate partners, 5 percent of the victims were males while 30 percent were females. It would certainly be nice if all domestic violence was eliminated, but for the time being, bringing down violence against women seems more urgent.

Second, and more importantly, these films perpetuate negative stereotypes toward women. Think about it; we all know that domestic violence toward women is wrong. Why wouldn’t the same rule apply for domestic violence toward men? Oh, yes, that’s right; it’s different because women are weak and powerless. You can’t really blame them, because women are so emotional that they can’t really control themselves in situations like that like men can. And when women hit men in films it’s funny because women are too feeble to actually hurt men.

Both of those ideas are obviously wrong. Women get emotional, just like men do, and just like men they can control those emotions. And physical violence of any kind is an inappropriate response to even the worst infraction.

On a large scale, we can’t do much about this garbage. Good luck writing to studio execs to complain; they are probably too busy counting their money to care. On a small scale though, you can be that annoying friend that brings this up the next time one of these stupid scenes is in a flick. You could explain this is a subtle example of the regression of women’s rights in our society and make your friends think a little more critically about this stuff.

If you think my logic is flawed somewhere here, let me know it. And if you are a man who thinks a woman can’t hurt you, try to mug a female with a black-belt in karate. You may live to regret it.