Not to mention that a man defending himself against a woman would likely get him arrested.
I know a male victim of domestic violence who was terrified of defending himself and getting arrested. Maybe his was the exception, but when the cops in his case arrived, they were pretty good at reading the scene. His wife was arrested and they never even seemed to consider the possibility that she was the victim.
The downside of course is the lipservice post-arrest support. They handed him a domestic violence pamphlet and were off (not like they were trained to do more, but still). They did helpfully add that wherever the pamphlet said “woman”, he could substitute the word “man” and I’m sure that was a whole heap of help for him in that moment.