Quote# 140107
Re: Where Does Organized Male Evil Come From?
I just got finished reading this article about the rapes of Rohingya women and the persecution and slaughter of their people: http://www.thejournal.ie/rohingya-rape-3745266-Dec2017/
I know it's not uplifting to read this stuff, but it's also important not to turn away.
I want to know what causes such organized male evil. It doesn't matter whether it's a dispute over territory or religion or ethnicity, it is men who do this in an organized fashion. It has always been men.
Is it as simple as "patriarchy?" Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch describes the creation of capitalist evil through the weaponization of men and male sexuality, the formal institution of patriarchy, the enslavement of women, and the colonial/imperial ventures of the new world order.
Although it's true almost no corner of the human world has gone untouched by the Western project of colonialism and imperialism, other cultures have their own ancient histories of warfare, bloodshed and male rule that predate Western history.
I know the advent of agriculture and the dawn of land ownership have been cited as the reason for growing institutionalization of patriarchy and subjugation of women and expansion of territory--but really--I struggle to understand how men can commit such horrific atrocities in an organized fashion. If women ruled the world, would we do this? Would we?
I have never given much credence to notions of biological determinism and I still don't; if men are like this by dint of nature as well as nurture the power of human socialization can change them. So far is has mainly been used to cement these violent, hierarchical tendencies it seems.
I just never used to believe there could be this fundamental difference between men and women where under the right circumstances men could join together to commit such atrocities in a way that women wouldn't. Is it because women have been stripped of their power that we don't see them band together to exercise it in such horrific fashion? Or is there really a fundamental, biological difference between us that makes men more susceptible to committing violence?
I also struggle with the connection between sex and committing violence so often seen within cultures and among mostly male individuals across the world. Is it male or is it masculine?
(anxietyaccount8)
No it's not just as simple as patriarchy. I once believed that but now I don't. Men really are just more violent than women. Male sexuality is also very different than female sexuality (in general) and I don't think anybody could have socialized me into being interested in some of the crazy things they are interested in.
I think that the reason a lot of people dismiss these claims is because they are reminded of evolutionary psychology, which for the most part is not very scientific at all. But the thing is that just because things like "women are naturally better at cooking" are BS it doesn't mean that everything that sounds like evopsych is wrong. For example we know that male and female animals act differently. We know that males and females have different body types, hormone levels, and different ways of reproducing. Would it really be so insane to suggest there are mental differences too?
Now to be fair, I am not really sure if this is true, and none of us will be sure unless we have substantial evidence, but this is my personal theory. It just feels really obvious to me.
(Unabashed_Calabash)
This was my point to another poster. To what extent can the behavior of other mammals, including our closest relatives chimpanzees and bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) be interpreted to reflect on our own?
Not only the male correlation of sex and violence but specifically the far greater incidence of male sexual fetishes (about the same as the disproportionate ratio of male vs. female violence, 10 to 1) causes me to believe there's something more than socialization going on here. Scientists who study human sexuality say it has to do with a more intense focus from males as a group on sexuality in general, heightening fetishes. But how often do you hear of women who like to pretend to be baby boys and wear diapers? (Seriously?) And like to be burped and breastfed and rocked to sleep? (I would really like formal studies of how often these bizarre fetishes occur in males as compared to females. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a result of porn and therefore male domination arising from social reasons because how much of porn is men pretending to be infant girls and breastfeed? Please don't tell me).
I am not saying this to be in favor of gender or against it. "Gender" as we know it is a social construct. Any innate evolutionary differences in the sexes--say, of violent vs. pacifist, or systematizing (from, say, hunting more often than women in most prehistoric societies) vs. integration (from the greater social relations of gathering and building)--need not be our fate if detrimental. We are highly social animals almost entirely at the whim of our socialization, which has been civilizing in some respects but in others greatly lacking.
I agree that just because evolutionary psychology has become a crutch of sexist males it does not mean absolutely none of it is true. It's more important than ever we separate the wheat from the chaff.
(anxietyaccount8)
Right, and it's important that people recognize radical feminism's criticism of gender actually does not contradict this existence of innate differences. We are all born into a society where we have to follow prescribed gender roles, and this social construct bleeds into all aspects of our lives and causes differences of its own. If some differences are innate this social construction makes them much more prominent and worse.
Also it doesn't mean that there is a distinct male or female brain, or that trans people really do have the brain of the opposite sex. Even if, hypothetically, a trans woman did actually act in ways that women are biologically supposed to, they are just proving that there is variation and a male can be that way too.
(Unabashed_Calabash)
Lol at the downvotes. I also don't understand how butthurt men get about this subject. It is quite clearly true (unless you prefer "violence" to "evil" because you don't believe in imposing moral values on human actions), and I am merely asking why and where it comes from.
Humanity will never change until men reckon with their own and their fellow men's actions.
(bigoltreehugger)
Ew. So many men came in caping for other men in response. I miss the days when this sub didn't have as many dudes hanging around. I'm sorry I can't engage your question properly but I just wanted to say that I've always appreciated your input on this sub.
(descending_wisdom)
fundamental biological differences. Sexual selection theory easily explains male violence. Watch some videos on organized warfare in some troops of chimpanzees.
(sunscreenonface)
Gonna leave this write up from notcisjustwoman here:
"Patriarchy pre-dates both the agricultural revolution and hunter-gatherer societies, because the basis of the oppression of women, indeed the very basis for oppression itself, is rape.
Male animals have been raping female animals since before the first humans, or even the first primates, appeared on earth. Events like the agricultural revolution codified male oppression of women into a more organized system, and religion has evolved over time to become an enforcer and moralizer of male violence, but neither of things things created patriarchy. Patriarchy began the first time a man raped a woman, and instead of being beaten to death by her tribal/family group, he was rewarded with fathership of her children.
It’s not comfortable even for most radical feminists to see this full and complete scope of the history of patriarchy, because it means that things are much more complicated than mere socialization, but it is a brutal truth we must confront in our analysis."
To expand upon this, here's a previous write up I did once I'd read notcisjustwoman's blog:
"I don't think this will make anyone feel better, but I've recently been thinking a lot about the various species of animals across this earth that have been known to rape...and it turns out most animal species have some form of rape. Ducks, squirrels, dolphins, dogs, gorillas, etc. all have observable males who rape and aggress females.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that aggressive males who rape will pass on their aggressive traits to their offspring that are conceived via rape. I don't think it's a stretch to say that male homo sapiens might be more likely to aggress and rape females since they inherited a tendancy towards violence from their male ancestors who were conceived via rape. (Reminder: I could be completely wrong about this!)
Does this make rape ok? NO!!!! Even if rape and aggressive sexual behavior is 'natural', 'natural' does not instantly equal something good or beneficial for a species. Homo sapiens dying of tooth decay at 22 is quite natural, but it's horrific and traumatizing for everyone involved.
All I'm saying is my understanding of men's GLOBAL and CONSTANT violence toward women became easier to understand once I started to think about sexual violence as an issue often found in primate species and not as something completely 100% culturally-bound.
Here's a link to a tumblr write-up that spawned my thoughts on this: http://notcisjustwoman.tumblr.com/post/175761393959/what-is-good-for-the-gander-is-not-always-good-for#notes
(Unabashed_Calabash)
I've read about the extremely complex history of rape among animals of all kinds (they have highly evolved methods of rape--an actual sexual arms race between males and females, as females also evolved to try to avoid rape--in fact, some believe the reason we walk upright is because women first stood up to avoid greater vulnerability to gang rape from behind, and that these gang rapes were so violent many of the females of our prehistoric ancestors who did not stand up did not survive). The species in which pair-bonding and good fatherhood are the norm are not the norm.
There's a reason that male sperm in all species is a complex chemical cocktail. In humans it's designed to lull/drug the mate and bond females to males even at their own expense.
My gut feeling and experiences tell me notjustciswoman is right.
There's a reason rape as committed by men is so normalized and also so easy for men to commit. Behavioral scientists have discussed the not-so-mythical "rape switch" and posited that all or most men have one.
Reading stories of men's mass raiding/raping parties, I'm inclined to agree. (My own experience aligns with this as well. I have actually witnessed a man struggle with his own desire to rape when confronted with a woman highly vulnerable to it. He had a low "rape threshold" certainly, but I don't actually think it's all that unusual. I think human men--because human beings can feel remorse and regret--may struggle with what they have done or the harm they have caused, if society or the victim force them to reflect on this, but they still did it and wanted to do it anyway). Neither the normalization of rape nor its prevalence despite official messages all over the world that it's wrong would be so common if rape were not somehow natural to the males of this species.
I remember an author saying "we cannot deal with violence until we admit uncomfortable truths, such as the thrill of war." The same is true of rape/sexual abuse; there's no way we can combat it without understanding it, and understanding why some men like to do it even when it's officially discouraged, or why men as a class can be easily encouraged to commit it under the right circumstances, is, I think, important if we ever hope to combat it.
(And yes, the history of conquest and invasion in our species is the history of rape. There's a reason so many men in the world carry the same Y chromosome).
Some TERFs,
r/GenderCritical 9 Comments [8/27/2018 3:00:44 AM]
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