Violence and masculinity
Violence is a central part of our media and news. Daily, close to home we hear about violences: stealing, drug taking and trafficking, knife and gun crime and murders, all kinds of 'rowdy' behaviour (loud, boisterous, drunkenness, ...) which threaten and intimidate others, youth stabbings, domestic violence, rapes and sexual abuse, ... just to start with. The world is in violence with our wars, economic and political exploitation, destruction of communities and the natural environment, ... various terrorist actions, ... News readers, the interviewed politicians and other social commentators discuss various possible causes and solutions to this violence. These commentators, politicians and researchers try to look for common or causal factors. They highlight and question: is it black or Asian or Muslim communities, is it poor white families, is it generally poor and under resourced communities, .... is it the youth of today, ... but they seem very reluctant to address the unmentioned but real common factor: that this violence is essentially masculine. Clear evidence of this is that youth justice and prisons are full of young men not young women.
In the current global hot topic of terrorisms, these are similarly spoken about in general social or religious terms. For example we hear about: anti-social or anarchist groups, animal liberation groups, Islamic fundamentalists, KKK/Neo-nazis, political liberation movements (IRA, Basque, ISIS, ...) .... as defining factors amongst these groups who might apparently have little connecting them. But again if we look at who is in these groups exercising the violence we find that it is almost exclusively men.
Whilst Maleness is fairly invisible amongst the recognised social issues, male violence against women is possibly the one area where 'maleness' is mentioned as a factor. Men’s violence is the single most serious health problem for women. It causes them more harm than accidents and cancer combined. For women aged 15-44, an estimated 50% of emergency room visits are the result of violence at the hands of their husbands, boyfriends, ex-husbands, or ex-boyfriends. Every year male partners or ex-partners injure and murder women. These male crimes against women are largely invisible to the media. We expect it so much that we hardly even notice it or bother to report it.
There are a wide range of other issues where 'maleness' is not generally mentioned (the percentages represent males within each 'pathology'): Failure in school (70%), prison population (90%), suicide (75%), deaths in traffic accidents (75%), deaths in industrial accidents (90%), addictions to play-computer-internet (90%), alcoholism (75%), other addictions (sex, gambling, illegal drugs), youth violence, .... Might there be common elements to all these pathologies that we could explore and treat? Before anyone rebels at the possible cost of treatments and therapy - Just how much does all of this violence cost us emotionally, socially and economically??
This is “male violence” - testosterone and socially driven risk-taking in men's struggle to achieve a higher alpha male status.
Questioning our masculinity remains a taboo. There seems to be a conspiracy not to highlight this fact.
Questioning masculinity and the underlying male violence that defines our society is a taboo for both women and men because it is the embedded 'norm', it is one of the fundamental pillars of our history: politics, religion, law and education. Here we have to define violence. Violence is using force to coerce, injure or manipulate some person or being. We must include all kinds of force and coercion here (physical, spiritual, emotional, moral, legal, intellectual, sexual, financial, ....).
Whilst this quick and rough review of violences is quite brutal and certainly lacking in academic rigour, I urge you just to observe the effects of some of these aspects in our lives. I do not claim to be an expert on any of this. I am often lost, afraid, violent, .... struggling in my own violences and my vulnerability and I just need us to be talking about it, to be exploring it together as men. Please comment and contribute to this discussion, then it will become clearer for us all, ... and then we might be able to do something about it.
Violence is a pillar of our culture
Aggression, competition and indeed violence are at the foundations of our society at every level. The powerful and competitive seem to be the most successful, within the acceptable social criteria. The history we learn is mostly the story of violent men, invading, robbing, ruling with a strict hand, ... A few other men appear in our stories as defenders of the nation, liberators, social and scientific innovators, ... Of course we don't look too closely into the lives of these same people: what they had to do to be successful, how they treat their families or employees, how they treat the planet, how is their inner emotional and personal life? We, the moderate, alternative, democratic, socially liberal, ... who live comfortably off the capitalist system are equally violent in our quiet acceptance of this system.... just as the liberal intelligentsia in Nazi Germany quietly accepted the structural violence. Let us have a look at a few aspects of this structural and patriarchal violence in education, politics, religion, the law and economics, just to become aware of how it is so structurally embedded that we do not usually see it.
The Education System as violence
There is a legal coercion for all young people to go to school to learn the prevailing social values and norms (of family, district, region, religion, nation ....). This is the primary function of education far beyond the 3R's, professions or degrees that young people later acquire. There is no choice for young people about whether they can go to school or what they can do. This is a violence we exert upon children, and say it is for their own good. Schools are very ineffective in developing healthy adults who know what it is to be human, to manage our relationships and emotions.
Some of the subliminal violent structural messages that children learn in school:
It is mostly women who are in contact with young people in the early education system (lower paid and of little social value) where most of the emotional and relational character is formed. Schooling is a more feminine space - not only due to the prevalence of female teachers in early compulsory schooling levels, but also due to seeming to exercise a kind of soft, warm, seductive social regime. This changes to there being more men in the more competitive vocational and university system (higher paid and valued). Men who opt to be teachers in early education generally do so because 'they don't have the grades or character’ (not sufficiently aggressive?) to compete for higher status jobs.
The very values and structure of the education system are implicitly at the service of maintaining a violent patriarchal social infrastructure.
The classroom and playground help to establish the violence
Schools, including primary schools, are a basic forum where patriarchal power dynamics are established. Sexual harassment, bullying of the sensitive or different boys and girls, creates the foundations upon which the rest of our social structures are built. This is where the system allows, celebrates and normalises the power of the bullies, laughing it off as "boys will be boys". Some specific violent messages that boys learn in school:
Studying and working on these social, emotional, relational and sexual power dynamics in schools should be taken as seriously as maths, physics and languages.
Politics of violence
We are governed by one party in a parliament. Dialogue between parties is very similar to boys gangs in the school playground: no real negotiation as to what might be best for the whole country, rather there is a continual public show of force, ridiculing the others (even if they have good ideas), defending the own 'gang' above all else. The gang that wins this public manipulative game gets to rule the school playground and its resources. Traditionally until about 50 years ago this was exclusively men. The current system pretends to be open to women but the party system ensures that only women who play this aggressive and manipulative masculine game can really proceed. This is also a Parliament which has such autonomy as to vote for its own salaries, which is generally not held responsible for the waste, mistakes, manipulation they wreck on the country. Politicians describe themselves as 'serving the public' so as to award themselves and friends further honours and exemptions. Whilst it is not 'right' for me to punch my neighbour in a dispute we may have over the fence, it is accepted politically that we go to war and kill our neighbours over international disputes. This is called peace-making or defending the national interest and is mostly about defending what we previously robbed or want to rob in the future. Our politicians even begin to talk like the priests in aligning their arguments with God given truths. Our political system is inherently patriarchal and violent.
Religion of violence
Our religions are another male bastion. Male priests from whichever religion, compete for (and have made war for) our souls. Each sect and group claims to have some exclusive access to the truth and the mind of God, whilst promoting poverty and ignorance as a means to maintaining their power. Of course most religions repress women, homosexuality and sexuality in general. This is violence.
The Law as violence
Similarly we have adversarial legal systems which are not necessary looking for the truth or justice but rather for one side to win over the other. Much of the violent punitive legal system completely ignores the complexities of human psychology and relationships that lead to 'criminal' behaviours. Those with money and power can usually find ways escape justice or to win legally. The law permits sufficient loopholes so that the rich men can hide their profits, their controlling hand and their violence behind hidden companies registered in overseas lawless territories. Meantime the prisons are full of young men who mostly just need loving containment, supportive role models and understanding. Our legal system is just another pillar of our patriarchal violent culture.
In the current global hot topic of terrorisms, these are similarly spoken about in general social or religious terms. For example we hear about: anti-social or anarchist groups, animal liberation groups, Islamic fundamentalists, KKK/Neo-nazis, political liberation movements (IRA, Basque, ISIS, ...) .... as defining factors amongst these groups who might apparently have little connecting them. But again if we look at who is in these groups exercising the violence we find that it is almost exclusively men.
Whilst Maleness is fairly invisible amongst the recognised social issues, male violence against women is possibly the one area where 'maleness' is mentioned as a factor. Men’s violence is the single most serious health problem for women. It causes them more harm than accidents and cancer combined. For women aged 15-44, an estimated 50% of emergency room visits are the result of violence at the hands of their husbands, boyfriends, ex-husbands, or ex-boyfriends. Every year male partners or ex-partners injure and murder women. These male crimes against women are largely invisible to the media. We expect it so much that we hardly even notice it or bother to report it.
There are a wide range of other issues where 'maleness' is not generally mentioned (the percentages represent males within each 'pathology'): Failure in school (70%), prison population (90%), suicide (75%), deaths in traffic accidents (75%), deaths in industrial accidents (90%), addictions to play-computer-internet (90%), alcoholism (75%), other addictions (sex, gambling, illegal drugs), youth violence, .... Might there be common elements to all these pathologies that we could explore and treat? Before anyone rebels at the possible cost of treatments and therapy - Just how much does all of this violence cost us emotionally, socially and economically??
This is “male violence” - testosterone and socially driven risk-taking in men's struggle to achieve a higher alpha male status.
Questioning our masculinity remains a taboo. There seems to be a conspiracy not to highlight this fact.
Questioning masculinity and the underlying male violence that defines our society is a taboo for both women and men because it is the embedded 'norm', it is one of the fundamental pillars of our history: politics, religion, law and education. Here we have to define violence. Violence is using force to coerce, injure or manipulate some person or being. We must include all kinds of force and coercion here (physical, spiritual, emotional, moral, legal, intellectual, sexual, financial, ....).
Whilst this quick and rough review of violences is quite brutal and certainly lacking in academic rigour, I urge you just to observe the effects of some of these aspects in our lives. I do not claim to be an expert on any of this. I am often lost, afraid, violent, .... struggling in my own violences and my vulnerability and I just need us to be talking about it, to be exploring it together as men. Please comment and contribute to this discussion, then it will become clearer for us all, ... and then we might be able to do something about it.
Violence is a pillar of our culture
Aggression, competition and indeed violence are at the foundations of our society at every level. The powerful and competitive seem to be the most successful, within the acceptable social criteria. The history we learn is mostly the story of violent men, invading, robbing, ruling with a strict hand, ... A few other men appear in our stories as defenders of the nation, liberators, social and scientific innovators, ... Of course we don't look too closely into the lives of these same people: what they had to do to be successful, how they treat their families or employees, how they treat the planet, how is their inner emotional and personal life? We, the moderate, alternative, democratic, socially liberal, ... who live comfortably off the capitalist system are equally violent in our quiet acceptance of this system.... just as the liberal intelligentsia in Nazi Germany quietly accepted the structural violence. Let us have a look at a few aspects of this structural and patriarchal violence in education, politics, religion, the law and economics, just to become aware of how it is so structurally embedded that we do not usually see it.
The Education System as violence
There is a legal coercion for all young people to go to school to learn the prevailing social values and norms (of family, district, region, religion, nation ....). This is the primary function of education far beyond the 3R's, professions or degrees that young people later acquire. There is no choice for young people about whether they can go to school or what they can do. This is a violence we exert upon children, and say it is for their own good. Schools are very ineffective in developing healthy adults who know what it is to be human, to manage our relationships and emotions.
Some of the subliminal violent structural messages that children learn in school:
- “Do what I tell you, not what I do”. If you obey us you will get on and be happy.
- To be happy you must compete within the accepted social norms and values
- Violence, the violence of the system, is fine, “in the social or National Interest”, "it is for your good that we repress you".
- The violences in our National History are just and glorified, as are all our current wars and Corporate violences
- The powerful can buy more 'things' so are happiest
- Parents, teachers, police, the law, politicians, media celebrities, ... are “people of value”. This is what you have to aim for.
- Males have more value than females
It is mostly women who are in contact with young people in the early education system (lower paid and of little social value) where most of the emotional and relational character is formed. Schooling is a more feminine space - not only due to the prevalence of female teachers in early compulsory schooling levels, but also due to seeming to exercise a kind of soft, warm, seductive social regime. This changes to there being more men in the more competitive vocational and university system (higher paid and valued). Men who opt to be teachers in early education generally do so because 'they don't have the grades or character’ (not sufficiently aggressive?) to compete for higher status jobs.
The very values and structure of the education system are implicitly at the service of maintaining a violent patriarchal social infrastructure.
The classroom and playground help to establish the violence
Schools, including primary schools, are a basic forum where patriarchal power dynamics are established. Sexual harassment, bullying of the sensitive or different boys and girls, creates the foundations upon which the rest of our social structures are built. This is where the system allows, celebrates and normalises the power of the bullies, laughing it off as "boys will be boys". Some specific violent messages that boys learn in school:
- I am not female or gay, these are lesser beings
- The violent, psychopath, bullies get more attention, fun, sex, ..... and they get away with their violence
- If anyone questions my masculinity I must fight to show that I am a man
- I have to belong to a group (party, football team, company, technological or cultural grouping, .... gang, ...).
- I have to be recognized by the other males, to progress in that group and fight for it when required
- I have to rely on this group for identity, status, honour, support, ..... This group will determine the ways I can express my emotions
Studying and working on these social, emotional, relational and sexual power dynamics in schools should be taken as seriously as maths, physics and languages.
Politics of violence
We are governed by one party in a parliament. Dialogue between parties is very similar to boys gangs in the school playground: no real negotiation as to what might be best for the whole country, rather there is a continual public show of force, ridiculing the others (even if they have good ideas), defending the own 'gang' above all else. The gang that wins this public manipulative game gets to rule the school playground and its resources. Traditionally until about 50 years ago this was exclusively men. The current system pretends to be open to women but the party system ensures that only women who play this aggressive and manipulative masculine game can really proceed. This is also a Parliament which has such autonomy as to vote for its own salaries, which is generally not held responsible for the waste, mistakes, manipulation they wreck on the country. Politicians describe themselves as 'serving the public' so as to award themselves and friends further honours and exemptions. Whilst it is not 'right' for me to punch my neighbour in a dispute we may have over the fence, it is accepted politically that we go to war and kill our neighbours over international disputes. This is called peace-making or defending the national interest and is mostly about defending what we previously robbed or want to rob in the future. Our politicians even begin to talk like the priests in aligning their arguments with God given truths. Our political system is inherently patriarchal and violent.
Religion of violence
Our religions are another male bastion. Male priests from whichever religion, compete for (and have made war for) our souls. Each sect and group claims to have some exclusive access to the truth and the mind of God, whilst promoting poverty and ignorance as a means to maintaining their power. Of course most religions repress women, homosexuality and sexuality in general. This is violence.
The Law as violence
Similarly we have adversarial legal systems which are not necessary looking for the truth or justice but rather for one side to win over the other. Much of the violent punitive legal system completely ignores the complexities of human psychology and relationships that lead to 'criminal' behaviours. Those with money and power can usually find ways escape justice or to win legally. The law permits sufficient loopholes so that the rich men can hide their profits, their controlling hand and their violence behind hidden companies registered in overseas lawless territories. Meantime the prisons are full of young men who mostly just need loving containment, supportive role models and understanding. Our legal system is just another pillar of our patriarchal violent culture.
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Economics of violence
The men who generally control the flow of goods and money are those whose ancestors (men) took land, resources and power by force at local, national and global levels over generations. Here we must include economic inheritance via male lineage or patronage. We have legitimised this where our Empires implemented globalised education, politics, religion and law, in their own favour. Now our western multinationals and banks 'legally' own or control most of the resources and the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, ... mechanisms where any of this can be addressed. The stolen money buys access to the rich club for the sons of the old families so that our Eton boys also control the media which tell us what to buy and who to vote for in order to be happy. |
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Sport and the Media as violence
Not so long ago sport was a fairly level playing field. Talent was what mattered most. Of course, as always, the Eton boys had a bit of an advantage with better diet, facilities and support. Now anyone with a bit of talent has become a commodity, a money generator, with agents, the media and sponsors all looking for their cut. Millionaire and billionaire men own sports teams as an extension of their Alpha status, as well as being ways of writing off profits to pay less tax. Of course the sports team carries their company logo. This is not sport but a violent capitalist exploitation of the addictive needy aspects of the population. Sport at the street, school and community levels maintain some healthy expression of our aggression for life but are ever more affected by the patriarchal violent capitalism and striving for a perverted alpha status.
Similarly the men who control most of the media are part of the same club. Independent investigative journalism is slowly disappearing, giving way to a celebritocracy - celebrity gossip and points scoring becomes an essential content even in the most serious of political, social or economic interviews and reports. This is violent manipulation and again it is mostly the men who do the media violence. Though, since working in the media is a more acceptable feminine career choice, there are some notable virulent female mercenaries.
The violence of the righteous and 'do-gooders'
There is another passive aggressive violence implicit in our Western patriarchal system. At the global level we rich Westerners set ourselves up as the peace keepers, the democratic, the ones who fight for climate change and Human Rights, ... so that we are the 'good' who save the other poor lost souls from themselves. Meanwhile our governments and multinational corporations bribe and manipulate their governments, give foreign aid for them to buy our services, .... and send in mercenaries when it suits our purposes to create a little war, ....
At the local and personal levels our passive aggression manifests actively as we hold on to 'the role of being the good ones', as saviours of the poor, helping the addicts, prisoners, homeless failures, the animals and the environment ... whilst meditating, giving to charity, eating organic, going to church, .... sustained by our comfortable overconsumption (violence) of the Earth’s resources.
This is the type of patriarchal violence, an extension of our earlier Religious violence, where we have set ourselves above women, the animals, nature, other cultures, ..... in our good absence, silence, and especially in our toxic helping hand we are complicit in projecting all our 'shadow aspects' on to the others. This is essential to justify all the previous mechanisms of violence. This might be a kind of 'nice violence', adopted by men who cannot compete with the more macho alpha types. We, I count myself into this type of violence, manipulate, seduce and rape and pillage with a nice smile on our faces, 'just trying to help'. We might observe that most of the men being revealed as serial child sexual abusers over the last decades were known for their good helping geniality.
Not so long ago sport was a fairly level playing field. Talent was what mattered most. Of course, as always, the Eton boys had a bit of an advantage with better diet, facilities and support. Now anyone with a bit of talent has become a commodity, a money generator, with agents, the media and sponsors all looking for their cut. Millionaire and billionaire men own sports teams as an extension of their Alpha status, as well as being ways of writing off profits to pay less tax. Of course the sports team carries their company logo. This is not sport but a violent capitalist exploitation of the addictive needy aspects of the population. Sport at the street, school and community levels maintain some healthy expression of our aggression for life but are ever more affected by the patriarchal violent capitalism and striving for a perverted alpha status.
Similarly the men who control most of the media are part of the same club. Independent investigative journalism is slowly disappearing, giving way to a celebritocracy - celebrity gossip and points scoring becomes an essential content even in the most serious of political, social or economic interviews and reports. This is violent manipulation and again it is mostly the men who do the media violence. Though, since working in the media is a more acceptable feminine career choice, there are some notable virulent female mercenaries.
The violence of the righteous and 'do-gooders'
There is another passive aggressive violence implicit in our Western patriarchal system. At the global level we rich Westerners set ourselves up as the peace keepers, the democratic, the ones who fight for climate change and Human Rights, ... so that we are the 'good' who save the other poor lost souls from themselves. Meanwhile our governments and multinational corporations bribe and manipulate their governments, give foreign aid for them to buy our services, .... and send in mercenaries when it suits our purposes to create a little war, ....
At the local and personal levels our passive aggression manifests actively as we hold on to 'the role of being the good ones', as saviours of the poor, helping the addicts, prisoners, homeless failures, the animals and the environment ... whilst meditating, giving to charity, eating organic, going to church, .... sustained by our comfortable overconsumption (violence) of the Earth’s resources.
This is the type of patriarchal violence, an extension of our earlier Religious violence, where we have set ourselves above women, the animals, nature, other cultures, ..... in our good absence, silence, and especially in our toxic helping hand we are complicit in projecting all our 'shadow aspects' on to the others. This is essential to justify all the previous mechanisms of violence. This might be a kind of 'nice violence', adopted by men who cannot compete with the more macho alpha types. We, I count myself into this type of violence, manipulate, seduce and rape and pillage with a nice smile on our faces, 'just trying to help'. We might observe that most of the men being revealed as serial child sexual abusers over the last decades were known for their good helping geniality.
Civilization as Violence
We have touched on this in several points above but it is worth exploring in more detail. Much of nature is quite brutal in the ways species kill and exploit each other. There is also brutality in the ways species treat their own weak and sick members. This is the beautiful violent survival of the fittest aspect of nature. There are equally beautiful ways that nature displays incredible collaboration and sympathy, but we cannot evade the essential part that violence plays in the health of the forests and seas. As part of nature, violence and aggression are not 'bad things', it cannot be so. To make an omelette we have to break the eggs. To make a salad we kill and eat the lettuce.
A paradox of being alive on this planet, in this dimension, is that in order to live we are implicated in violence and killing of some kind, even if we pay someone else to actually wield the knife. An important part of our animal self wants the freedom to scratch, sniff, belch, fart, look for wild sex, play with anything, eat anything, kill in the attempt, openly display our desires, openly express our bodily functions and needs, ..... but civilization thinks it knows better.
Over thousands of years humans have tried to control nature, trapping and enclosing animals and plants for our more comfortable survival. This evolved into our attempts to control human nature, to control the beautiful, creative wild, sexual, violent animal in the human. We developed towns, politics, police, laws and religions in our attempts to control nature. In a sense this is the human placing ourselves as 'wiser than the great creator'. Freud, Jung and others argue that this 'civilization is the root of all our neuroses'. Civilization itself is a violent castration of the creative wild animal in man and woman. We repress our animal energy at great cost, bringing neuroses, illness and confusion in our roles.
Books and reference material:
Rita Segato (2017) - La guerra contra las Mujeres
Mindell, A - City Shadows
We have touched on this in several points above but it is worth exploring in more detail. Much of nature is quite brutal in the ways species kill and exploit each other. There is also brutality in the ways species treat their own weak and sick members. This is the beautiful violent survival of the fittest aspect of nature. There are equally beautiful ways that nature displays incredible collaboration and sympathy, but we cannot evade the essential part that violence plays in the health of the forests and seas. As part of nature, violence and aggression are not 'bad things', it cannot be so. To make an omelette we have to break the eggs. To make a salad we kill and eat the lettuce.
A paradox of being alive on this planet, in this dimension, is that in order to live we are implicated in violence and killing of some kind, even if we pay someone else to actually wield the knife. An important part of our animal self wants the freedom to scratch, sniff, belch, fart, look for wild sex, play with anything, eat anything, kill in the attempt, openly display our desires, openly express our bodily functions and needs, ..... but civilization thinks it knows better.
Over thousands of years humans have tried to control nature, trapping and enclosing animals and plants for our more comfortable survival. This evolved into our attempts to control human nature, to control the beautiful, creative wild, sexual, violent animal in the human. We developed towns, politics, police, laws and religions in our attempts to control nature. In a sense this is the human placing ourselves as 'wiser than the great creator'. Freud, Jung and others argue that this 'civilization is the root of all our neuroses'. Civilization itself is a violent castration of the creative wild animal in man and woman. We repress our animal energy at great cost, bringing neuroses, illness and confusion in our roles.
Books and reference material:
Rita Segato (2017) - La guerra contra las Mujeres
Mindell, A - City Shadows