Skip to main content

Are men more violent?

Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions...

"The most hardcore radical feminists, Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Sonia Johnson, agree that there is nothing genetically or biologically predetermined such that men/boys are certain or destined to behave in ways that are destructive. That’s the reason for the urgency, you know? If it doesn’t have to be this way, then why is it? How can we make the world a better place, given that we know change is ours to make?" by womensspace

Why are prisons bulging with boys? The Columbinists, the abusers, the murderers, the rapists, the serial killers - does no one else think that it's a bit odd that there are so many male perpetrators? Doesn't it signal that something has to be done, that there is something out of whack? Don't the men think there is something a little odd about themselves when they have their hands wrapped around a woman's throat, and while doing that they are thinking, Gee I think I should do this again, it's fun!?

There's something wrong with this picture.

...
Cinnamon Gurl sparked this off. Thanks. Each week the Flashback Friday: Feminist Edition will feature a story that has something to do with being or becoming a woman or feminist. This series will continue until I run out of stories. I love having guest bloggers. If you have a story you want to tell and you want to be a guest blogger here, please email me; or feel free to link to your own story in the comments.

Comments

Robert said…
You have touched on both a very complex and very old problem. I think the problem of male violence in itself is a subject which can keep one busy for a lifetime. In my view there are a fiew angles from which this problme can be seen. The first is the view held by Eckhart Tolle that ego manifests itself easier in the male than the feminine psyche, simply because women are closer to the natural rythm of life. From another point of view, the fact that society has always seen women as soft and sensitive and men as hard and "strong" has been extremely detrimental to both sexes. We all know sexual violence against women are never about the sex, but always about power. A boy is smacked around by his father. What example has he had? How does he break the ego that has possessed him to protect his being from dying? I am not holding this example as an excuse, there never is one, but we can at least try to understand. People must realise that we alone are responsible for our actions. We alone are responsible to deal with our pain, no matter who or what caused it. There is a problem in society. The problem is that society itself is possessed by ego, unwilling to let go of various forms and illusionary realities to exchange it for real Life. To exchange noise, plastic Barbie doll body parts and dominance with stillness, acceptance of who and what I am and live and let live...

Popular posts from this blog

VHEMT (Vehement) is a anti-procreation movement

"Here's a novel idea to save the planet: Remove the main cause of its woes - homo sapiens. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT - pronounced "vehement") proposes the phasing out the human race. "When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, and evolve (if they believe in evolution)," offers the movement's website. But 'it's going to take all of us going'." See www.vhemt.org SOURCE: Email invite. I thought I was the only one who thought like this. Everyone I know thanks the universe that I didn't study microbiology. I would have developed a human-specific killer virus. WE are the vermin.

Richard Dawkins on militant atheism

Dawkins has become outspoken in his atheism , coining the word "bright" (as an alternate to atheist), and encouraging fellow non-believers to stand up and be identified. intelligent design is creationism redressed creationists are right that evolution is hostile to evolution statistical improbability of the complexity of design - intelligent design but the intelligent designer wouldn't have made such a hash - why would the designer be bothered with disapproving of our sex lives, favor our side in the war Dawkins suggest rocking the boat - attack religion as a whole taboo of speaking ill about religion - Douglas Adams said, sacred ideas at the heart of religion, holy cows, you can support any operating system you want, but the challenge of religious ideas is off limits science and religion are corrosive to each other - religious explanations are trivial and improbably, teaches people to accept authoritarianism takes the example of famous scientists and imagines

Mary Daly explains the pejoration (of one) of the words related to women

Of Death and Conscience: Brief thoughts on gender role and the values of the dominant culture in medicine : "“Under the influence of the Church and the newly formed male-dominated medical establishment, the word “witch,” which originally meant “wise one,” became a term of scorn. It took a reign of terror lasting several hundred years to radically alter a way of life thousands of years old. Millions of women who carried the healing lineage were systematically killed (see The Church and the Second Sex by Mary Daly).”"