Just feeling really angry at all the murder, assault, rape of females that goes on

But this imaginative re-creation of a posited hunter-gather society doesn't really do anything for us, does it?

You don't seriously think women are attracted to men because they're violent? I mean, if in a school playground boys get violent, what happens in the schools I know about is they're suspended, then if need be expelled, and if they bring in knives or worse, eventually they land up dead or in prison. It's not a particularly successful strategy, being violent at a young age. Those who manage not to go to prison don't seem to make especial headway.

So why do we still tolerate violence in society at all? There is no need for it. There is no benefit to the lad who thinks he looks macho for carrying a knife and then gets killed at 22, is there?

It seems to be unbelievably crass to say so ... we're not living in a primitive society where the 'weakest' are left to die (if we ever were).

It's not even true that men 'compete' for women any more, is it?

So surely all of this drawing of parallels to imagined societies is just, well, play-acting a macho fantasy that doesn't have any use in the real world?

I don't think this is the same as what himalaya was saying, btw.

in hunter-gatherer soceities, the pecking order would have literaly given better mating rights to those strong enough to be at the top end of it, i imagine this would be allmost entierly by violent means the weakest in these societies would probobly never have reproduced, thus streathening the tribe.
as civilisation grew, males began to use other ways of attracing females, sport, music, art, good conversation, financial success, all manner of differint things.
but at puberty, in the school playground the pressure on boys to create that pecking order is great, and in the process to get a high position it often becomes violent.

thank you hymalaya you put it much more elequently than i could.

Maybe the issue is that we need better terminology.

Something I cannot understand, that always seems to come up in these debates, is that on the one side, there are us, are people saying that it is crucial to identify the perpetrators of violence, to stand up and say they cannot continue to blend in as parts of society, we have to see them and acknowledge them. And we have to look at how we're going to make a society that doesn't include such people in the future.

And on the other side, there are people who seem to think we're saying all men are naturally violent ... and they see the need for defending men (I think usually understood as 'the men we know who're not violent, as opposed to the perpetrators of violence) from what we're saying. And yet tied into their argument seems always to be the claim that violence in society is natural, or it's always happened, or some people are just born that way, or really women should expect it and get out of the way ...

How is it we're not all agreeing? How come one side ends up being painted as man haters and the other side as woman haters, it seems absurd but I can't get what terminology would bring us all onto the same page.

Hi Himalaya.

I think for me 'it's not natural' is a useful shorthand for saying 'it's not an innate quality, we don't have to be like this'. I see your point that it could be put better.

I think it is vitally important, when we're discussing things like violence and rape, to stress that there's no reason that could ever justify them. Men don't normally need or want to rape people. I think it matters to say that in some way, does that make sense?

I don't see this as bringing morality into it (though I agree, evolution isn't a moral process). I see this as acknowledging that when we talk about phenomena like violence or rape that have existed for a long time, we're not accepting they will always have to exist. I don't know a better shorthand for saying it than saying men don't naturally want to rape or hurt people (though there may be one).

I really don't believe that a woman, today, who goes out in the street and sees two men in a violent fight, is going to be attracted to either them. Nor do we have a society where men compete for passive women, and the women just go with the stronger man after the fight - it makes no sense to look at humans as if they were deer or lions.

As to the point about what I think - no, I don't think that, and on another thread recently I have just pointed out to someone else that that's not how it works. What did I say to give that impression?

LRD

I didnt read Meow's original post, so i am wading in slightly blindly.

But from what s/he(?) said subsequently it doesnt sound like it was aimed at victim blaming, although may have been poorly worded.

It is always difficult to talk about evolutionary causes of something very sensitive and personal, because it can be construed as offensive, or can be seen as using evolutionary reasoning to justify the inexusable. And some people DO use this kind of "its natural" reasoning to justify sexism, oppression etc...(although i dont think meow was).

As i have argued on here before i think the default feminist response of saying "of course it is not natural" is neither true or helpful. The really surprising thing about evolution (in contrast to religious views of the world) is the realization that human nature is the result of a completely amoral process and you cant draw moral lessons from it at all. This means that what someone says about evolutionary causes can be right or wrong, but it shouldnt be seen as offensive (although the way they express it or the conclusions they draw from it might be).

It is scientifically non-controversial that men tend to be more aggressive than women, and that there is a nature component to this, as well as nurture. Therefore there has to have been some different selection pressures on men and women that gave rise to this.

Part of the problem in these discussions is that people dont understand evolution - it is not intuitive, it doesnt work the way the "folk explanation" portrays it, it is poorly taught, and ideas from religion and morality stop people engaging with it properly.

For e.g. LRD you seem to think that for a characteristic to be driven by sexual selection male and female lines must have evolved independently, with aggression being passed down the male line. This is not the case - we inherit sexual characteistics on both sides (e.g. I have my paternal grandma's bust, not the flat chest of my mothers family). If a certain degree of aggression/violence was evolutionary advantageous for males then womem who had sons that were able to hold their own in competition with other males would have left more ancestors.

Similarly Whisky4tea - the idea that not all men are violent does not mean it cant have had any evolutionary advantage to individuals in the past. Not all people are equally attractive, smart etc...it doesnt mean that there are no evolutionary drivers on thes factors.

None of this means that women are "to blame", or that violent crime can be excused by evolution. I dont see anyone here saying that.

Btw, since whatme probably won't say, here's the only bit of the article she linked to that refers to 'humans'. The bit she linked to is talking more generally .... including about, um, antlers.

I don't think humans have antlers, whatme, and that seems a fact fairly well accepted by the biologists too.

Anyway:

'Main article: Sexual selection in human evolution
See also: Major Histocompatibility Complex and Sexual Selection and Physical Attractiveness
Charles Darwin conjectured that the male beard, as well as the relative hairlessness of humans compared to nearly all other mammals, are results of sexual selection. He reasoned that since, compared to males, the bodies of females are more nearly hairless, hairlessness is one of the atypical cases due to its selection by males at a remote prehistoric time, when males had overwhelming selective power, and that it nonetheless affected males due to genetic correlation between the sexes. He also hypothesized that sexual selection could also be what had differentiated between different human races, as he did not believe that natural selection provided a satisfactory answer.
Geoffrey Miller, drawing on some of Darwin's largely neglected ideas about human behavior, has hypothesized that many human behaviors not clearly tied to survival benefits, such as humor, music, visual art, verbal creativity, and some forms of altruism, are courtship adaptations that have been favored through sexual selection. In that view, many human artefacts could be considered subject to sexual selection as part of the extended phenotype, for instance clothing that enhances sexually selected traits.
Some hypotheses about the evolution of the human brain argue that it is a sexually selected trait, as it would not confer enough fitness in itself relative to its high maintenance costs (a quarter to a fifth of the energy and oxygen consumed by a human).[38] Related to this is vocabulary, where humans, on average, know far more words than are necessary for communication. Miller (2000) has proposed that this apparent redundancy is due to individuals using vocabulary to demonstrate their intelligence, and consequently their "fitness", to potential mates. This has been tested experimentally and it appears that males do make greater use of lower frequency (more unusual) words when in a romantic mindset compared to a non-romantic mindset, meaning that vocabulary is likely to be used as a sexual display (Rosenberg & Tunney, 2008).
The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has speculated that the loss of the penis bone in humans, when it is present in other primates, may be due to sexual selection by females looking for an honest advertisement of good health in prospective mates. Since a human erection relies on a hydraulic pumping system, erection failure is a sensitive early warning of certain kinds of physical and mental ill health.[39]'

Darwin appears to be saying interesting things ... you know, I am struggling so much to find violence here?

Scientists don't expect anyone to blindly follow anything.

Science is about questioning, not stating.

whatme, could you stop using the 'western mind' phrase - it is coming across as fairly racist/xenophobic/whatever phrase you want to use for 'generalizing about half the world and assuming they are of one mind'.

If - as you keep saying - there is any evidence for anything you say, sorry, but you'd have better links than wikipedia. I teach first year undergraduates and they know better than to reference wiki, surely an adult with some knowledge of science should know that too?

Do people not get that there is a difference between the science that is evolution which is true and evo psychology which is not a science? You know, like biology is a science but sociology isn't?

I note with wry amusement that those most ready to huff and puff about Evolutionary Psychology usually know very little about it, or about Evolutionary theory in general

FYI male on male violence for sexual selection, is a fairly well established part of the Evolution thory, and not Evolutionary Psychology. That is why I think its shameful that on MN, Being Offended trumps scientific fact.

Truly the closing of the Western Mind in action.

The trouble I have with science,is that scientists routinely change their minds.
And then expect everyone to blindly follow their next idea.

LRDtheFeministDragon Sun 12-Aug-12 23:53:14
Who portrays most men as nasty cruel vicious brutes, vivienne? Do you mean pornmonkey's comment about 99%?

Certainly the more posts are deleted the more confusing the thread becomes, but nowhere have I stated anything like that.

I am of the opinion that there is good and bad in everyone to varying degrees when they are born.
And then nuture helps to make differences too.

I suppose I also think that the potential in men for violence,is higher than the potential for women.Not sure on that one.But cant think of another reason to explain the differences in levels of violence that are carried out by men and women.Testosterone?

It isn't just you, Viviennemary - I am at least one more.

Yes, there are violent men and women. However, sadly evidence points to the fact that the overwhelming majority of violence is commited by men. I think it is Himalaya who points our the statistics on how men and women are generally victims of violence. The one thing in common is the fact that the perpetrator is almost always male.

There seems to be two ways of explaining this evidenced in this thread. You can go with the evo psych philosophy and propose that men use violence because it offers them some kind of reproductive benefit. That is it somehow "natural" for men to be more violent than women.

The second would be that violence is a learnt behaviour. Violent men have been socialised to act violently in some situations. They have learnt violence watching their parents etc. This would suggest that male violence is the product of how they are raised and educated.

Personally I find the second explanation more convincing. All men are not violent. Not even most men. This makes it hard to see how violence offers men any benefit in the search for a mate. It also makes the argument that male violence is somehow "natural" quite insulting to men in general.

To assume that male violence is mostly directed by a subconscious desire to reproduce, seems to me to ignore the importance of socialisation and learning in the development of a person's character. I don't think anyone would argue that up-bringing has no bearing on the type of adult they become. I think we all recognise how important culture and peer pressure is in defining people's behaviour. So why should violence be attributed to other things?

If violence is a learnt behaviour, then it is possible to reduce violence. It is possible to change cultural practices etc. it requires only that people recognise where the problem lies and work out strategies to counter them. If violence is learnt behaviour then men are no more "beasts" than women are.

Who portrays most men as nasty cruel vicious brutes, vivienne? Do you mean pornmonkey's comment about 99%?

I think that's completely made-up bollocks too, but I don't think it is the majority view.

Is it just me on the wrong thread but I get a bit fed up with most men being portrayed as nasty cruel vicious brutes and women as their victims. There's good and bad in both sexes.

mango, they do also have a policy of deleting posts that are racist, disablist and (IIRC) misogynistic.

Hmm... I agree with you, LRD WRT to the ideas in peoples deleted post, but... Curious that MNHQ deleted it, and I can't say I'm happy about that.
I think that unless posts are abusive towards individual posters or illegal, it's probably best that they remain to be seen in all their Technicolor twattishness glory. (And FWIW, I'm sure you didn't mean to say what it looked like you were saying, peoples. I really want to give you the benefit of the doubt, anyway.)
The problem with deletions unless they're absolutely necessary is that they make it really hard to follow a thread (obviously). Also the apparent censoriousness of MN really annoys me at these times

meow when someone with a posting history like yours makes dodgy comments, it's going to be scrutinised closely

consider yourself clocked

Sorry, I quoted, I hope accurately, but I can't check now and am really glad it's just died a death, to be honest.

I never saw the whole quote - was quoting from whoever quoted. I am completely lost as I have no idea what was deleted!

I believe insulting women as a species might not have been the best move ...

i've just caught up with this thread and promptly sent an email to MNHQ, i havent insulted anyone or got personal, i checked the posting guidlines first and among the reasons for having a post deleated "offending LRD" isnt one of them, i await their answer with some inpatience.

oh and exoticfruits, i diddnt say that, you did, please use the full context when quoting people

What is this 'Western Mind', whatme?

You're not doing a lot of favours for this pet theory of yours with terminology like that - it sounds like something out of a Victorian text on 'the natives' or something!

Well I'm deeply distressed its been deleted, I think its shameful. The closing of the Western Mind strikes again.

Evutionary psychology is a bunch of misogynistic bollox made up by violent men to justify rape and domestic violence

Well, it really upsets of all the people I think are total fruitcakes, like Creationists and Extreme RadFems, so on that basis I think its probably on the right track :o