Can we talk about violence and culture?

I've never read Bourdieu, if that makes you feel better.

I am informed by Buffy though

Governments do not like large numbers of militarily trained men being unemployed. When virtually the whole of the male portion of society has been weaponised it becomes crucial, from the perspective of the elite, for them not to think about alternate forms of social arrangement.

Of course, women had become industrialised and began to consider alternative forms of social arrangement. History sometimes seems a sequence of unintended consequences.

Counter intuitively though, after the World War II, in which women participated hugely, they were swiftly despatched back to the kitchen and motherhood and apple pie was the order of the day right up to the 1960s.

Active participation in a national war effort has usually been a precursor to greater social inclusion for marginalised groups. The Civil Rights movement during WW2 and Vietnam are good examples. More historically we have the Scots and Irish regiments in the UK, in antiquity the Host of Alexander and the Roman Legionary Auxilia. Civilisations where women participated in warfare, where records of such persist, tend to indicate far greater gender equality than those where they did not; The Romans found Brythonic women terrifying in battle and some contemporary historians see them as possessing legal status greater than Roman women were afforded; Scythian war maidens had the same social status and responsibilities as male youths, according to Herodotus. In the modern age, the insistence on participation by both genders in the Israeli Defence Force has seen a great progress in gender equality within those communities who undertake national service, while those communities which are exempt are becoming more entrenched in traditional patriarchal gender roles.

Emmeline Pankhurst's entry in Wikipedia includes this:
With the advent of the First World War, Emmeline and Christabel called an immediate halt to militant suffrage activism in support of the British government's stand against the "German Peril." They urged women to aid industrial production and encouraged young men to fight, becoming prominent figures in the white feather movement.

Hearing about that "white feather movement" is pretty chilling. I suppose they might have been saying, if men want to run society, now's their time to go out and die for it! On the other hand, Millicent Fawcett's liberal group, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, kept on campaigning throughout the war.

So the militants became enthusiastic supporters of the war effort, and the liberals kept up their non-violent pressure. Maybe it's true that they all contributed to the first women getting the vote in 1918, while the war was still going on. In fact maybe with such a distraction going on, it was easier for the government to vote it in than in peacetime, and get the issue over with.

OneFlewOverTheDodosNest

I agree with your analysis. Plus we don't like to imagine humans losing. HG Wells deliberately ended the alien invasion with a virus, both as a symbol of how helpless humanity was and a comment on the arrogance of the invaders.

With regards to the more general discussion, perhaps negative reactions to violence are seen as being evidence of an excess of empathy. It is not inappropriate to have a degree of empathy for those who experience childbirth or accidental injury, but an excess of empathy on the battlefield makes you less combat capable and is therefore seen as undermining the survival capacity of the collective group.

I don't think it matters, in relation to the OP's point as I read it, whether the 'serious' violence being 'celebrated' is fictional or not. My point is that those who do not like watching violence are seen as, in some way, less than those who are not so affected by it - less serious, less grown-up etc. It is as if, by not enjoying the violence that society sets up as 'heroic', the viewer is somehow less heroic or even cowardly. It may not be a stance that is considered 'womanly', then, but it is certainly a stance that is considered less 'manly.'

Interestingly, picking up on callindana's point about death in warfare being deemed more 'serious' than death in childbirth, those who are not able to watch scenes of childbirth, or even life-saving medical procedures, are not considered unusual or 'less manly' - that s merely 'squeamishness' and is quite acceptable.

I have some weird filter between Hollywood and reality. I don't like Youtube/liveleak videos of real events - injuries, accidents etc because I know someone has done themselves damage. Similarly, I can't watch those hospital programmes - 24 Hours in A&E etc. - when they cut people up. My wife and daughter think my reaction is hilarious. Bruce Willis machine-gunning 27 bit-part actors though? Meh. So I don't think your reaction is considered 'womanly', rosa. Do you find a difference between real-life and Hollywood depictions?

Also on the theme of the celebration of hero violence in Hollywood, I have always found it very disturbing that the actual depiction of such violence is presented as entertaining. For some reason I react very extremely to such depictions - I literally cannot watch these things on screen, I flinch/jump etc and have to cover my eyes. However, my reaction is often considered by others to be anything from hilarious to puzzling to immature and always considered "womanish." My negative reaction to violence is considered as something unusual, worthy of comment and certainly not normal.

I suppose what I am tring to sa is that not only is male violence justified and celebrated by cuture but that those whose reactions who do not support that celebration (often women, in my experience) are thought of as "lesser."

That's interesting Mephistopheles particularly that it was done intentionally.

One of the things I find interesting about the colonial trope in sci fi is that novels always end with humans beating the more technologically advanced invaders, usually by outwitting them or seeing through their "we come in peace" guise. It's as if it's a subconscious justification of "if they'd only been smart enough / cunning enough / disbelieving of our small pox infected blankets then indigenous populations would have survived so they've only got themselves to blame"

OneFlewOverTheDodosNest

HG Wells 'War of the Worlds' was a deliberate attempt to provide Britons of the Imperial Age with the perspective of an indigenous people invaded by the technologically superior colonial powers.

What would be really quite interesting (and perhaps it has been done? I don't know) would be to go around and write the story of various commemorative statues as if the violence hadn't been perpetuated as part of this glorious, necessary narrative but by some 'others'. What would the story read like if it was framed as terrorism or a war crime or similar? Would be enormously unpopular, obviously - which is revealing in itself - and would not be kind to do with more recent conflicts where veterans or their relatives could still be alive.

Somewhat off topic, but it's theorised that a lot of science fiction writing is created by a subconscious attempt to rationalise the invasion of other countries in a type of colonial guilt.

When I was in vietnam I came across the statue of Me Suot Anh (look for images on google) for her valiantly ferrying troops during the vietnam war (from what the engineer with me said). Cant find anything in English on her

The valorisation continues with gangsta rap with men espousing how many times they dodged death, partners they have slept with, taken from others, imagine flipping that on it head and if you had a female rapper doing the same.

There is a monument to the women of World War 2 in Whitehall. An easy walk from Edith Cavell, but along the way you have to pass by a fair number of violent blokes up on pedestals. One isn't likely to be intimidated by the Camel Corps , though.

I thought of Kill Bill too. Tarantino seems to have no problem portraying women as psychos, or cold-hearted assassins. And I criticised Hollywood blockbusters before, but then I remembered Saving Private Ryan. That was a very human portrayal of soldiers in battle. They argued about sacrificing their friends to save one man, Hanks' character's nerves were shot and he broke down in tears at the end - before being killed. It isn't a typical portrayal though.

Hmmm grimble wonder if that's why teachers cop so much crap and librarianship is all but dead...

Within my own family, the narrative I have been given of war is that a situation of incredible brutality (including rape) was happening around me, and this is what I did to behave ethically in that situation and do the right thing. Before this thread, I had never thought about the conflict between that and the official heroes line.

The image of female violence I most think of is Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Where when it is all over she leaves her daughter watching tv, and goes in the bathroom and sobs.