Can we talk about female violence? I need to get my response straight

[GrassIsSinging]

I know this is celeb rubbish, but am finding my blood boiling over comments from FB friends and the like over the Solange Knowles -punching-Jay Z debacle.

Lots of seemingly conscious, smart, reasonable people condemning violence of any sort (great, agreed), but then saying things like 'the double standards in society sicken me...Chris brown beats Rihanna and he is a monster...Solange attacks Jay Z and people dont respond in the same way'. Others (people I thought were decent) saying 'You couldnt have blamed him for hitting back...people have a right to defend themselves' etc.

This riles me massively. Am I a freak for thinking that male violence against women IS often (not always, but very often) much more devastating than vice versa? Because men are usually physically stronger...because male violence against women is a huge problem in this world...? And that a decent man will not hit a woman, even if provoked. Is this an 'old fashioned ' view now?

Feminism doesnt mean we now have to accept men punching us, ffs!

Depressed...

Dervel, you stated that violence is not innate because some people don't resort to it. You said that the root cause is environment. You really think it is that simple?

You can take examples of siblings - same parents, home environment, upbringing - and find that they have completely different temperaments. My anecdata - I have friends who are non-identical male twins. Absolute chalk and cheese in terms of temperament. Some people, due to their chemical make-up, are simply more even-tempered than others. I think we can learn a degree of control over these urges, but the fact that they are there at all tells me that nature plays a part.

There are many academic studies into the nature of violence. I don't think there is real agreement as to root cause. It is too complex an area.

I remembering seeing a documentary on psychopathy, which claimed that 100% of known serial killers were beaten as children. That's an extraordinary correlation.

I'm not sure I'm clear about how we're defining violence when discussing whether it's innate or not? There seems to be an assumption that violence is necessarily associate with a loss.of control but I'd really question that; Patrick Stewart in that speech really nailed.it when he separated violent acts from emotions. Strong emotions do not necessarily.produce violence, violence is a choice we make. Well, not all of us, obviously.

As an aside, serial killers.are very nearly all white, too, aren't they? I've often wondered whether this particular psychopathy is a pathological expression of entitlement/ privilege...

Oh, just as a p.s. to the identical twins anecdata, jeebus your example is oddly chosen, given that if such things were innate, identical twins would surely both be, well, identical rather than "chalk and cheese" in temperament. I actually think identical twins brought up together who seem very "innately" different are an excellent example of the extent to which subtle differences in environment produce really very different individual psychologies. Noone gets the same experiences, even when they are brought up together, but identical twins do get the same genes. If things like temperament were innate, those very subtlety different upbringings would have had no effect on those innate qualities, surely? Yet they had an apparently massive effect on those developing psychologies... makes you wonder at the power of environment, really.

'Men who are attacked by a woman are more physically able to hold their attacker at bay without needing to hit back.'

'I always assume that people who pretend there's no difference between a man hitting a woman and a woman hitting a man, are domestic violence advocates tbh.'

What if the woman is a huge 6 foot man beast/butch as hell and the man is a 5'4 weakling?

I have come across plenty of women in my time that would easily wipe the floor with many blokes.

Forgive me if I come across as a bit Buddhist, but I'd also question the idea that we all have urges (to violence) which we learn to control to a differing degree. As far as I can tell, inter personal, loss of control violence is usually related to faulty reasoning, it's a problem in the belief system of the aggressor. They aren't able to get the other person to comply with their own view of what should happen, who should say or.do what in relation to whom, etc. They become enraged because of their own beliefs, not because of another's actions or words. If they changed those beliefs, that rage would not arise. The urges related to those rages would not arise. The urges to violence are therefore a product of thinking and not an innate or natural state.

Moreover, I'd say violent urges are an incapacity on the part of.the aggressor to contain the urgency of their feelings. They then make a choice to try and end what they perceive as the source of those feelings. But some people, even when a state of complete apoplexy and rage would manage that lack of containment by crying or throwing up, for example, I know I've done both. Violence is a strategy, and not a feeling or a state.

I do wonder why so many feminists seem to be middle class (and white, but thats less relevant)- they are one of the most privileged groups in the world and in general don't experience many of the issues poorer women and women from 2nd and 3rd world countries face. Infact you could say they also live a much better, more privileged existence than many of the males in the world.

For example they don't tend to be forced to take up prostitution, they are less likely to be a victim of domestic violence, rape and abuse among other things (not to say these things dont happen to middle class women but it happens more often to worse off women).

Is it because they truly want to help other women? And how do they feel, acknowledging their privileged status (for some reason to me feminists often come across like they think they personally are hard done by, just for being a woman? correct me if I'm wrong)?

I think poverty and class has got a lot more to do with it than just pure sexism, 'patriarchy' or whatever.

Honey22 your point has been dealt with. "And yes, of course there are exceptions, but focusing on the exceptions rather than the rule..."

is what you're doing.

Also comparing a rich white woman in the west to a poor man in the developing world, is pointless. You need to compare her to a rich white man in the west and compare the poor man in the developing world to a poor woman of the same class to find out about sexual inequality.

Race, class and income inequalities do not preclude sex inequalities. But as a matter of fact you're wrong about poverty being more of a factor in domestic violence than sex, and insulting to poor men, who are no more likely to attack their female intimate partner, than rich men. DV crosses class.

Umm, not sure why you're posting about the middle classness of feminists on this thread about violence, honey. But would point to the ways that exactly that class position overlaps with academic education. Hmm, I'm sure.I.read.that teaching women to.read has the biggest effect on the fertility rate than any other intervention (free contraception/ family planning advice/ incentives and tax breaks etc.) Still can't work out why this is relevant to the violence discussion...

It isn't, Honey's just come here with her anti-feminist "they're all white rich women" bollocks because she couldn't find a more suitable thread to post that crap on.

Outs, my anecdata was about non-identical twins (the word was split over two lines so you missed it). Hence their environment being shared, but not all their genes. That was why I made the point.

As much as some people would like to lay the causes of violence solely at the door of socialisation/patriarchy/privilege, there is too much research that points to other contributing factors. I know why feminism does this, I just don't agree.

Reading all this had made me consider my own position. White western male, educated, (mostly) law-abiding, brought up in a country where the I am a member of the dominant, privileged elite, and brought up at a time when physical punishment was acceptable - smacks at home, corporal punishment at school. Furthermore, from this board I have learned that there is a shitload of stuff I could do and get away with, because of my status (or at least have a very high chance of not being prosecuted). So why don't do do this? Why don't I hit my kids, why don't I hit my wife, why don't I fight in the pub or at the football, why don't I beat up and rape?

Jeebus - because you don't need to, other men are doing it for you.

They will ensure that you keep your privilege.

How many times have you heard women say they're lucky, because their DH does his fair share of housework/ doesn't hit them/ is good in bed/ insert excellent thing here?

All the time women are grateful for men treating us as real human beings, the ones like you who are merely normal, are being perceived as paragons of desirability. That's good for you, huh? Must feel nice.

Also, the other reason most men don't do those things, is because in spite of patriarchy, men are human. Incredibly, amazingly, patriarchy hasn't managed to completely destroy men's humanity and therein lies our hope.

Oh and that is why feminists get irritated with men who claim to be in favour of equality while doing nothing to fight against men who do inflict violence, rape etc. on women.

All men benefit from their unearned privilege. Women are kept in line by male violence. You don't have to inflict it yourself, to benefit from women being kept in line. So when you wash your hands of it, pretend it's nothing to do with you and it's the problem of those narsty men over there, it rings hollow.

I was hoping that nobody would take the 'bully for you, want a cookie?' response to my last point. I wish you had resisted.

So you think I can feel happy and secure in the knowledge that other men knock the shit out of people? It is an awful thing to say frankly, but it says more about you than me.

To other people reading this - is there a common differentiator between those men (or women) who are violent, and those who are not, given a common environment? If it is privilege, why isn't violent action uniform across the privileged group?

"So you think I can feel happy and secure in the knowledge that other men knock the shit out of people? It is an awful thing to say frankly, but it says more about you than me."

You specifically asked why you don't beat up your wife/ DC's rape etc.

I answered you as best I could, pointing out that every individual in a privileged group, doesn't have to do the oppressing in order to benefit from the privilege.

So you stamp your foot and accuse me of attributing feelings to you that I don't know you have and am not that interested in whether or not you have them. I don't care if you are happy or unhappy about men knocking the shit out of people. Your individual feelings are irrelevant - whether you like it or not, you benefit from it. So does Dervel and he acknowledges it and actively works to undermine his own privilege.

As to why some men are happy to take on the oppression on behalf of the rest of you, I don't think there's any mysterious head-scratchingly difficult answer to that. Some people are just nicer than others, full stop. Some people just feel more entitled than others. Some people are more willing to share than others. Some people in a privileged group are prepared to actively work to give up their unearned privilege and IMO they are the nicest ones. Some are prepared to give up some of their privileges as long as it's not too much and they aren't too keen to examine their privilege too closely. Some refuse to acknowledge that they have any privilege at all because they don't want to lose it and arguably they may be the ones who distance themselves most from the cruelty of the more extreme members of their group because acknowledging that that cruelty enables their privilege, means acknowledging the privilege in the first place and they don't want to do that. And some think their privilege is justified and God-given (usually) or natural and there's nothing wrong with it. You would have to look at childhood and adolescent experiences and influences to unravel why some people choose which group to be in and I'm not sure you'd be able to draw any useful conclusions.

I'm not positing this as a scientific group classification btw, just off the top of my head what springs to mind in considering why some people do the things they do. Wd be interested to hear other opinions.

That's good for you huh? Must feel nice.

What a spiteful, idiotic statement.

It isn't a spiteful idiotic statement at all Jeebus.

You perceive it that way because you are reading it as a personal statement about Jeebus, when in fact it is a statement that applies to all men within male dominated society. What Basil has done in her above (excellent) posts is set out a political analysis, a class analysis; not a personal attack or judgement. In other words, it isn't all about you.

Men who acknowledge their state of privilege are able to admit that it is a pretty easy ride when one is considered an awesome progressive prince of a fella simply by meeting minimum standards of human decency, (particularly considering that one continues to benefit from the lack of decency of others and one poses neither threat nor challenge to the system that perpetuates an unfair status quo of oppression and exploitation for some and privilege and dominance for others).

Jeebus look at the data on deaths century by century, deaths down to murder, violence etc have been steadily declining. Now if you know about evolution you know that that is process in the tens of thousands of years. Therefore it is safe hypothesis environment is much more crucial, and where we look to change.

Besides the point that even if you are right and the data is not conclusive, we CAN change environment and not our basic nature, logically we should try as in the first instance we may make things better, if we don't we definately won't. Secondly we may reach a sounder comprehension of the nature/nurture debate. Either way it's worth it.

Ooh aren't you touchy. Hit a nerve, haven't I. FWIW, I do think it must feel nice, because I have felt that feeling myself as a member of a privileged group (white) when I've felt the unearned approbation of people in a non-privileged group just because I'm not a bloody raging racist. I suspect that every decent person in a privileged group has felt that at some time or other and it's bloody uncomfortable to recognise and acknowledge it because the reason we feel it, is because of the other members of our group who ensure that the bar to be considered a decent person is so low that we get over it with no effort whatsoever and in fact get extra points and get to congratulate ourselves on what nice liberal people we are.

Would you actually like to address that point? Or would you rather just accuse me of spite for making it?

I have privilege because I am a white male in a developed country, with a good education. My ancestors conquered and subjugated continents, took the riches and natural resources, slaughtered people and built the society that I - and many of us on here - now benefit from. Do we feel good about it? Does it feel nice?

Even now, I can, if I so choose, buy clothing and goods produced by people enslaved by poverty, working in deadly conditions, for next to no reward. It stinks. I don't feel good about it. If anyone else is in a similar position, do you enjoy that privilege? Does it feel nice?

The concept of privilege is neither new nor revelatory.

Are you actually avoiding the question or am I being a bit obscure?

Of course it's not nice to think of the exploitation and cruelty on which our society is based. That's why so many people prefer not to think of it, or if they do think of it deny it's happening or it's that bad, or decide that it's just human nature so there's nothing we can do about it.

But you know I'm not talking about that, don't you? You know I'm talking about the actual human experience of being in a privileged group and being given an easy ride - being liked, valued, appreciated - by people in a group which your group exploits just because you individually meet the basic standard of decency and aren't currently at that particular time, exploiting anyone in the room. I'm talking about how structural oppression infects human relationships. Even at the level of individual friendship, white people are at an advantage, men are at an advantage, heterosexuals are at an advantage etc.

You may not feel good about racism, sexism, homophobia etc. Neither do I. But the fact is, even at the level of a friendship or casual meetings, those of us in the oppressor groups, are given a far easier ride than we would be, if racism, sexism etc. didn't exist. Everyone likes being liked and we get liked more because of the bastards no-one likes.

Do you disagree with that?

Jeebus why do you think you should bring your personal offence into this discussion? What are you adding to the analysis of male violence or male privilege?

AskBasil has answered the question you asked in a way that uses class analysis. You have taken offence and posted several derogatory comments about her responses highlighting your offence. Do you think women should care how you feel when we are discussing structural oppression? If so, why?

er...I know this is obvious but it seems that it isn't to some
domestic abuse is classless and seems to escape levels of financial income

there are many women and men in relationships where they are coerced controlled beaten and abused because they have been in the relationship long enough that they believe there is no other choice
externally there is, logically there is but psychologically there isn't

fear of the court system access to children and who 'gets it' next are also factors for why the relationships are maintained.

You don't have to a large person to abuse another person. It isn't stature that matters, it is intent.
Saying things along the lines off, 'well I'm sure Jay-Z isn't too hurt' is utterly missing the point.