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...

Montmorency, I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying that you will get short shrift on here.

Right, now I understand where you're coming from Montmorency.

Jeebus with regards to your comments on the other thread, what I took from there is that yes, you're quite right, psychology is far more important than mere strength when it comes to wreaking violence - I don't think that's a huge revelation, but I think it's important to stress that men are socialised to have higher levels of aggression, that the psychology of violence is different for men and women (with the usual caveats, exceptions etc.) So acknowledging the interesting stuff said on that other thread, doesn't negate what's being said here.

Montmorency, the problem with your stance is that of course you're right: "structural, contextual, or raw physical disadvantage does not preclude the disadvantaged party from engaging in the same problematic behaviors as the other party, and at the same rate and with the same detrimental effect to the social fabric." In theory. But in practice, that's not happening. You are talking as if women are engaging in violence at the same rate and with the same impact on men as vice versa and I'm afraid the figures simply do not bear you out. Men as a class are far more violent than women are and their violence takes place in a context of a society which has supported their violence while condemning that of women. They are also objectively doing more damage.

You talk about context, while posting stuff which in fact denies actual context. That's why your posts were unclear.

No-one's against women addressing their behaviour - insight and reflection are almost always good things. The whole of society encourages women to reflect on our behaviour, whether that be if we are feeding our families properly, treating our bodies healthily, or provoking male violence by our failure to satisfactory women, or to "have a temper on us" which provokes men to hit us.

Forgive me if I think that a bit of addressing male violent behaviour might be a more useful and effective deployment of resources and energy.

Am I a freak for thinking that male violence against women IS often (not always, but very often) much more devastating than vice versa?

wouldn't call you a freak, but you are wrong. Violence against anyone is devastating.

Do you think JayZ is devastated differentname?

^"You are talking as if women are engaging in violence at the same rate and with the same impact on men as vice versa and I'm afraid the figures simply do not bear you out. Men as a class are far more violent than women are and their violence takes place in a context of a society which has supported their violence while condemning that of women. They are also objectively doing more damage.

You talk about context, while posting stuff which in fact denies actual context. That's why your posts were unclear."^

Well, hold on - the context in which to take my position is with interpartner violence specifically. I'm not commenting on violence in general, everywhere. I'm not claiming we need to focus on the female aspect of bar brawling or even on females in active combat roles (though that's a much bigger discussion than even IPV, to be honest, given for example the far-reaching inherent geopolitical considerations and ramifications). So, it's kind of strange to see you say that I'm not taking context into account. Maybe you saw it that way because I honed in on a single context so finely that it looked like the world from the looking-glass? That is, magnify on a skin cell and it might as well be the whole slide.

"Forgive me if I think that a bit of addressing male violent behaviour might be a more useful and effective deployment of resources and energy."

For the larger picture (i.e. beyond the ambit of my earlier posts), and in the shorter-term, yes. But it still leaves women on the sidelines of necessary change. Furthermore, don't forget that social roles and statuses exist specifically in relation to one another, so that if some change, or don't change, then it will affect how the rest change or don't change.

Take these scenarios for violence regarding male-centric feminism:

1. All male violence is abolished. There is still substantial female violence.
2. Little impact on violence overall, as resistance to change on one end fosters the same on the other, such that men and women have an unproductive tug-of-war over the status quo.

The second is the likelier, of course. There are better approaches. Again, focusing on changing the behavior of men above all misses the generalization that what needs changing are broad human behaviors and values, that may manifest more severely in men due to their typically-greater size and strength.

Here, maybe another cogent way to put it:

We can't address the symptoms - male behaviors - without addressing concurrently the causes - both male and female attitudes.

2. Little impact on violence overall, as resistance to change on one end fosters the same on the other, such that men and women have an unproductive tug-of-war over the status quo.

Sorry, not sure what you actually mean by this.

"We can't address the symptoms - male behaviors - without addressing concurrently the causes - both male and female attitudes."

I would not say that male behaviours are caused by female attitudes. They're caused by male attitudes and choices.

I do agree that we need to address both male and female attitudes to male violence and to violence in general.

"Sorry, not sure what you actually mean by this."

It's never about what it means to "I", but what it means from "I".

Anyway, it's basically just a instantiation of:

"social roles and statuses exist specifically in relation to one another, so that if some change, or don't change, then it will affect how the rest change or don't change. "

You can't take apart a boat on the sea and rebuild it as it is on the sea and expect whichever pieces you wish to just magically remain in their places for the duration.

"I would not say that male behaviours are caused by female attitudes."

The problem is, men do not exist in a dimension filled with mythical straw-women from which they spontaneously transpose into a feminine dimension to take their actions towards women. That is, inasmuch as women in Western society are closely integrated with the function of men and (taking there to only be men and women) thus the society at large, and inasmuch as women's behavior is caused in some way by women's attitudes, then women's attitudes must indeed be part of the equation.

"I do agree that we need to address both male and female attitudes to male violence and to violence in general."

Just to keep us from getting complacent, I'm going to stir the pot:

"Male violence" sounds an awful lot like "black crime".

"Male violence" sounds an awful lot like "black crime".

No it doesn't.

Your functionalism is blinding you to the impact of power on class relations. The social order is contested at every level. Yes, classes exist in relation to one another, but the relationship is dynamic and conflictual.

Women's "attitudes", eg to violence, are drawn up within the framework of patriarchy — a system which privileges men and oppresses women. You say women are "closely integrated with the function of men". A feminist view would be that women's autonomy is subjugated to the functions that men put them to. Violence — which is coded as a male activity, which men are socialised to enact, deploy and withstand among themselves — is one of the principal facilitators of this subjugation.

I reject that. As I said earlier, less power is not equivalent to no power. To suggest that women do not shape the patriarchy, that women exist in a vacuum separate from men into which 'male oppression and socialization' simply emerge deus ex machina is simply beneath entertaining.

At any rate, violence in itself is innate, just as musical perception and production emerges directly from the functional organization of the human central nervous system, in particular the auditory pathways. Socialization merely shapes its degree and manner of expression. To maintain otherwise quickly returns one to the problem of First Cause...

The cherry however is the unwitting hypocrisy. Behold:

1. Women are utterly held in thrall by men, and so all socialization of women must be predicated on male values and power.
2. Changing women's values or behavior is pointless at best, impossible at worst, since men enforce it all.
3. Women must implement action of some sort aimed at changing men.

3.a. Wait, if women lack all autonomy under the patriarchy then what if feminism is actually a male plot? How exactly do women have the autonomy to fight for autonomy if they have no autonomy as it stands? Bootstrap autonomy?

1. Once women have succeeded and broken the patriarchy, men and women should have equal autonomy and equal socializing effect upon one another.
2. Wait a darned second, if all female attitudes used to be determined by the patriarchy and yet causally-inert with respect to the patriarchy, now that women are equal and have causal efficacy towards the attitudes of men, wouldn't women's attitudes have remained unchanged up to the point of liberation?
3. a. Patriarchal women contaminate the 'neutered' men with the patriarchal value-system.
4. Never-ending revolution...

This logically-incoherent maximalism is not something the feminist movement should not tolerate or encourage.

Men's privilege is not absolute, and neither is women's oppression, I guess.

I don't like the term patriarchy for various reasons, but whatever you want to call our social system, I think of it as a sliding scale - oppression on one end, total privilege at the other. We all sit somewhere on the scale, depending on a multitude of factors, not just gender. I think this is why class analysis, which is so fundamental to feminism, is also a bit of a head-scratcher.

By the way, Mont, I think you may have an accusation of 'don't tell us how to do feminism' zinging its way towards you - time for the tin hat

Mont

Out of idle curiosity, which parts of feminism do you think feminists are getting right?

Montmorency1 I'm sorry but the whole of that last post is flawed beyond belief.

First of all violence is NOT innate, the emotions that lead to violence are. Anger and fear being the prime candidates, violence is but one of the socialised expressions of those emotions. I fear you are trying to lump expression and cause and just because anger and fear are inevitable so to therefore would be violence. Yes we can all experience anger or fear (and such is inevitable), however you can accept those as natural, but ensure that everybody is conditioned to accept them and work through them and express those feelings in non-violent ways. As a side note repression is not a good strategy as that leads to depression.

Without picking apart your bullet points bit by bit you make the assumption that male dominance and control has 100% efficacy! I think it is a truth self evident that man does not not have either total comprehension of his environment nor control of it, so therefore his control over said environment (and by extensions the spheres in which women must occupy to be controlled) cannot therefore be 100% effective.

Feminists I think can be safe is saying that the patriarchy controls and dominates sufficiently that it adversely effects the well being and freedoms of women that we should consider dismantling it and reaching a more fair and equitable way of organising our society that it de-emphasises the wants and needs of men over women and brings the wants and needs of women into as close a parity as can be achieved within our complex system (or in laymans terms we may not be able to achieve perfect utopia, but making the attempt at one leaves us better off than had we not made the attempt).

You seem intelligent (or at the very least eloquent) but I worry you have just created a simple straw man of feminist theory. Reading between the lines I am guessing you do not like the feminist view of patriarchy if that is the case what in your estimation is the causation of women's oppression and what can be done to correct it?

Dervel, I am interested in your assertion that violence is not innate. What makes you say that?

BillnTed:

Avoiding overlap with related schools of thought in the social justice sphere*:

1. Women are valued differently than men, and the ways in which they are valued are often underappreciated or minimized relative to the ways in which men are valued. Furthermore, these "feminine" valuations emphasize and compound the vulnerabilities of women.
2. a. Women must combine competence and privilege (along other axes) to a higher extent than men when it comes to obtaining authority or respect.

1. Sexual crimes against women are frequent even above the order of 'basic' harassment, yet are not well-investigated or adjudicated by our respected institutions. Further, lack of awareness combined with aforementioned cultural standards for women compound the severity of the victimization and help to prolong it far beyond the immediate trauma of the initial episode or episodes.

1. Women are encouraged to enter matronhood or "nurturing" professions from early childhood, thus perpetuating both stereotype and result and ensuring that women maintain less, even if slightly less, economic and legal clout

4. HETERO-SEX IS RAPE MAY SAPPHIC ARDOR SPRING ETERNAL

You get the idea, I hope. I don't disagree with most of the core feminist propositions. I just like to take what is best, and leave the dead-weight behind. To be uncharitable, I cherry-pick. To be fulsomely pompous, I formulate perspicacious nuance. shrug

*Post-colonialism, LGBT theory, various forms of economic populism, etc. are not inherently feminist, and present many distinct perspectives and desires that deserve separate classifications. While in contemporary times these areas of "social justice" tend to align and cooperate, this is not tautologically so, and in the past there was often sharp divergence between their activisms, memberships, and goals.

Dervel:

Violence is of course innate. Is not mobility innate? Is not the "Fight-or-Flight" response innate? Emotion does not lead to violence; rather, violence leads to emotion.

"however you can accept those as natural, but ensure that everybody is conditioned to accept them and work through them and express those feelings in non-violent ways. "

So you tacitly acknowledge that, as I said, socialization merely shapes [violence's] degree and manner of expression.

"Without picking apart your bullet points bit by bit you make the assumption that male dominance and control has 100% efficacy!"

That is the assumption I am in fact disassembling, as I can not imagine another rationalization or origin for the content of ezinma's post there.

"Feminists I think can be safe is saying that the patriarchy controls and dominates sufficiently that it adversely effects the well being and freedoms of women that we should consider dismantling it and reaching a more fair and equitable way of organising our society that it de-emphasises the wants and needs of men over women and brings the wants and needs of women into as close a parity as can be achieved within our complex system"

Hoo-boy. This is precisely what I've been urging since I entered the thread.

"You seem intelligent (or at the very least eloquent)"

Well, Hitler was eloquent, as you know.

"but I worry you have just created a simple straw man of feminist theory."

At worst, a strawman of ezinma's personal feminism. That post was entirely a reaction to ezinma's post.

Montmorency, I'm afraid I don't always understand you. I feel you're trying to impress and provoke as much as you are to engage. I accept that this is only my personal (mis)reading, but from your language and tone I still don't get whether or why any of this matters to you. Men's violence, and the argument that women's attitudes are in some way to blame for it, are not a game to me.

I have a totally different reading of my post that you reacted to. If the social order is "contested", if gender relations are "dynamic and conflictual", as I wrote, doesn't that imply there is space for resistance within patriarchy? I mean, dervel put it better, but I don't understand how you could translate what I wrote into your 1-6 post.

Don't worry, I get excited sometimes. It's normal.

"I still don't get whether or why any of this matters to you. "

The horrible truth is that it doesn't, or at least not more so than anything else in life. I'm just keeping myself active so my wits don't wholly atrophy. I'm here for quite selfish reasons, in other words. It's not so important that any of you learn something from me, as it is for your philosophical and worldly distinctiveness to be assimilated into my own.

My posts in the Libertarianism thread should give insight.

But we can still be friends, I hope.

Yeah, not so much.

Is this your preferred bedtime reading, Mont?

www.derailingfordummies.com

Jeebus My assertion that violence is not innate stems from the simple observation that not all people are violent. It really is that simple. The question then becomes why are some people violent and others not?

The answer again is pretty simple: environment. As with a great deal of human behavior change the environment, change the behavior. Now of course you can point to the spectra of psychological and psychiatric disorders, which can of course lead to violent behavior and in those limited cases you could indeed view the violence as innate.

However going back the nominally healthy larger population you need to teach alternate strategies to conflict resolution and how to deal with negative emotions. The causes of violence are innate, but violence itself is merely one of many expressions of those causes. Taking the view that violence is the unavoidable nature of man robs us of the will and the insight to evolve past it.

Montmorency1 In that case might I recommend the inclusion of empathy and emotional intelligence into your larger philosophy and worldview?

Link to the devil's advocate thread.

The horrible truth is that it doesn't, or at least not more so than anything else in life. I'm just keeping myself active so my wits don't wholly atrophy. I'm here for quite selfish reasons, in other words. It's not so important that any of you learn something from me, as it is for your philosophical and worldly distinctiveness to be assimilated into my own.

Are you Borg?

"Are you Borg?"

Or are you on glue?

Oh well I'm glad you confirmed my growing suspicion that there's no need to bother to engage with you Montmorency.