Terrorism and male pattern violence

[Collidascope]

Why is it that articles and comments on social media abound about our 'Islam Problem' but it's never pointed out that it is Muslim men who do this? That linked to this is the fact that 96% of worldwide homicides are committed by men?
Surely if we're serious about wanting to stop this, looking at how we're socialising little boys needs to be one of the big factors. It just seems to be completely glossed over! Until someone with authority points this out and addresses it, the violence and killing will just go on and on, and it's horrendous to think that the horror that happened on Monday night isn't even large-scale compared to what is going on every day.
Male violence almost seems to be seen as inevitable.

And also interesting that when there's a terrorist attack, people are encouraged to carry on living as they were, to be defiant. No one is expected to curb behaviour (e.g. not go out drinking in a mini skirt anymore) and 'be responsible for not putting themselves in a dangerous situarion', because that would be letting the terrorists (rapists) win.

I'm a little hesitant about posting this as I've seen other things which have gone beyond the 'How awful, poor victims' line shot down as 'too soon' but this just seems like the big elephant in the room to me.

So you see the fact that practically all killers are men as being insignificant Chilli?

insignificant to what? To questions of violence and homicide, it is very relevant. In determining whether men are more likely to erroneously infer individual properties from group membership, I think it is less relevant.

Personally, I find the growing phenomenon of female involvement in terrorism more interesting that trying to understand why men are the (vastly more likely) perpetrators. Women have always been involved on the fringes of terrorism - providing cover / shelter / support etc - for the men who are actively involved, and there are individual women who have been involved themselves. But much like female serial killers, they stand out because they are unusual.

The number of girls and women travelling from the UK and other parts of Europe to join with ISIS, for example, is notable. I don't think anyone really understands why, TBH, beyond noting that the internet plays a significant role in radicalisation and engaging people who previously would have been able to escape terrorism's evil clutches

Wouldn't it be lovely to have a threads that magically opened only when people could prove a) that they understood things like the difference between "men" and "men as a class" and, crucially, b) promised not to pretend they didn't in an attempt to make a point........

Yes it is very relevant chilli. But do you ever see task forces/think tanks/government policies or any sort of public debate being carried out by men about the fact that men commit violence?

Wouldn't it be lovely to have a threads that magically opened only when people could prove a) that they understood things like the difference between "men" and "men as a class

It would, but so few feminists would get access to the thread it would be thoroughly disappointing.

Great idea Bert. I was learning with every post, and then...
Reminds me of the primary school playground, where some boy always comes along to spoil the girl's game.

Just ignore.

I also meant to say that often (not always) understanding the exceptions also helps us understand the rule.

The comments on the Indie piece were illuminating..........

So, I was reading some article a while back, that said that western men going to fight for IS, the aim was to die. So, taking a broad picture, we have males committing suicide and making sure they take a whole load of others along with them. Whether that is suicide bombers and random strangers, their own wives and children (family annihilators), their teachers and schoolmates (US school shootings), going all the way back to the Texas Tower sniper in 1966. Where, AFAIK, women committing suicide are less likely to succeed, and less likely to take others with them.

"Male violence almost seems to be seen as inevitable." Yes, or something that we just have to learn to control better, given that magic maleness and testosterone have supposedly given us all the other benefits if civilisation. And, of course, it is usually women who are supposed to do the job of controlling their men. If you point out that males are responsible for the majority of violence, you are either suggesting that women need to somehow catch-up and be as violent as men, or that we are guilty of behaviour that "......ignores the vast majority of peaceful, moderate males." [comment from the Indie]. When what is actually being ignored is the fact that women in the same societies being exposed to the same 'causes' respond differently. Because if we can't totally eliminate the causes, if men responded more like women, we wouldn't have such a problem.

So, that's me being a radical lesbian feminist who wants to emasculate or annihilate all men, or somesuch (thought I'd say it before anyone else did).

I agree entirely SomeDyke. Underlying all of that is the idea that men are the 'default' - they are they way they are and nothing can be done to change it, we just have to work around it. So it is women rather than men who must avoid going out late at night, who must not wear 'slutty' clothing, who must be careful about what they drink. Because men will inevitably hurt people and it's women's responsibility to ensure it's some other woman that's hurt instead of them.

SomeDyke, I agree completely too.

And your post reminded me of Andreas Lubitz who deliberately crashed a plane into the Alps killing 150 people. He'd been found unfit for work but hid it. That was a case that really horrified me.

I can't help wondering if Muslim suicide bombers really believe they're off to paradise where they can fuck all the virgins they want, or if it's just the same impotent rage that drives men who aren't religious to kill others and then themselves.

I'd forgotten about him Collide. Horrible.

I'd assume revenge on others aspect would be uppermost rather than religious beliefs but possibly that's because I just can't understand how anyone could believe that.

But do you ever see task forces/think tanks/government policies or any sort of public debate being carried out by men about the fact that men commit violence?

yes. of course. googling will give you more articles than you can read.

But do you stick by your statement that this somehow implies that men are more likely extrapolate from group membership? Because I doubt there is any evidence for that.

I can't help wondering if Muslim suicide bombers really believe they're off to paradise where they can fuck all the virgins they want, or if it's just the same impotent rage that drives men who aren't religious to kill others and then themselves.

The weird thing is that they often tell you why. Sometimes the person really is just a lunatic. Sometimes they are motivated by Islam.

Yes, I'd forgotten about that case as well (which perhaps shows how used we are to this stuff!). As regards suicide bombers, you can 'understand' a suicide attack in cases where it is perhaps the only way to achieve your 'aim' (a target like a Prime Minister etc where you expect to be dispatched, but hopefully after you have shot them, or where a bomb vest is the only way to kill them.), but the IS fighters and these suicide bombers, the suicide seems to be as much an aim as the murders. After all, a 'freedom fighter' from the people effected usually wants to fight when necessary and then live with the results afterwards. They want to create something to live for, not just something to die for.

I think the recruiters for IS etc would have a harder job convincing men to die for Islam and take a whole load of non-muslims/wrong sort of muslims/people chosen at random who just happened to be there along with them if the male responses as regards suicide and the desire to not do it alone weren't already established within masculinity.

And then we have responses like this:

toysoldier.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/a-message-to-feminists-about-toxic-masculinity-and-mass-tragedies/

which seeks to focus on the details of each case, rather than the wider point of why do women (who in many cases have the same stresses and issues) not respond in the same way?

And it is usually not feminists who are saying that this style of masculinity is inherent, and the only solution is to perfect female-only reproduction and then let the Y chromosome die out..........(see Joanna Russ and Whileaway in 'The Female Man').

Could it be that violence is a sort of default setting, and that we have socialised females away from it, as much as we have socialised men towards it?

Civilisation can be a very thin veneer.

Granted I am still hung up a bit on my pre-historical woman warrior theory.

Thank you for posting this.

Terrorism is male violence.

I think as parents we have a role to play. We might think that raising children as equally as possible is enough but u actually think we need to be actively challenging gender roles by encouraging everything they discourage. Rather than desensitising our boys to violence we should sensitise them. Talk about it. Make it an open discussion, not a taboo.

I wonder if it's that, in part, men know that the world is set up for them to succeed. So that if things are going wrong they are angry with the world that's supposed to centre them, and that anger can turn to violence.

Women know that they are 'others' in a male world, so just don't get angry when things don't work out. Its expected.

From another thread, this article briefly mentions the role of hyper-masculinity:

This is how Islamist radicalisation actually happens
www.independent.co.uk/voices/manchester-attack-isis-al-qaeda-radicalisation-risk-factors-a7753451.html

So Katherine Brown's work might be worth a look.

"....seek to eradicate those they deem as imperfect from the public sphere: women, homosexuals and muslims from other sects."
This 'othering' of women is something that we are already familiar with from feminist theory. And already present, after all, in most religions (most societies) anyway where women are required/requested to dress differently to men, or have different access to religious spaces. Although religions seem to behind when it comes to removing such barriers. I'm just thinking CofE and ridiculous statements around homosexual clergy, and the usual damn exceptions for religious reasons...................

Interesting and useful links. We are all desperately trying to understand, trying to reassure ourselves that there may be some way forward from this carnage..................

But to add a cynical note here, men have equally been every society's villains and heroes, since always. When the villains are a threat, the heroes go out to fight them, sometimes with the explicit idea that it's women they're defending. And to make it more complicated, one group might regard a man as a hero for doing something that another group might call him a hero for. Who's right?

I think having a look at violence towards children is where we'll get the most mileage in examining male violence. A child that is beaten and learns that the strong get to abuse the weak, who also happen to be a boy destined to grow into a man who statistically will be stronger on average than women and viola you have the cause of male violence in a nutshell.

If you think Victorian attitudes towards children were bad, and examination of Germany and Austrian society at the same time reveals whole texts on how to best beat children into discipline. A generation of so later the ideas of Mein Kampf find a very receptive audience.

Now I have no idea of the demographics of Muslim societies but in the West boys are more frequently beaten than girls, and often most likely by the mother. However it is a practice very much on the decline and as we've seen it occurring less general violence in society has gone down too.

No cultures are inherently more or less violent than any other, but may be at different points on the trajectory towards universal peaceful parenting.

There are texts and indeed movements based on how best to beat children in the US at the moment. Your conclusion that this leads to Mein Kampf makes this even more worrying than it already is.

But I'm not convinced of the conclusion. Was physical punishment in Germany and Austria really noticeably different from the UK? And from, well, much of the world? Whether or not one can lay hands on a book about it?

Duh. I said "one group might regard a man as a hero for doing something that another group might call him a hero for" meaning to say "villain" instead of hero, in someone's eyes. Of course it's all a protection racket, with violent men on both sides, but ultimately supporting the whole violent-male ethos.