Why don’t women riot?

[SixtySevenLabubus]

Not looking for a specific discussion on this week’s events, but a broader one.

Basically, why do so few women riot? Arguably, they have far more to be angry about than men do!

They will if it's necessary, the rioting is usually inappropriate and achieves nothing, women tend to realise that. I think some men just like a fight, 'rent a mob', any reason is good enough for a punch up.

I agree with many of the arguments already made above regarding why women don’t riot. But it is also important to remember that most men don’t riot either. When you see a riot on the news it is often filmed from quite close quarters and the crowd can appear large. But, and this is true of Belfast this week, the vast majority of men are not out on the streets rioting, it’s relatively few.

Amusingly the French revolution was started by the women in the markets.

It's a shame it's not more well known. Maybe they'll make a film about it one day.

Haven't got time 😊

I don’t have time. I’m too busy working, looking after the house, the kids, trying to look after myself. I don’t have time to get overly invested in things I don’t think will have an impact. I am angry though. Just not angry enough perhaps? And tired.

Histrocially they do but less often.

I saw a documenatry about Russian revloution - it's orgins were re-written by the final winning bolsheviks but it started with women protesting. Female textile workers in Petrograd left their factories to lead a mass strike, protesting chronic bread shortages and the devastating impact of World War I. The inspired the male metal workers to come out as well. They also went to the barraks before hand said to the troops remember we're your wives mothers sisters - often stood at front with kids in their arms so troops felt less able to use phycical force.

I'm pretty sure the French move in what would become revolution like a PP said was started by a bread riots and a Women's March on Versailles - meaning King had to come back to Paris and removed some of the power - which effectively stripping the monarchy of its independence. They also played roles subsquently.

Even in UK Peterloo Massacre on August 16, 1819, women were vital leaders, flag-bearers, and disproportionate casualties they made up nearly one-quarter of the wounded and four of the dead.

Two of the most well know and bloodiest revolutions started by women - a big one even on our own shores - protesting and then rioting and then later written out of the story most people know.

studies have found women have higher empathy scores

This.
Historically, women tend to protect their children by drawing them close, whereas men go to war and leave them behind.

Too busy looking after the kids

It would appear that some men and boys enjoy violence recreationally.

Football violence is often well planned, organised and it appears, enjoyed as a manifestation of a warrior identity.
In fact, the actual football match is just a 'carrier' for pre-planned violence between two or more warring groups.

The violence isn't subtle - It's us v. them, full stop. No deep thought required, no weighing up the rights and wrongs, just 'Get them!'
Merely wearing the wrong colour scarf may be, and has been, a death sentence, even if the wearer is just quietly walking down a street at some distance from the stadium. He's the other side. He's not us. Get him!

If you look at footage of recent 'disturbances', it's almost all, if not all, men and boy-children taking part - very young children are often in the thick of the most dangerous and violent confrontations.

Just as football violence is based around football, but isn't really about football, any number of things may trigger recreational violence, possibly actual emotional responses to something terrible like a murder - though only some murders - or some inaccurate rumour spread on social media.
Whatever the reason, they quickly turn out - the boys, some of them little boys, with their masks and their ready supply of missiles and Molotov cocktails.
It's almost as if they were just waiting for the opportunity to go out and have some 'aggro'.

The target of their violence varies, mostly people who are in some way not like them, or the police who are trying to protect the people who are not like them.

Over time, that may change from people of a different religion, to people of a different race - different victims, same violence.

During the trials of people involved in serious rioting in Dublin, a frequent defence was that the rioter 'just got caught up in the moment' and torched a bus or a police car or smashed a shop window and treated themselves to some designer footwear because everybody else was doing it.
It was the opportunity for extreme violence that triggered them, not why it was happening.

Some women join in, but usually it is men, youths and, worryingly, very young boy children, and often looks like it is a game for them.

I assume it's due to cultural and social conditioning about violence being a validation of 'proper' masculinity?

They do riot in Belfast.

I probably could be convinced to riot for the right cause if there was the right leader. Someone I really respected and thought was very strong and fierce knew what they were getting us into.
But due to biological programming, that would basically need to be a man. And men are not going to lead an uprising of women demanding rights for biological women & girls or whatever the campaign was. It just wouldn’t happen.
I would join a riot if it was well organised and felt like it would really make a difference and was a huge thing that loads of people were going to do (safety in numbers). I hope one day there will be a big uprising by the people in response to the decreasing value of salaries and the accelerating cost of living.

They do but get written out of history or sanitised like suffragettes into something considered more socially acceptable behavior for women.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_led_uprisings

I hadn't heard of some of these.

It's also possible that women weaponize the percieved weakness making it harder to use force against their protests - thus avoiding riot aspects.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11037247
When, in December 1982, 30,000 women joined hands to encircle the entire base, weaving flowers and knitted decorations into the wire fencing, it was hard for the authorities to decide on a suitable response.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_the_Women_First

Women do protest, March, campaign, rally. The most recent street protests are filled with women. Unfortunately what gets reported is often the scenes of mindless violence and destruction that follow which is in the main committed by men. This is where sections of men show their anger, strength and enjoyment of violence. It's pointless and Women take little part in it.

That's another reason it looks so alien when aggressive TRAs in heels and wigs and handbags protest. With vulgar plaquards and cries of TWAW when really they are just projecting their inner and outer Male beings.

Thinking of the peace camps at Greenham common. Women came and many brought their children with them. There were some men but very few overall. The only real violence coming from the men in uniforms who over the years attempted to break up the camp. Some women resigned from jobs to continue the protest.

Because we know it achieves nothing. There are far more effective and intelligent ways to protest.

You beat me to it 😀If MN wasn't so flaky my post would have preceded yours

Some babies were born at Greenham common. One man is now 43 years old ...

For a lot of men, particularly young ones, it's an excuse to chuck bricks and have a punch up. Like football punch ups basically. Pretty brain dead stuff really.

Because it's an inefficient mechanism for rebellion given our physical limitations compared to men.

It is always instructive to consider sources of power. One such source is the ability to inflict physical violence on the other party (which might be for example immigrants you want out of your town, or the police/state apparatus which is enabling this).

This only works if you pose a credible threat against them.

I saw a video from Belfast the other day with a group of men physically pushing back riot police armed with water cannons etc.

A group of women would not physically be able to do that without significant planning to equip themselves with weaponry etc to overcome that physical difference. At that point is it really a riot?

There are examples of women being involved in planned attacks but not too many of them just deciding spontaneously that their own physical strength will be enough to take them.

It's not about women being more intelligent than men - I would phrase it as "women being intelligent enough to realise that their physical strength is not sufficient to pose a credible threat".

Yes, women certainly do protest on the streets, but protesting, marching, etc is not the same as rioting.
Someone above linked to a report on the Greenham Common ‘Embrace the base’ protest- I was there that day and can tell you it was as far from a riot as it is possible to get.

What is this? 😂

I protest (against the far right, usually for human rights and ending suffering) but I don’t riot. It doesn’t seem productive, safe or effective and I have no desire to do so.

Well said flyingbuttress43 - you've just said in a couple of lines what I laboriously ground out over several arguably turgid paragraphs😞
If I'm asked to describe myself in six words or less, I will not say 'Succinct!'😄

I think a significant chunk of men are excited by violence. I wonder what the stats are for paying to watch fights - live and on tv.

Reading this thread, it looks like women are more likely to riot for something - rights, food. Men riot against things. I'm simplifying, I know. But I do think a lot of men simply enjoy a ruck and irresponsible leaders know that and encourage it.

Why dont we riot?

Cos we're too fucking knackered and we know no one listens.