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!

I think that's the distinction. A revolt as opposed to a riot.

The examples given aren't a riot. They are similar to those who target places that are symbols of the oppressing group.

As opposed to pointless male violence that makes them think they can burn down other people homes and livelihoods.

I think the big question for the suffragettes in using some physical attacks was would then have intentionally harmed or killed somebody.

Again an "uprising" and for women it nearly always is about an issue such a slack of food etc., is not an riot.

It is a form of protest. Just as women circled Greenham.

Its noticeably how many women's groups in NI have posted about this and calling out the senseless violence.

Sorry should have put all my responses into one post.

But just to add, men are taught or think that violence "solves" a problem.

Women know that there is always basic shit work to be done to resolve something and make it work.

I will say there are some women who will be absolutely delighted to egg on a riot or shout from the sidelines. And there were female participants in some of the riots from the other year but they were a minority for sure.
I generally agree with you. But in addition to the testosterone, being part of something etc sometimes it's also a type of thrill at the power you can in ruining someone's day. Especially if you have had a narrative (true or otherwise) that said people are too big for their boots/victimising you. Women (some) can definitely share that even if they arent as in the thick of it as men.

... it's also a type of thrill at the power you can in ruining someone's day

That's really sad. To think that that would be if not the but one motive.

And of course there are those that then see the "rioting" as something they can use to their advantage.

Cant find the full quote but a local woman in Hackney became very famous for standing in the street shouting at young men, including saying: "I'm ashamed to be a Hackney person. Because we are not all gathering together and fighting for a cause, were running down to Footlocker and thieving shoes." https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/21110271.2011-london-riots-hackney-heroine-pauline-pearce-recalls-day-risked-all/

Full video of her berating the "rioters"

Because we're too busy looking after everyone else.

But they do. Recent report on LBC - 107 arrested at Palestine Action protest outside court as four activists jailed over raid.

That won’t just be men. And they wouldn’t have been arrested if they were just doing a peaceful protest.

A protest isn't a riot!

You can be arrested if for instance the police order you to move, and you continue to stand or sit, where ever you are at the time they tell you to move!!!

A riot is "civil unrest"

I know that in the 1800s, when workhouses were overhauled to be places of punishment, there were riots, with crowds turning up to tear down new workhouse buildings. There were more women than men present and their behaviour was reported to be more violent than men’s , eg hurling rocks and stones.

This!

I found this essay posted on X quite interesting.

https://x.com/Devon_Eriksen_/status/2064890534389293229

It should be readable even without an X account and worth reading in full to understand how men see the situation. As I posted earlier I think we as women fundamentally know that we largely don't have "physical violence" as an effective option for getting what we want, but men do. So they see the world and all the options in it, in a different way.

From the essay:

When political systems work well, for a while, the violence they represent becomes further and further from people's minds, and those who can't effectively commit or direct violence worm their way into power, and begin to take it away from those who can.
And they'll defend their position by saying that violence is unthinkable, barbaric, always bad, must be disavowed at all costs, etc.
This isn't some sort of high-minded principle on their part. It simply means one of two things. Either "the status quo works for me, so I don't want you to upset it", or "I suck at violence, and I don't want to have to fight".
...
This means that riots aren't actually for achieving any specific material aim. They are for reminding the comfortable that judges and bureaucrats and policemen have home addresses and families. And that violence is always on the table.

Women, on the whole, fall under the "I suck at violence" category. Although we would probably put it less bluntly than that! It's completely in our rational interest to argue for social norms saying that violence is unthinkable. That's not at odds with understanding that men don't necessarily have the same rational interests as we do, since they on the whole DON'T suck at violence.

This means that riots aren't actually for achieving any specific material aim. They are for reminding the comfortable that judges and bureaucrats and policemen have home addresses and families. And that violence is always on the table.

Sometimes they are also for reminding the less comfortable that violence is an option. Sometimes they are for reminding female care workers who look after the most needy for low pay that violence is on the table for them and they have their home addresses. In fact it's rare for the most comfortable to be targeted by rioters. Elon Musk and Trump and billionaires have security and no-one is burning down their home. That attitude is what I meant when I said earlier that some people enjoy the sense of power rioting gives them.
I don't like the supercilious tone in that post that rioting is a more moral or stronger position than not rioting. It assumes that the people who are the most shouty/violent have more reason to be angry/that their position is more justified than the people who aren't violent/rioting. In reality the most violent/angry men often aren't great at articulating their viewpoint so someone else does the speaking on their behalf.
But I'm assuming he's American and some Americans view the rest of the world as an entertaining TV show with goodies and baddies not real people so...

I wish I had time to riot.

I'll also note none of the people saying that it's an understandable reaction to being pushed too far, or that people are angry what do you expect have offered up their own homes as giant stress balls for angry men. Instead it's the poorer areas and poorer people who suffer. Or the police who while far from perfect usually don't deserve to have a coked.up men throwing bricks at them for hours.
If someone torched Elon Musks home, even if they were really angry for some random justified reason and his just happened to be the nearest house, I don't expect he would be cool with it.

Women have been absolutely key to unofficial peace building over the years often without getting any credit or recognition for it.

Women were deeply harmed and impacted by workhouses and their connections to mother and baby homes. So I'd say that makes a lot of sense.

Likewise women prisoners would riot before being transported to Australia and women prisoners were generally known to be unruly. Elizabeth Fry, the prison reformer, managed to get women put in separate accomodation to men and aggression went right down (basically women were in constant terror of sexual assault) and persuaded the authorities to end the humiliating practice of parading women through the streets for crowds to jeer and thrown things at. The riots the night before stopped.
So women will riot but it seems to be more connected to genuine immediate terror or being in a state of constant stress.

It would be interesting to find out more about unruly women in times gone by compared with today. Maybe I'll ask AI.

Its typical male lefty intellectuals saying this will make them (politicians etc.) take notice, when as in Belfast those losing their homes were certainly not part of that privileged class.

One of the tv news reports actually got the tone rights. Didn't glamorise the violence but said something like, look at this street. These are or were the modest homes of people who are striving to survive. They have lost their homes. Maybe their cars. How are they the targets of this "anger".

Have just seen since on an insurance web site posting about the recent acts of violence. Quote:

For Northern Ireland, policies will vary but malicious damage may be excluded. Compensation can be sought from the Department of Justice (Northern Ireland).

So those who have lost their homes, etc., will be doubly impacted.

And this done by men saying they are protecting their neighbourhood "which used to be theirs". (One man said this to a tv interviewer, refused to give his name but allowed himself to be filmed saying it!!!)

Just heard they were arrested because they were / are supporting a proscribed organisation. Which I had forgotten about.

So as such went there to be arrested.

In my mind I think of rioting as mindless violence which quite often starts from some small incident and then gets hijacked by those who "get carried away" and those who see it as an opportunity to loot. Not to say individuals aren't hurt, but damage is usually to buildings, businesses and goods. And I think for too many men they see this having a bit of a ruckus, getting drunk and picking fights.

Although the reform / tommy robinson demonstrations if judged on outcomes look like an invitation to riot. And even if not started as that now sees men turning up in masks and armed.

And again impact local people not those taking decisions about where asylum seekers are housed.

The difference between an uprising and a riot - is not clear except with time.

Most protests about bread prices in Pre revolutionary France or textile worker in Russia were deemed riots by people in power at the time and the participants clearly couldn't have known they were at start of a revolution.

The Riot Act was actually read at the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 - they were peacfully asking for demand parliamentary reform and local magistrate decided to read riot act then send in the troops- it only because newpaper people reported what happened that it's not usually thought of as a riot now.

How riots get viewed by history tend to depend on what happens after and who writes the history.

The assumption is women are too nice for violence mindless or statgeic is not helped by so many examples getting written out of history or explained away as anolmolies or different.

Most riots have a flash point a starting greivance but tend to be more common in very hot weather in cities with lots of younger men with uncertain futures - low employment or historically in London lots of young apprenticeships - mostly due to biology and lack of stake in society. However there are pleanty of examples where women took to violence to make their point and sometimes that was redeemed a riot.

The assumption is women are too nice for violence mindless or statgeic is not helped by so many examples getting written out of history or explained away as anolmolies or different.

Nobody has said on this thread or elsewhere that women are "too nice" to riot.

The difference is women know from their own experience of violence that is solves nothing.

An "uprising" resulting from some form of protest not getting any sort of response from the authorities / government is not the say as rioting. ie acts of mindless violence and vandalism.