In reply to Selmo’s blog on violence.

See Selmo`s blog for a context to this excessively long contemplation on male and violence.

http://buddhawouldusethenet.blogspot.com/

LINKING MAN TO VIOLENCE
To talk about violence and to link it to masculinity seems apt. We have only to look at the fact that 97% of the military of today are men or that over 90% of all the wars ever fought have been fought by men, to see that even amongst developed societies, where moves towards “gender equality” have happened、professions that require violence seem to attract more men than women. If we look at rape and domestic violence statistics, yet again, we see that the majority of aggressors are men (In 2001, women accounted for 85 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence in the States (588,490 total) and men accounted for approximately 15 percent of the victims (103,220 total). This in no way negates the fact that women can and do commit horrific violence, but it does confirm what Selmo was saying about violence being particularly appealing to men. Taking this one step further perhaps we can also say that it is also linked to heterosexuality.

The next step is to ask why. To believe this is a “biological” distinction paints only half the picture. Scientific research (see link below) shows that although there is a link between male bodies and increased aggression, the correlations are not strong enough to account for the vastly different attitudes of the sexes towards violence and aggression. To focus too much on the biological/genetic or evolutionary differences between men and women also leads to the kind of biological determinism that has kept women at home and “protected” for centuries. So, if it isn’t just biology what is it about violence that is, as Selmo so aptly says, so damn seductive? And particularly why does it appear to be more seductive for “straight males”?

As Selmo writes, the “animalistic” or “inhumane” labels that we connect with violence seem unhelpful, not only because they are, as Selmo writes, derogatory to the natural world – but also I would add, because they are only a step away from explaining male aggressiveness and violence as being a “natural” and “instinctual” part of what it is to be a man. For me, this link is a constructed as opposed to a real one. One, because the slight male tendency towards aggression is not strong enough to fully account for it (difference within the category male are greater than between the category male and female –again see link), but also because biology is not destiny. We favor certain behaviors, are rewarded for some, punished for others. In short, we learn, and thus decide for or against much of our “biological” inclinations all the time. Culture binds and constrains our behavior. But it also propagates certain aspects of it – and I think it is in an understanding of certain cultural aspects of our society that we can learn something of why the straight male has so many cultural pointers that attract him to aggression.

Perhaps I am slightly obsessed with the link between violence and militarism, and masculinity and power. But it seems to me that this link goes some way towards explaining why it is that so many of our cultural ideas about what it is to be a man, and what is “cool” are defined around aggression. There are other places in which the dominance of masculinity can be seen, but it is the militarized world in which we live and our conception of that system that, for me, reveals most readily a cultural idea of masculinity.

The majority of societies, across time and space have had to exist in a system where war, although not always manifest, existed or exists as a potential. Even in times of peace, nowhere can this be seen more strongly than in our system of nation states. It is a war system – the countries we inhabit have been created by wars, and they are defended by the possibility of violence (of course I do not deny and would hate to believe that this is the only thing keeping peace, soft power as it has become known, as well as an acknowledgement that working together can be to the benefit of all, are important alternative elements and offer a hope to a system that might not be so dominated by a particular concept of masculinity).

This idea that the nation state exists because of the dominance of a particular notion of what survival and even identity are, maintains a particular vision of the world as central. This permeates all aspects of life, and I think a traditional conception of “masculinity” is the best name for it. Historically we know that political and social life has been dominated not only by men, but more importantly by this particular “masculine” way of behaving and thinking. We are led to believe that our very existence as a community depends on aggression and the threat of violence as a form of protection. This is intrinsically connected to J.G. Ballard`s discussion of violence, as well as the appeal of violent video games and movies.

This masculinity is associated with characteristics such as toughness, courage, aggression, power, independence and physical strength. Our world, despite the progress is has made on gender equality, maintains this hegemonic masculinity as dominant. Ideas that community is built not by threats against outsiders, but by those who forgive, love and bind a community (more “feminine” traits) are not considered as vital for security (though it is wonderful to see these ideas increasingly becoming a part of high politics rhetoric).

To address the issue of homosexuality on this is also important. Not only the lack of understanding but also the aggression against homosexuals that has been seen historically, points to the hegemonic masculinity within the state as being not only aggressive, tough and “rational” – but also straight.

As I have stated earlier, this masculinity can, to an extent, be removed from the particular bodies who manifest and re-confirm it (thus there are many men who are not attracted to this pattern of behavior, and many women who are – what is important is the domination of this kind of masculinity – as a way of thinking and as part of many peoples self identification). By placing this masculinity at the centre of our understanding of the world, what it is to be a straight, male will inevitably be tied up with violence and aggression, and this will be privileged over and above a more “feminine” response.

Men in disagreements can feel that resorting to violence not only proves their point but also their strength and their identity as a man. The military requires a powerful tool to persuade people to fight and die for the nation. Thus, combat is often seen as a test for manhood and becomes a vital component of what mobilizes men to fight. Those who fight for the nation are seen as first class citizens. The war system is fed by this system, even as it helps perpetuate it, and vice versa.

This does not amount to a monolithic political elite that can always assess the manner in which gender should be utilized for warfare, or how the potential for war can be used as justification for the dominance of masculine ways of thinking (Bush`s “your either with us or against us” phrasing is an excellent example of the dominance of masculine ways of thinking in high politics). Importantly, the path of militarization as well as privileging the masculine is strewn with mixed feelings and ambivalence shared by men and women, straight and gay. What is most essential to realize though is that cultural gender constructions, are not anomalies, or amorphous cultural beliefs but reflections of a patriarchal system of power relations that requires deliberate decisions, and is part of a history.

A DONKEY WILL ONLY UNDERSTAND IF YOU BEAT HIM

What I find most challenging about Selmo’s blog is the Jordanian cartoonist’s comment, “a donkey will only understand if you beat him”. It speaks firstly to the effectiveness of violence to shut down protest (the most vivid example in my life right now is the crackdown against the Burmese monks in September of last year, but there are many more). Secondly, although I think there are very few people who will really only respond to violence, there is some truth in the concept that there are situations where violence does seem the most effective means to quell opposition or wrongdoing (Nazism in Europe is often used as the classic example).

However, perhaps not so much as a counterargument, but as an expansion on why it is this particular sentence that I find so challenging I want to consider how muddied and difficult it is to truly evaluate the use of violence as a means to “teach a donkey a lesson”. The impact of an act of aggression often (though admittedly perhaps not always) leads to further violence. Therefore, although you have effectively “quelled” the wrongdoing, the impact of your violence might go far beyond that particular moment. The brutalization and normalization of violence in war-torn societies is just one example. Freedom fighters begin with the justification that they are fighting for their people, but gradually the use of violence in conflict seeps into homes in the form of domestic violence or onto the streets in the form of random gang killings, particularly targeting women, as we see in Guatemala.


In Selmo’s case, the Jordanian police might have felt that violence was the only method of dealing with the situation – but the indiscriminate nature of the violence was shocking and led the Europeans watching (and no doubt Jordanians) to wonder about the legitimacy, order and “civilization” of the country’s police system.

Would this have happened if the violence was used in a more ordered and “just” way? Perhaps. But there is a certain “letting go” that takes place around aggression, that makes its execution as “ordered” and “just” difficult. Placing violence on a scale of just and unjust is problematic. It leaves hidden “private” violence, while punishing or justifying “public” violence – thus domestic violence is invisible, while the military is justified. The impact and motivations for violence are deeply complex.

Recently a friend of mine was attacked at a train station in Japan. She is one of the strongest women I know. To witness how an act of violence has grown even after the original violence had taken place has reminded me of the complexity of violence induced trauma. She feels as though she has lost her freedom, and identifies the attack with her identity as a woman. Violence then is seldom as straightforward as just a punch.

What I find particularly fascinating when looking at this, is how men and women often seem to respond differently to violence. As society paints “victims” as women, and “aggressors” as males, a woman feels as though it is more dangerous for her to walk alone at night, go to a dangerous countries, not lock the door of her home at night. And statistics show that it is. (this is essentially the other half of the “sexing violence” up to straight men, while placing women as the victims to that violence). Of course violence is an individual experience, with each person impacted and influenced differently. But because cultural norms link man to violence and women to victim hood, when a woman is attacked, I think it is easy to envisage the attack against us in part because we are women. And perhaps in a sense it is. Thus, our sense that we are more likely to be attacked because we are women ensures that we self censorship ourselves – whether that is feeling unable to walk home alone at night, or feeling insecure.

It is not just the power of violence that terrifies me most, but the linking of violence to particular gender and social roles. And I think this is why I shudder over the phrasing that sees violence as somehow a “necessity” – a requirement for teaching particular donkeys. As perpetrators and victims, violence’s impact is complex and just as its roots are grown deep before the actual moment of attack, so too its repercussions reach beyond the actual moment of aggression. I am skeptical of its use as a tool, in part because it seems like a part of a social construction, that allows men in particular to “let go”, to become “enraged”, and that favors one way of dealing with stress, or disagreement or challenges, without valuing the alternatives.

For me, to be opposed to aggression as being “cool” or “innate” is not only an opposition to violence itself – it is a rejection of the masculine as central more generally. That is not an attack of men – it is an attack on the tools within our society that help propagate gender roles which ask men and women to perform in stereotypical ways. I believe we are not confined by our biology as much as by our society, and therefore I believe we can create new conceptions of being, relating and identifying. It is a slow process, but it is a worthwhile one. Reading Selmo`s blog re-ignited my own contemplations as to what is at the centre of the appeal of violence. I believe it cannot be unbound from our own self identification as well as the history of sexism, militarism and power relations more generally.

- (see http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jghall.htm for a paper that gives a literature overview of the link between male aggression in war, versus female).
- http://endviolenceagainstwomen.blogspot.com/2007/04/missing-link.html on domestic violence against women