A few years back a girl told me she was watching some reality TV show where a guy was being physically confronted by another guy, and, rather than fight, he ran away. She said if that were her boyfriend, she’d break up with him. Recently, while listening to a lecture on the American Civil War, I learned that women would send women’s clothing to men who refused to fight in the war. The implication being that these men were not ‘truly masculine’. There are other instances of this in history. I read at this web site that women would belittle men who refused to fight for their clan in ancient Scotland.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I occasionally hear women say something like: ‘Men are responsible for the violence in the world.’ While I agree that men are the gender more likely to actually initiate physical force (and to commit crimes), I think this completely ignores the social reality of the relationship between the genders. I think plenty of women who would not use violence themselves want their men to do so, and male willingness to use violence is tied to their conception of masculinity. As such, these men feel great social pressure from women to initiate violence. Men who refuse to do so will find they don’t have sexual access to women, which is an enormous penalty to pay. It means no wife, no family, and a great deal of social isolation.
The problem of the initiation of physical force by men is as old as mankind, but I have no doubt that when our Paleolithic ancestors, living in caves and huts, decided to take by force the goods of another tribe, their female mates were there egging them on. Even when a tribe decided to capture women for sexual purposes, I’m sure the mothers of the men in the tribe were there pushing their sons to give them grandchildren by any means necessary. So, I think the notion that men are the only gender responsible for the level of violence in the world is undue self-congratulation by females.