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Re: Where Does Organized Male Evil Come From?

I just got finished reading this article about the rapes of Rohingya women and the persecution and slaughter of their people: http://www.thejournal.ie/rohingya-rape-3745266-Dec2017/

I know it's not uplifting to read this stuff, but it's also important not to turn away.

I want to know what causes such organized male evil. It doesn't matter whether it's a dispute over territory or religion or ethnicity, it is men who do this in an organized fashion. It has always been men.

Is it as simple as "patriarchy?" Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch describes the creation of capitalist evil through the weaponization of men and male sexuality, the formal institution of patriarchy, the enslavement of women, and the colonial/imperial ventures of the new world order.

Although it's true almost no corner of the human world has gone untouched by the Western project of colonialism and imperialism, other cultures have their own ancient histories of warfare, bloodshed and male rule that predate Western history.

I know the advent of agriculture and the dawn of land ownership have been cited as the reason for growing institutionalization of patriarchy and subjugation of women and expansion of territory--but really--I struggle to understand how men can commit such horrific atrocities in an organized fashion. If women ruled the world, would we do this? Would we?

I have never given much credence to notions of biological determinism and I still don't; if men are like this by dint of nature as well as nurture the power of human socialization can change them. So far is has mainly been used to cement these violent, hierarchical tendencies it seems.

I just never used to believe there could be this fundamental difference between men and women where under the right circumstances men could join together to commit such atrocities in a way that women wouldn't. Is it because women have been stripped of their power that we don't see them band together to exercise it in such horrific fashion? Or is there really a fundamental, biological difference between us that makes men more susceptible to committing violence?

I also struggle with the connection between sex and committing violence so often seen within cultures and among mostly male individuals across the world. Is it male or is it masculine?

(anxietyaccount8)
No it's not just as simple as patriarchy. I once believed that but now I don't. Men really are just more violent than women. Male sexuality is also very different than female sexuality (in general) and I don't think anybody could have socialized me into being interested in some of the crazy things they are interested in.

I think that the reason a lot of people dismiss these claims is because they are reminded of evolutionary psychology, which for the most part is not very scientific at all. But the thing is that just because things like "women are naturally better at cooking" are BS it doesn't mean that everything that sounds like evopsych is wrong. For example we know that male and female animals act differently. We know that males and females have different body types, hormone levels, and different ways of reproducing. Would it really be so insane to suggest there are mental differences too?

Now to be fair, I am not really sure if this is true, and none of us will be sure unless we have substantial evidence, but this is my personal theory. It just feels really obvious to me.

(Unabashed_Calabash)
This was my point to another poster. To what extent can the behavior of other mammals, including our closest relatives chimpanzees and bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) be interpreted to reflect on our own?

Not only the male correlation of sex and violence but specifically the far greater incidence of male sexual fetishes (about the same as the disproportionate ratio of male vs. female violence, 10 to 1) causes me to believe there's something more than socialization going on here. Scientists who study human sexuality say it has to do with a more intense focus from males as a group on sexuality in general, heightening fetishes. But how often do you hear of women who like to pretend to be baby boys and wear diapers? (Seriously?) And like to be burped and breastfed and rocked to sleep? (I would really like formal studies of how often these bizarre fetishes occur in males as compared to females. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a result of porn and therefore male domination arising from social reasons because how much of porn is men pretending to be infant girls and breastfeed? Please don't tell me).

I am not saying this to be in favor of gender or against it. "Gender" as we know it is a social construct. Any innate evolutionary differences in the sexes--say, of violent vs. pacifist, or systematizing (from, say, hunting more often than women in most prehistoric societies) vs. integration (from the greater social relations of gathering and building)--need not be our fate if detrimental. We are highly social animals almost entirely at the whim of our socialization, which has been civilizing in some respects but in others greatly lacking.

I agree that just because evolutionary psychology has become a crutch of sexist males it does not mean absolutely none of it is true. It's more important than ever we separate the wheat from the chaff.

(anxietyaccount8)
Right, and it's important that people recognize radical feminism's criticism of gender actually does not contradict this existence of innate differences. We are all born into a society where we have to follow prescribed gender roles, and this social construct bleeds into all aspects of our lives and causes differences of its own. If some differences are innate this social construction makes them much more prominent and worse.

Also it doesn't mean that there is a distinct male or female brain, or that trans people really do have the brain of the opposite sex. Even if, hypothetically, a trans woman did actually act in ways that women are biologically supposed to, they are just proving that there is variation and a male can be that way too.

(Unabashed_Calabash)
Lol at the downvotes. I also don't understand how butthurt men get about this subject. It is quite clearly true (unless you prefer "violence" to "evil" because you don't believe in imposing moral values on human actions), and I am merely asking why and where it comes from.

Humanity will never change until men reckon with their own and their fellow men's actions.

(bigoltreehugger)
Ew. So many men came in caping for other men in response. I miss the days when this sub didn't have as many dudes hanging around. I'm sorry I can't engage your question properly but I just wanted to say that I've always appreciated your input on this sub.

(descending_wisdom)
fundamental biological differences. Sexual selection theory easily explains male violence. Watch some videos on organized warfare in some troops of chimpanzees.

(sunscreenonface)
Gonna leave this write up from notcisjustwoman here:

"Patriarchy pre-dates both the agricultural revolution and hunter-gatherer societies, because the basis of the oppression of women, indeed the very basis for oppression itself, is rape.

Male animals have been raping female animals since before the first humans, or even the first primates, appeared on earth. Events like the agricultural revolution codified male oppression of women into a more organized system, and religion has evolved over time to become an enforcer and moralizer of male violence, but neither of things things created patriarchy. Patriarchy began the first time a man raped a woman, and instead of being beaten to death by her tribal/family group, he was rewarded with fathership of her children.

It’s not comfortable even for most radical feminists to see this full and complete scope of the history of patriarchy, because it means that things are much more complicated than mere socialization, but it is a brutal truth we must confront in our analysis."

To expand upon this, here's a previous write up I did once I'd read notcisjustwoman's blog:

"I don't think this will make anyone feel better, but I've recently been thinking a lot about the various species of animals across this earth that have been known to rape...and it turns out most animal species have some form of rape. Ducks, squirrels, dolphins, dogs, gorillas, etc. all have observable males who rape and aggress females.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that aggressive males who rape will pass on their aggressive traits to their offspring that are conceived via rape. I don't think it's a stretch to say that male homo sapiens might be more likely to aggress and rape females since they inherited a tendancy towards violence from their male ancestors who were conceived via rape. (Reminder: I could be completely wrong about this!)

Does this make rape ok? NO!!!! Even if rape and aggressive sexual behavior is 'natural', 'natural' does not instantly equal something good or beneficial for a species. Homo sapiens dying of tooth decay at 22 is quite natural, but it's horrific and traumatizing for everyone involved.

All I'm saying is my understanding of men's GLOBAL and CONSTANT violence toward women became easier to understand once I started to think about sexual violence as an issue often found in primate species and not as something completely 100% culturally-bound.

Here's a link to a tumblr write-up that spawned my thoughts on this: http://notcisjustwoman.tumblr.com/post/175761393959/what-is-good-for-the-gander-is-not-always-good-for#notes

(Unabashed_Calabash)
I've read about the extremely complex history of rape among animals of all kinds (they have highly evolved methods of rape--an actual sexual arms race between males and females, as females also evolved to try to avoid rape--in fact, some believe the reason we walk upright is because women first stood up to avoid greater vulnerability to gang rape from behind, and that these gang rapes were so violent many of the females of our prehistoric ancestors who did not stand up did not survive). The species in which pair-bonding and good fatherhood are the norm are not the norm.

There's a reason that male sperm in all species is a complex chemical cocktail. In humans it's designed to lull/drug the mate and bond females to males even at their own expense.

My gut feeling and experiences tell me notjustciswoman is right.

There's a reason rape as committed by men is so normalized and also so easy for men to commit. Behavioral scientists have discussed the not-so-mythical "rape switch" and posited that all or most men have one.

Reading stories of men's mass raiding/raping parties, I'm inclined to agree. (My own experience aligns with this as well. I have actually witnessed a man struggle with his own desire to rape when confronted with a woman highly vulnerable to it. He had a low "rape threshold" certainly, but I don't actually think it's all that unusual. I think human men--because human beings can feel remorse and regret--may struggle with what they have done or the harm they have caused, if society or the victim force them to reflect on this, but they still did it and wanted to do it anyway). Neither the normalization of rape nor its prevalence despite official messages all over the world that it's wrong would be so common if rape were not somehow natural to the males of this species.

I remember an author saying "we cannot deal with violence until we admit uncomfortable truths, such as the thrill of war." The same is true of rape/sexual abuse; there's no way we can combat it without understanding it, and understanding why some men like to do it even when it's officially discouraged, or why men as a class can be easily encouraged to commit it under the right circumstances, is, I think, important if we ever hope to combat it.

(And yes, the history of conquest and invasion in our species is the history of rape. There's a reason so many men in the world carry the same Y chromosome).

Cultures that have ‘third genders’ don’t prove transgenderism is either ubiquitous or progressive

When homophobic cultures are embracing transgenderism, we need to question its so-called “progressiveness.”

Last year, Pakistan started issuing passports with a third gender category marked by an “X”. In March, the country took things a step further and passed legislation allowing people to change their sex on legal documents, based on self-identification. Now, people can officially self-identify as male, female, or neither on government-issued ID documents, meaning an individual born male can now be issued a female passport. Al Jazeera reports:

“The law guarantees citizens the right to express their gender as they wish, and to a gender identity that is defined as ‘a person’s innermost and individual sense of self as male, female or a blend of both, or neither; that can correspond or not to the sex assigned at birth.'”

The law has been celebrated by many as a progressive victory. Amnesty International’s Pakistan researcher Rabia Mehmood told Al Jazeera that the implementation of the bill “is crucial to ensure [trans-identified people] can live their lives with dignity and respect.” While this might indeed seem like a step forward to some, an important detail brings up questions: despite Pakistan’s apparent embrace of trans-identified people, homosexuality remains criminalized in the country. What liberals and progressives who support this kind of legislation have failed to ask themselves is why transgender politics are being embraced by conservative and regressive regimes like those in Pakistan and Iran.

Trans activists claim that transgenderism has existed throughout history. To prove that “gender identity” is not a modern invention, they point to non-Western societies where, historically, more than two genders have been culturally accepted. This claim is rarely subjected to critical analysis. A feminist analysis is ignored in favour of a superficial analysis of race and colonialism that goes as follows: if a third gender exists in non-Western, non-white societies, the “sex binary” must be a colonialist Western concept that has been imposed on all of us.

But while a third gender really does exist in some societies, that doesn’t necessarily mean that these non-Western views of sex and gender roles are anti-sexist, nor does it mean the application of this idea to Western societies is automatically progressive.

If you compare India’s transgender population to Pakistan’s, you’ll notice an interesting similarity: an overwhelming majority are males. Hijra, as they are called in India, are men or boys pressured to become women on misogynistic grounds: these males love hanging out with women, help women with domestic work, have features that are considered “feminine,” or are suspected of being homosexual. They are often castrated and aren’t allowed to marry or own property. While they may be called upon to bless newborns and celebrate marriages, society generally shuns them and they are rejected by their ashamed families. Seen as accursed, they are given a ritual, religious purpose to counterbalance their ungodly condition. They often become dancers and prostitutes and, like in Pakistan, have to seek the guardianship of a guru (who essentially functions as their pimp) in order to avoid homelessness.

One Pakistani man named Zara tells The Guardian:

“I was born with a very small male organ. Inside, my feelings are female— I want to live like a woman, cook and do domestic work.”

The implication is that a small penis and a preference for “woman’s work” mean that Zara is not sufficiently masculine, and therefore not male.

A homosexual male born as Iman but calling himself Marie featured in a BBC documentary, Iran’s sex change solution, consulted several psychotherapists, some of whom “worked underground.” One suggested pills (of an unspecified nature), another electric shock treatment. Eventually, one doctor told Iman that he could “change [his] gender” and said he needed to start hormone therapy. After a while, another doctor encouraged him to take a step further and undergo surgery. “The doctor told me that with the surgery he could change the two per cent male features but he said he could not change the 98 per cent female features to be male,” Iman says. It is very probable that the surgery included removal of his genitals. As a boy, Iman was bullied for having soft features and was frequently told he looked “like a girl.” After being pressured to start hormones to emphasize his “feminine” features, Iman noticed that he started to grow breasts and that his body hair was thinning. There is little doubt as to what the doctor referred to when he mentioned his remaining “two per cent male features”— Iman says he felt “damaged,” physically. “What I saw was frightening and abnormal,” he adds.

Iran doesn’t traditionally have any concept of a third gender, but the arguments towards the acceptance of transgenderism are the same as in India or Pakistan: when men don’t conform to gender roles related to masculinity and heterosexuality, they are told they are not men at all. In countries like India or Pakistan, religious beliefs about the “balance” between male and female play a role in how women and men are treated. There are many stories about “hermaphrodites” or tales about eunuchs. Men who fail to conform are told they have a female soul and hold a special spiritual position. But in Iran, the religious explanation is non-existent: instead, men like Iman are told that they need medical treatment.

Those who claim transgenderism is universal will also bring up Indigenous societies to show that “male” and “female” are simply rigid inventions of Western, colonial culture, offering “third genders” and “two spirit” people as proof of this. “Native cultures” are glamourized as gender-fluid utopias that European, Christian, colonial conquest destroyed, imposing a rigid two-gender system instead. It is true that as part of the Christianization and colonization process, missionaries profoundly changed the social dynamics between men and women. Children were uprooted from their cultural and social spheres and sent to residential schools, where they were taught Victorian values and morality regarding men and women’s place in North American societies. Indigenous people were subjected to different social codes than those they’d grown up with. Their appearance, for instance, was refashioned: boys couldn’t have long hair because it was considered feminine — they had to wear suits, while girls needed to keep their hair tied at all times and wear dresses. But it would be false to presume that Indigenous societies — which are not at all homogenous — regarded gender (in its contemporary definition) as an instrument for self-expression. This assumes all of these cultures accepted the liberal notion of individual choice and freedom popularized in the aftermath of the American Revolution. But modern notions of individualism, self-expression, and self-realization were were not likely present in pre-colonial Indigenous societies.

The Navajo, for example, have a traditional third gender class called “nadleeh.” While, today, the term is applied to both trans-identified males and females, it originally referred exclusively to males. According to an essay by Wesley Thomas in the book, Two-Spirit People, “Navajo Cultural Constructions of Gender and Sexuality,” men who showed proclivities for traditionally female activities such as weaving, cooking, and raising children, became nadleeh.

Thomas writes, “From the Navajo view, until the turn of the century, males who demonstrated characteristics of the opposite gender were known to fulfill their roles as nadleeh.” He argues that the Navajo recognized “gender diversity” pre-colonization:

“Multiple genders were part of the norm in the Navajo culture before the 1890s. From the 1890s until the 1930s dramatic changes took place in the lives of Navajos because of exposure to, and constant pressures from, Western culture — not the least of which was the imposition of Christianity—
— Due to the influence of Western culture and Christianity, which attempt to eradicate gender diversity, the pressure still exists.”

However, he also points out that gender roles still existed in Navajo society:

“The traditional social gender system, although based initially on biological sex, divides people into categories based on several criteria: sex-linked occupation, behaviors, and roles. ‘Sex-linked occupation’ refers to expected work specializations associated with being female or male. ‘Sex-linked behaviors’ include body language, speech style and voice pitch, clothing and other adornment, and those aspects of ceremonial activities that are sex-linked (e.g., women wear shawls in dancing and men do not; men use gourd rattles during dances and women do not). Women’s sex-linked activities include those associated with childrearing, cooking and serving meals, making pottery and baskets, and doing or overseeing other work associated with everyday aspects of the domestic sphere. For men, getting wood, preparing cooking fires, building homes, hunting, planting and harvesting various vegetables, and doing or overseeing work associated with the ceremonial aspects of everyday life are appropriate. A nadleeh mixes various aspects of the behaviors, activities, and occupations of both females and males.”

Traditionally, the Navajo believed that the power of creation belonged to women. It is safe to say that they never believed that nadleeh — “feminine males” — were actually women, because they didn’t have the ability to bear children. They were regarded as feminine on the basis of social occupations but were not called women — azdaa — in the Navajo language. Society was organized on the principle of collective work divided by men and women on account of their physiological differences — women’s activities, for example, were based on their reproductive capacity and status as life-givers.

In this case, the concept of nadleeh cannot be understood as “gender identity” or gender/sex dysphoria, as it was related to social occupations and behaviors connected to sex. While the Navajo are one of the most documented Indigenous cultures, many others are not so well-documented and it therefore seems inappropriate to impose modern notions of “gender diversity,” “gender identity,” or, generally, our own concepts of gender, as we understand it today, in Western cultures.

It also is misguided to assume that non-Western, non-white “third genders” necessarily shatter the gender binary. The existence of other “gender” castes shouldn’t be assumed to challenge the “sex/gender binary” — they need to be examined within their own cultural and political contexts, from a feminist perspective.

The fact that those placed in this “third” gender category are usually males raises another red flag. It suggests that, while men can be downgraded to the status of females, women cannot rise up to the status of men. Being associated with femininity is such a disgrace that men are socially emasculated and physically mutilated. This is pure misogyny. The media remain blind to the evidence, claiming to be puzzled that these supposedly “progressive” gender identity politics are being adopted by otherwise conservative societies that are hostile and violent to women and gay people.

In The Guardian, Memphis Barker writes:

“One reason for the growing acceptance of the trans community springs from an unlikely source — Pakistan’s mullahs. The Council of Islamic Ideology, a government body that has deemed nine-year-old girls old enough to marry and approves the right of men to ‘lightly’ beat their wives, has offered some support to trans rights.”

Of course, in reality, this “support” is only for misogyny.

So blinded by our own Western views on transgender politics — certain we are on “the right side of history” — we can’t see how these ideas could be harmful. Our critical minds have been paralyzed, and fear of backlash has caused us to avoid asking questions. Despite what so many would like to believe, transgender ideology, no matter how and where it is promoted, has put women and gay people in danger all around the world.