From an article entitled “Precarious Manhood,” which was referred to on a guest post yesterday:1
If manhood is viewed as elusive and tenuous, two implications are that (a) challenges to men’s manhood will provoke anxiety and threat-related emotions among men and (b) men will often feel compelled to demonstrate their manhood through action, particularly when it has been challenged.
There are undoubtedly many actions that men can perform to bolster their status as “real” men and thus assuage their feelings of gender role stress even if these actions provide only temporary relief from masculinity concerns. For example, men may display manhood by drinking heavily, driving fast, excelling at sports, making lots of money, bragging about their sexual exploits, and fathering many children, to name a few.
Indeed, across several empirical demonstrations of responses to gender identity threats, men who underwent challenges to their masculinity showed decreased liking for other nonprototypical members of their gender in-group (Schmitt & Branscombe, 2001), projected assumptions of homosexuality onto a male target (Bramel, 1963), sexually harassed a woman (Maass, Cadinu, Guarnieri, & Grasselli, 2003), took stronger levels of electric shock (Holmes, 1971), and overestimated their height and sexual experience (Cheryan, Cameron, Katagiri, & Monin, 2008).
Another implication is- they feel huge relief and at being able to jettison the role of ‘man’ and explore the truth of their being.
That impulse cannot be discounted.
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That one made me laugh.
It does kind of explain why men in packs (gangs, armies, sports teams) are much more inclined to wreak havoc than a lone man on his own.
I am now on the old side so I do not remember the details from college.
But in anthropology we studied about one pacific island that had to have one man either be gay or if none available then one had to act gay or effeminate as a marker for the other men so they could point to him and say ‘I am a man cuz I dont act like that.’
In fact many psychologist think that is one reason gay men are so reviled compared to lesbians. Men’s self-image is so fragile that they are terrified of gays. As in, if I am a man then I act this way but the gay looks like a man and acts that way, so the insecurity hits hard. Movie jokes are about a guy being surprised by a gay guy, the joke does not work that well with women. So it all sounds good. At any rate male ego is VERY fragile, and the compensating activity can be awesomely bad at times.
It does kind of explain why men in packs (gangs, armies, sports teams) are much more inclined to wreak havoc than a lone man on his own.
Is it your proposition that such differences in individual vs. group behavior can only be found in men?
Of course differences between individual vs group behavior can be found among women, and among mixed-sex groups, as well as among men.
However, in an all female group, women are unlikely to feel compelled to prove their masculinity to each other. That’s more likely to happen among men; and it’s problematic because proving masculinity is too often destructive or violent.
However, in an all female group, women are unlikely to feel compelled to prove their masculinity to each other.
Well, yeah, instead they feel compelled to prove/police their femininity.
That’s more likely to happen among men; and it’s problematic because proving masculinity is too often destructive or violent.
“Destructive” and “violent” are positive as well as negative; it’s destructive and violent for me to shoot the dingo that’s about to eat my baby.
I think a better test is “harm to innocents”. And much masculinity/femininity proving does indeed do harm to innocents.
Did you read the study, Robert? The study found that — measured in a variety of ways — men as a group seem to feel more insecure about masculinity, and a greater need to prove masculinity, than women as a group feel insecure about or a need to prove femininity.
I agree that trying to prove gender can be destructive in either case. But I do think that there are differences in the harms caused. Gang rapes, for instance, are overwhelmingly committed by men against women. Yes, femininity is harmful; no, the harms of femininity and masculinity are not identical.
Finally, in our society, dingo attacks on infants are uncommon. With a very few exceptions, defensive violence by humans is something done to protect against attacks by other humans.
That seems like something very hard to measure, Amp. Who decides what constitutes proving masculinity/proving femininity? It seems trivially easy to decide which sex you think does more harm to itself and to others in the process of proving gender, and then pick your examples of behavior to make sure the results match your preconceptions.
The problem, I think, is that our construction of masculinity encourages destructive physical violence. I have never heard of an all-female gang rape, and I probably never will. Groups of women are more inclined to verbal abuse than actual violence.
The problem, I think, is that our construction of masculinity encourages destructive physical violence. I have never heard of an all-female gang rape, and I probably never will. Groups of women are more inclined to verbal abuse than actual violence.
Rape is a special case, and not all violence is rape. Groups of women (where? which women?) may be less inclined to physical abuse, but it is hardly unknown.
Most women don’t seem to be inclined (anywhere I’ve heard about, anyway) to use penetration as a tool of violent dominance, in groups or in person. Many men do seem so inclined. That dichotomy strikes me as real and quite consequential.
For violence in general, though, the dichotomy is not so much. Men seem to be more violent by nature, somewhat, broadly, in a fuzzy way, but the ladies go out on the dance floor too.
Eh. The dichotomy of homicide isn’t as extreme as the dichotomy for rape, but still, 88% of known murderers are male. I’d call that a “real and quite consequential difference.”
I think I’ve heard of two incidents of group violence initiated by women. I think one of the incidents was in Florida and involved a group of high school students. Two incidents vs- oh, half a dozen on the male side. And I’m low-balling it, I’m sure.
And the Abu Gharaib group was mostly male, with a couple of women going along because of the peer group pressure. Yet more proof that testosterone soaked environments tend to encourage violence
Yet more proof that testosterone soaked environments tend to encourage violence
Men’s training carves so many direct routes to the acting out of violent impulses, that it’s sometimes more of an effort to think of some other way than to give in to it.
Women’s training can put so many obstacles in the way of this acting out that it can actually destroy women’s initiative.
I don’t think it is useful to assume that men are intrinsically more liable externalize violence until this depends less on conditioning than on moral volition and conscience.
Eh. The dichotomy of homicide isn’t as extreme as the dichotomy for rape, but still, 88% of known murderers are male. I’d call that a “real and quite consequential difference.”
Black men are about six times as likely as white men to be in prison – not quite the 7:1 ratio of m:f murderers, but close.
But when searching for explanations for that statistic, we don’t talk about the dichotomy between black people and white people; we talk about socialization, historical oppression, the economic problems of the inner city, institutional racism, educational opportunities, etc. etc.
When statistics condemn a group of people you want to think well of, you find reasons that the statistics don’t mean what they seem to mean. (And in fairness, I find many of those reasons convincing.)
When statistics condemn a group of people you see as privileged/socially on top, you find reasons to think that the statistics reflect an innate reality.
Or so it seems.
Robert, I have no idea who you’re responding to, but it’s apparently not me.
Please quote me anywhere — not just on this thread, but in any of my writings anytime over the past decade — in which I claimed that male violence was “innate” rather than based on malleable factors like like “socialization” and how society constructs masculinity.
In fact, I believe exactly the opposite of what you’ve attributed to me here.
P.S. By the way, I do think the the dichotomy between black and white imprisonment rates is both real and consequential — which is different from saying that it’s a dichotomy between “black people and white people.” Just like saying that there’s a dichotomy between female and male homicide rates — which is what I said — is not the same thing as saying that there’s an innate violence dichotomy between women and men — which I didn’t say.
Just out of curiosity, what do you make of the fact that most serial killers are white males? They have all the advantages, so why would they want to throw that away?
I’m not Amp; just a random lurker, but that’s easy. They, as individuals, don’t have the advantages that they think they deserve as white males. Maybe they’ve been unsuccessful in life. Maybe women – correctly – find them creepy and aren’t interested in them. So they lash out. It’s about entitlement (as well as as various pathologies).
Just out of curiosity, what do you make of the fact that most serial killers are white males? They have all the advantages, so why would they want to throw that away?
Maybe its that as males they are constantly told to bottle up whatever it is that drove them until at some point thinking that they don’t deserve help or that they are failures because they need help or whatever they reach breaking point and lash out. I wonder out of all those white male serial killers how many of them could have been prevented by letting them know they could ask for help and give them a place to ask for it.
Not trying to excuse what they did but since people often speak of prevention I wonder how effective help would be to them if they knew they could accept it and there was a place to go for it.
I’ve taken a few criminal psychology and profiling classes, so this by no means makes me an expert, but I don’t think serial killers are quite who we’re discussing here. First off, they’re quite rare compared to other killers, but very high-profile because of the media. Secondly, they are different from spree killers, who are more likely to be “set off” by something in their lives which they could achieve help for – stress due to job loss, relationships ending, etc. Even a planned killing such as at Columbine is considered a spree killing, not a serial killing.
Serial killers are often sociopaths – a mental diagnosis that means severe trouble with attachments and seeing other people as important. A high level of narcissism is often apparent as well. These are not the people who would seek out help. No background trauma is necessary, although there are some well-documented cases of serial killers being abused as children. My main point is that most serial killers have mental illnesses that preclude them from seeing others as people, or resources, they could turn to for stabilization. They are often contemptuous of societal norms.
Please forgive me – I’m at work and don’t have any of my textbooks handy for citation, so much of this sounds like conjecture.
Here’s an example from yesterday about men for whom challenge to gender identity becomes opportunity to write manhood according to their own inclinations.
The comments mainly reflect the more anxietious response, seem more absurd than threatening.
Amp, you’re right, I was responding to something completely off site and completely off your radar. Never mind!
S.T. : I never knew there was a difference between spree killers and serial killers. But in the Columbine case, I really wonder if it was a spree killing. It seemed pretty carefully planned.
B. Adu: Vastly amused by the comments on the article. It does support the idea of manhood as a performance art.
It was planned but it wasn’t planned to be one chapter in an ongoing story o’ blood and mayhem; it was planned to be a one-off. A spree, in other words. Serial killers plan to get away with it, and do it again next month. Spree killers don’t.
True. Spree killers also tend to commit suicide after it: either because of regret, an f-you to the cops, or a realization that life can get worse.