Men’s Rights activists — or a good portion of them, anyway — seem to suffer from what we might call “Male Responsibility Bypass Syndrome.” Whatever terrible things a man (or a group of men) has been shown to have done, MRAs have a remarkable ability to find a woman to blame for it.
Nowhere is this clearer than when it comes to excusing violence. If a man is violent, MRAs tend to argue, it’s because he was provoked by a woman unaware that “equal rights mean equal lefts.” Or it’s the fault of his mother for not raising him right. Or the fault of his female ancestors for “choosing” violent men to “mate” with.
And if a stepfather abuses a child, it’s the fault of the mother for inviting him into the home. Take this generously upvoted comment from DavidByron2 in the Men’s Rights subreddit, who attempts to give a “scientific” — that is, an Evo Psych — excuse for the abuse:
In a later comment, Byron explains that he wasn’t really “blaming” the “females” in question, just saying that “the female is causal. She/it makes the decision to get a new mate or not.”
Oh, yeah, that’s much better.
But it’s that last bit, borrowed from Evo Psych, that’s even more remarkable, based as it is on the notion that male violence isn’t really violence if someone somewhere has come up with a genetic explanation for it.
Really? Animals need to survive in order to propagate their genes and “maximize genetic transfer to the next generation,” and they need to eat to survive. But I’m pretty sure that if I went to the middle-eastern restaurant on the corner, punched a customer in the head, and ran off with their Lamb Kabob entrée the cops wouldn’t be very sympathetic to my evolutionary argument. Biology doesn’t excuse bad behavior.
In the part of Byron’s comment I left out of the screencap, he links to summaries of the research of evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, who’ve written a good deal about what’s come to be called the “Cinderella effect,” that is, the fact that child abuse seems to be many times more prevalent in homes with stepparents than in those without.
While empirically this is true — though often overstated, and more complicated than “evil stepfather” theories would have it, given that studies often include other men, including uncles and grandfathers, in the same category as stepfathers — we still don’t actually know why this is. Are human males really just wired like male lions, who kill cubs fathered by other lions when they link up with new mates? Or is it that, say, men inclined to abuse children target vulnerable single mothers in order to get access to their kids?
Or could it be that child abuse and neglect — which takes many different forms, from emotional abuse to sexual abuse to physical violence — is a complicated and messy subject that can’t be reduced to a single explanation?
I’m guessing the latter, but leave it to the MRAs to jump on an explanation that gives them an excuse to absolve men of responsibility for their actions BECAUSE GENES.
h/t to LieBaron on Reddit.
Nuclear Zimmerframe, if someone combines a half-baked biological “explanation” with remarks suggesting that the mother “causes” the abuse and that “it’s not about male violence” then, well, they really are offering a justification/excuse or at the very least absolving men of much if not all of the responsibility.
@nuclear zimmerfame
Um, wow. Men have instincts to rape and murder? Curious how many men would actually agree with that… Gah. Wtf
@random pester
“The problem is it’s the ones with poor to no impulse control that are the most virile and reproduce the most, since among other things, chicks just dig bad boys, you know.”
Poor impulse control my ass. If rape is just about poor impulse control, why are rape threats even a thing? Because those make it sound a lot less about lack of impulse control and a lot more about controlling women.
RandomPester: At this point, you’re just making shit up. Fuck off, already.
Nuclear Zimmerframe:
There actually doesn’t have to be a biological basis for any of these behaviors.
@weirwoodtreehugger
Believe me most men often think about. It’s quite normal. Men in primitive tribal societies are generally very violent and often rape women. Our societies are more morally developed (just as they are more technologically developed) and most men in them choose to suppress these impulses. Our societies also have legal deterrents that encourage men to suppress their violent impulses -that’s exactly what they’re designed to do.
@ David Futrelle
Fair enough, but this man shouldn’t be taken as representative of evo-psych theorists as many people in this thread have seemed to. Evolutionary psychology only seeks to explain human behaviour in biological terms. It’s not meant to be some kind of moral guide.
Just read this before checking in here. Relevant to the topic.
http://thesocietypages.org/girlwpen/2014/05/07/violence-and-masculinity-threat/
“When young men have their masculinity sullied, threatened or denied, they respond by reclaiming masculinity through a highly recognizable masculine practice: violence.”
“Taylor’s research also suggests that the men with higher levels of testosterone in the previous study might actually be illustrating the way in which these responses to masculinity threats have become a permanent part of their physiology. In other words, testosterone isn’t so much the cause of violence as it is produced by gender inequality.”
So no, trollolols, it is not an inevitable biological part of being male or a man.
@ sparky
Look, be sensible. These behaviours are seen in all societies and throughout all of history. They are simply part of the human condition and they must have evolved to fulfil some biological purposes.
RE: Michelle C Young
Wow, LBT, that is messed up! What, did they think you were switched at birth?
Long story short, we’re multiple. By mental health jargon, I’m an “alter,” or alternate personality, while my sister was “the original.” She got raped to death way back in ’05, and our parents did not take that news well. Unfortunately, they also couldn’t deal with the idea of WHY exactly their daughter died, so found it easier to see me (along with my siblings) as interlopers and symptoms of madness who needed to be eradicated.
It wasn’t a good time.
RE: Robert
Having a hard time understanding how he feels about it; hearing it from you makes it a little easier. Thanks for that.
No worries. In my case, we’d already had a HORRIBLE reaction to a psych med that was given to us for non-psych reasons. (Apparently a small percentage of the population go BATSHIT FUCKING INSANE on benzos. I mean, like, cinematic raving psychosis kinda shit. We are one of those people.) So yeah, I had totally valid reasons about being afraid of going on anti-depressants, especially since I was in such a state that any worsening would cause complete mayhem.
RE: Nuclear Zimmerframe
Men also have instincts to rape and murder
YOU might. I have never felt the drive to rape anyone, thanks. Don’t associate me with you.
there must be biological reasons these behaviours evolved.
No. There is a thing called culture. It exists and it influences behavior. Not everything is strict biology.
RE: RandomPoster
it’s the ones with poor to no impulse control that are the most virile and reproduce the most, since among other things, chicks just dig bad boys, you know.
Well, bless your heart. I totally believe that you believe that and aren’t just trying to stir shit. Really. *pats your head and sends you off to bed with your troll award*
That’s racist! And also very much not true. Your anthropology classes in college must have been really terrible.
And here the racism. That train is never late.
No, it’s normal. If you really the legal system is such a deterrent, why isn’t it working?
RE: Nuclear Zimmerman
Believe me most men often think about. It’s quite normal.
DUDE. NO. I’m a guy. I know what being a guy is like. You, sir, are full of shit, and stop insisting I’m like you. (Especially since I’m a survivor of rape; I hardly think it’s “normal” that that guy wanted to rape me and leave me crying in a fetal position.) Also, wow “primitive tribal societies,” can you link to studies on that please?
My husband also says he’s never felt any desire to rape anyone either.
@ fromafar2013
It’s not racist, its very true. That’s simply how men behave in the absence of governments or authorities to restrict their behaviour. And women aren’t much better either.
@nuclear zimmerfame
” Men in primitive tribal societies are generally very violent and often rape women. Our societies are more morally developed (just as they are more technologically developed) and most men in them choose to suppress these impulses. ”
Nopenopenopenopenope. Citation fucking needed.
@ hellkell
Come on, think a bit. If rape and murder still happen in our societies despite there being HUGE legal deterrents how do you think men in primitive lawless societies behave?
@ LBT
The distinction between culture and biology is nowhere as simple as you put it. Culture is largely a RESULT of biology not something that works against it.
@ Nuclear Zimmerframe
Here’s just one example of how horribly wrong you are: http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1777:the-headman-was-a-woman-the-gender-egalitarian-batek-of-malaysia&catid=50:southeastasiabooks&Itemid=67
Typically, when studying rates of violence in indigenous cultures, you see a sharp increase at the same time colonization and western influence arrive.
Gee, couldn’t be that violence is cultural??? Naaawwwwww. /sarcasm
Why didn’t anyone tell me that today was ass-backwards theory day?
Yeah, right.
To those who doubt the level of violence in primitive (and prehistoric) tribal societies here’s some suggested reading:
The Fierce People by Chagnon
The World Until Yesterday by Diamond
The Better Angels of Our Nature by Pinker
@nuclear zimmerframe
Wow what logic that sounds great from one glance. Care to actually support your claims? or do you work only on assfax?
@cassandra
We wanted it to be a surprise 😉 plus, nuclear troll kinda sprung it on us.
also, guess who got her computer and can finally blockquote properly? Me! 😀
I think that troll fisheries rules stipulate that we have to throw this one back, since he clearly doesn’t meet minimum troll development standards.
Huh… Those specific three books?
Like, specifically those three?
Weird.
I mean, really weird.
Because I was just reading this:
Which has a bit to say
@ cassandrakitty
I’m not in any way trolling. I’m just giving out the facts but people don’t like it because they don’t conform to how they think the world should be.
Did you even read the links you were given? They’re just fine you racist shitsack.