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.
But then they’re not murderous or particularly chaotic.
At any given population level they have to maintain enough living, healthy people (so no maiming to get around your violence assumption) because that’s what’s required for child-rearing, a process that, for humans, takes about 10-12 years until someone can be said to be 100 % self sufficient (and even then). Then they need to wait another 3-9 years for the ability to procreate themselves, then do the entire thing all over again.
Math-wise, that’s not a lot of murders or rapes or chaos per capita because if they do do a lot of that stuff, they very quickly just straight up die out.
Which is why in any society without “modern medicine” or a good replacement, early childhood mortality is the highest risk factor of death and anything after that is, relatively speaking, a breeze.
@LBT
aww. 🙂 Yay for your brother graduation college, and the good talk. Fingers crossed that he doesn’t become a huge ass tomorrow.
RE: hellkell
The assholes never take what you say seriously. I bet they think you’re a unicorn, because no dude could ever disagree with them.
*eyeroll* Yeah, I’ve noticed that. You remember orion, the guy who couldn’t believe that I was a gay male feminist with a rape history? I swear, it’s almost like these guys’ arguments are actually full of shit.
@ Fibinachi
Obviously if the murder rate is too high a population will wipe itself out but you’ll be surprised how high it can go. The average murder rate in modern HG societies is about 25%. Most of the victims are adults who have already reproduced. The highest murder rate to my knowledge is in the Jivaro tribe at about 60%. Yes, 60%. They’ve been killing each other at this rate for probably thousands of years without going extinct.
Full of shit? No way! It’s manly man logic. Hahahahaha.
OT: The clouds are dark as hell outside and the wind is starting to pick up. I hope we don’t get a severe thunderstorm. X_X My lilapsophobia is coming back in full force, I guess…(I have a phobia of tornadoes that’s triggered whenever I hear about potential severe thunderstorms or even mild thunderstorm development.)
@LBT
I’m glad to hear about your brother! Congrats for him.
@ally
::offers hugs:: I hope you don’t get storms, too.
Ha ha, NO. “I’m just stating facts” is classic MRA bullshit trolling. And so’s that dog-whistle about “conforming”.
Nice rape apologia downthread, too.
Off is the direction in which you need to fuck. NOW.
Yeah, and fuckin’ math and shit. *eyeroll* But apparently incapable of accepting outliers.
Seriously, these guys claim feminists have low opinions of men. Am I supposed to be gorging on cookies right now for not wanting to rape people? Lord have mercy.
He’s “just stating facts” that he’s offering little evidence for, and doesn’t engage with me contradicting him.
Yeah, he sure is factual all right.
“Instincts”, you call them? I call that MISANDRY.
Misandry AND misogyny! Also, NO. We don’t “just dig bad boys”. I dated bad boys, and when I saw what sacks of shit they were (usually just before or when they dumped me), I got the fuck OVER them. And after a while, I stopped dating them, and you know what? I didn’t fucking miss them.
Oops, there goes some more bad Biotwoof™!
I wouldn’t know what chicks like since I don’t do the psychology of immature domestic fowl, but I’ll tell you this, I don’t care in the least for “bad” men, let alone any sort of “boy”. Good adult men sound much more appealilng than immature, poorly behaved and possibly dangerous children.
Aw man, you guys already pulled all the stuffing out of the chew toy!
Nuclear Z, I’m not letting that rape comment through; dial down the creepy or I won’t let any of them through.
Quelle surprise!
Maybe because he’s allergic to any actual facts that don’t conform to his bullshit preconceptions?
David, if Nuclear Z was pointing that shit at me, he can go fuck a cactus. Well, if he points it at ANYONE, he can fuck a cactus.
Also, I get the sense that these chucklefucks would think my husband’s a “bad boy.” Seeing as you know, he got laid a whole lot and is a little kinky and a gym-rat. Except they miss the part that he’s gentle and loving and considerate. Seriously, how do they THINK he got laid so much?
RE: Bina
Maybe because he’s allergic to any actual facts that don’t conform to his bullshit preconceptions?
I eagerly await to hear how I’ve somehow disqualified myself from manhood because of biology and logic. Maybe something about gay men not having high enough testosterone levels or some shit.
@Katz
Our deepest apologies 😉
LBT, can I just say I really love the term “chucklefuck” and would like to steal it?
RE: Alex
I highly doubt I came up with it by myself, but by all means, do take it!
Yeah, I can’t wait to hear a Rational Male™ explication of this phenomenon.
And by that, I mean I can hardly wait for the sound of the crickets to echo through the land.
I wonder what are the ultimate disqualifiers from being a Real Rational Male™? Thinking about Mr K*: in his earth days he led an army across the Alps, in WINTER, and was at the front in battle. That’s pretty macho stuff, I’d have thought, enough for the dudes to say he’s a real dude. BUT he was emotional, he was into the arts, and he fell for men much more easily and often than he fell for women. How to decide? Possibly they’d give him a pass ‘cos he really didn’t like women much then, but still … that girly emotional dancing painting stuff … and fancying other blokes … it’s terrible puzzling.
*yes, I know you’re shocked
Amazing how people can be multidimensional and don’t tend to fit into little boxes!
Stunning, innit?
RE: Kittehs
in his earth days he led an army across the Alps, in WINTER,
BUT WERE THERE ELEPHANTS???
Nature is just maths.
It rarely happens, but I just have no words. This is weapons grade stupid.