Just wanted to unpack a few thoughts around the issue of violence between men. We feminists are often reprimanded for referring to violence against women. Why? Because there are more male victims of male violence than there are female. Therefore, according to some (male-worshipping liberal feminists, MRAs, concern trolls etc.) feminists are way out of line in being concerned with stats regarding women victims of violence because men are just so much more important doncha know?
The reason this intrigues me, is because it’s the only time I ever hear men express concerns about male on male violence. If it’s so important, important enough to render violence against women as trivial and therefore unworthy of comment, then why don’t we hear about it more often? Why are men not lobbying government departments and campaigning, marching in the street and raising awareness about it? Male interests are enshrined in every facet of human society and I suspect that if men really cared about rates of violence perpetrated against them by other males then something would have been done about it long ago, unlike VAW which is not only tolerated but almost a requisite to achieving masculinity credentials.
Here are my theories about why men tolerate the horrendous levels of interpersonal and institutional violence* against each other. All a-tingle with anticipation? Read on!
Patriarchy, as we know, is a system of social organisation based on hierarchies. Patriarchy privileges high status men over middle and low status men, and over all women. Patriarchy endures for the same reason a dog licks his balls – because it can. As Dale Spender identified in Women of Ideas, “Men have power, so they have power to keep power”. Face it, they got the early-bird special on social power, they set things up to suit themselves and the grip they maintain on social power has been able to resist the many and various attempts by social activists to pry even one finger away from it, simply for the advantage of having gotten there first. Home turf advantage!
This is the primary reason men retain social power but it isn’t enough. Like any dictatorship, if patriarchy is to reign supreme then its subjects must live in fear. This is why feminists refer to VAW as sexual terrorism. Women structure their lives around avoiding male violence because we are never not conscious of that threat. We live with that. Every day.
Men live with it every day too, but unlike women, men have never really complained about it too much. This is because the culture of violence/masculinity which maintains the social order is necessary to maintaining male privilege. As I mentioned there are social divisions between men, but even the poorest, low class men are privileged over all women. They’re relatively privileged, they’re not on the bottom rung so long as there is someone lower down the ladder than they are. There is a patriarchal dividend paid to all men regardless of social/class status.
This is why men don’t question or challenge the culture of violence in which they too are embroiled. Because doing something about it would be a threat to the patriarchal structures which ensure their status in society. It’s the price they tacitly agree to pay for male privilege. Far from ever complaining about this system, men seem to be celebrating it everywhere we turn. Entertainment media and pop culture is saturated with expressions of ultra masculinity, from tv and film through to video games and sport. I was thinking the other night, if television gets any more blokey, my tv is going to grow a penis and/or a beard. We are quite literally swimming in masculinity, male voices, male perspectives, male stories. How many new tv crime shows are being produced currently, for example? Or reality shows featuring brave men doing very dangerous and important work. How often are we warned about the “crisis in masculinity”? Like it’s going away or something. I wish!
As I stated already, men don’t care about this shit! They love it! They encourage it, participate in it, approve it and support it every single fucking day, even if only through their own silence. When do we ever hear them bring up the subject of male on male violence? I’ll tell you when. When feminists bring up the subject of male violence against women, that’s when. This is not a genuine social concern though. They employ it as a silencing tactic to shut down discussion of violence against women. Because to open their eyes to that issue would necessarily require them to reflect on the violence they inflict on each other, and that, as I said would mean a BIG challenge to patriarchy and the de-privileging of males over women. In other words, it’s in their own interests to turn a blind eye to male on male violence, and I think all men intuitively get that particular dealio.
*Incidentally, when men refer to state-mandated violence between males, such as war, they are ignorant of women’s experience of and participation in war efforts. In Australia, as Anne Summers documents in Damned Whores & God’s Police, feminists were the first anti-war activists, but where did that get any of us? War continues to be glorified, men’s contributions to it recorded in glowing terms at the expense of women’s contributions, and feminists continue to be ridiculed!
