Dr Julia Shaw has published an article in Psychology Today, challenging the notion that men are naturally more violent than women. Disturbed by the fact that prisoners are overwhelmingly male, she urges us to stop normalizing male violence as innate and natural. Instead, she claims that crime is male dominated because “men are explicitly and implicitly taught by society that they don’t need to inhibit themselves when it comes to aggression” and that they’re not raised to be empathetic and kind the way women are. This is the theory that criminal behavior is caused by toxic masculinity, which more or less reduces the causes of crime to the socialization of individual men.
Many have challenged the article, including psychology undergraduate Alex Mackiel, who writes in Quillette that male violence cannot be just a result of socialization. After all, male violence can be found cross culturally and even in other species. The toxic masculinity approach to male crime implies that men are socialized in more or less the same way in almost every culture and that even some animals are raised to be toxically masculine. However, while Shaw’s article offers an oversimplified explanation of crime, it also contains a grain of truth. Many dismiss male violence as natural, as just the way it is, and don’t bother to look any further. They consider it normal for men to comprise the vast majority of both the perpetrators and victims of homicide and they don’t even regard this as an problem that deserves to be solved.
There is a third, alternative explanation, which is often overlooked in these discussions. Maybe male crime is not just a result of biology or socialization. Maybe some external, societal forces also make it more beneficial for men to commit crimes, rather than women. We know that the overrepresentation of certain ethnic groups in certain types of crime is not usually just a result of their culture and socialization, but is also caused by the systemic problems that they face (such as poverty, discrimination, stigma, etc.). We should also treat men with understanding and search for the unique challenges and pressures that they have to deal with as a group.
Men carry a burden of performance: they have to prove themselves through their actions. As Roy Baumeister points out, in many societies, when girls grow up they are automatically considered women, while boys are expected to pass stringent tests to prove their manhood. Men are also more likely to be mainly valued for their status and wealth. Even in romantic and sexual relationships, women tend to find high status and wealthy men more attractive, while men are generally indifferent to women’s wealth. Multiple studies have shown that men value beauty and youth in women, while women are more likely to value status and wealth in men. This means that a man from a disadvantaged background may have a hard time gaining the status needed to be successful with the opposite sex—and this is not equally true for women. There is also reason to believe that men receive less sympathy than women when they find themselves in vulnerable and weak positions. Men from working class and ethnic minority backgrounds are often stigmatized as criminal and as threatening to the social order. We can see an obvious example of this mentality in Canada’s announcement that it will only accept women, children and families as refugees. Many politicians have expressed similar sentiments: we make it a top priority to protect the women and children refugees of foreign wars, while male refugees are perceived as invaders and potential criminals at worst, or disposable machines, who should stay in their countries and fight at best.
In general, a low status man is considered disposable and unworthy by society, unless he proves himself in some way. He is also going to be less successful with the opposite sex, as men seem more willing to marry down than women. He may want to achieve the socially encouraged goals for men, such as success, money and high status, but the legal methods to do so will be severely limited. His limited options to prove his worth as a man are likely to lead him to use illegal means to do so. This could explain why many men from disadvantaged backgrounds form gangs and engage in criminal activities that help them rise in the male hierarchy. Sociologist Robert K. Merton has theorized that people from lower socioeconomic classes often commit crimes because they have fewer legal opportunities to achieve the goals that are recognized as worthy by society, and are hence forced to turn to illegal methods. From this perspective, it makes sense for low status men to be more often involved in crime than women, since it is men who are expected to be self-reliant and are valued primarily for their successes and social status. Women are not valued for their successes and actions in the same way as men are, so they have fewer incentives to engage in criminal activities. Instead, women are mainly valued for their sexuality, which is probably why impoverished women are more likely to turn to prostitution than to violent crime.
Stigmatization also plays a major role. From an early age, boys are stereotyped as more unruly than girls. For example, a study has found that one of the reasons why girls get better grades than boys is that girls are perceived as more organized and compliant. Part of the gender gap in crime is probably due to the fact that the police are more likely to overlook female violence and criminal behavior. Various studies have confirmed that women are often treated more leniently than men, even for the same crime. This stereotyping creates a vicious circle: working class and minority men are stigmatized as violent and criminal, so they have fewer opportunities to legally achieve socially desirable goals, thus they’re more likely to turn to crime, which in turn confirms and exacerbates the stereotypes, which leads to even fewer legal opportunities, etc.
In other words, men might be more violent than women because they have better incentives to be. Joining a gang, or even a terrorist organization, can be seen as an easy way for a man to rise within the male hierarchy and gain the kind of recognition that he feels he needs in order to be considered worthy. Women are mainly valued for their beauty and sexuality, not their actions or successes, so they have fewer reasons to be criminal. This doesn’t mean that biology doesn’t matter. It might well be true that men are naturally more aggressive than women. However, throwing our hands up into the air and declaring that nothing can be done to solve male violence is unproductive and defeatist. However, male violence shouldn’t be entirely attributed to the socialization of individual men. There are various sociological conditions that encourage male violence and these should be considered carefully.
Male violence cannot be explained only by men’s innate predispositions or by the fact that they are not socialized properly. We should also examine the unique challenges that come with being male and the role they play in encouraging violence and crime. The solution is not to socialize the aggression out of men, but to try to offer them more opportunities to be successful through legal means, and to encourage society to value men for who they are as people and expect them to prove themselves through what they achieve.
Violence is usually treated as if it were only a problem. But for much of human evolutionary development violence, properly administered, was understood as a force for good. The groups who defended their territories from predators and other human tribes prospered. Those groups that were more cautious and timid lost-out.
In our modern affluent societies violence seems to have no place. But the urge to explore, overcome dangerous obstacles, and remain confident in the face of long odds are undoubtedly linked to aggression.
It is not the eradication of violence that is sought, but the domestication of it. And the ability to channel our domineering instincts to constructive purposes.
It is not possible for everyone to be an alpha.
We should beat the violence genes right out of them!
This is a trivial topic. Of course, as with almost all traits and behaviours, some of it is genetically/biologically influenced, and some is environmentally/culturally affected, and nature and nurture facilitate each other in a snowball effect. So what?! The only people who want to haggle about percentages are those with a barrow to push — a political stance, or an emotional preoccupation.
Even if something is largely physiologically determined, this does not preclude us from overruling it as society and circumstances change. We have relatively big brains, and we are an adaptable species. So with the development of weapons of mass destruction, it is not only okay, but is necessary to dampen down our innate tendency to solve disputes with violence,
And even if something is substantially culture-bound, this doesn’t mean it is easy, or even okay, to overrule it.
Men are much more likely to take risks if those risks might lead to a big payoff because that big payoff allows him to have high status, which women value. I have known many men who took big risks (started their own business for example) and got that big payoff. For women there is not a comparable equation. In the case of poor men, the risk might be dealing drugs and this business brings with it violence.
Unfortunately, men also have more members who are at the lower end of intelligence compared to women. Such men may also lack impulse control and not think through the risk of holding up a bank.
Dear Maria Kouloglou, sometimes it’s better to be easier.
1. Compare woman’s hand with fingers folded into a fist with a man’s fist.
2. Compare how a woman throws a stone with how a man does it.
I’m afraid that then you won’t have to write such a long essay about why men are more prone to violence. Although women, for natural reasons, are less familiar with razors (including Occam’s razor 🙂 )
Modern existence is easy and almost danger-free. But this is not the environment humans evolved in. What is ignored is the fact that for most of human evolutionary history violence was a social GOOD. THE VIOLENT SURVIVED! Throughout most of history, every creature, including humans, produced more offspring than could survive. The result was conflict over limited resources. The groups who could stave off competing groups (using violence) for the best territory lived, others died. The females who mated with the males who were most violent (but not so violent that she or her offspring would be hurt) probably did best. There are at least two lines of thought in this matter: 1). Early females did not really SELECT mates. The males battled for dominance and the females were happy to mate with the males who rose to the top. This instinct still applies as the successful male or acclaimed… Read more »
One factor in male violence against women that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned here (or in many discussions elsewhere) is the role of religion. Most of the world’s major religions (including even some sects of Buddhism) see women as in variuos ways inferior to men. This must feed in to men’s self-justification for treating women badly, and ultimately violently. If we had a female Pope, a female Dali Lama (the current one says this is possible!) and no exclusively female restrictions on women’s behaviour, dress or access to the public sphere, things might be different!
I wish I had the patience to make it to the end of an Areo article but it’s difficult to tolerate such constant mamby pamby philosophizing of everything. It makes me want to puke.
There is no such thing as “toxic masculinity.”
If anything is toxic, it’s the toxic feminization of masculinity by a society that can’t make up its mind whether to stand or squat to pee.
My advice to my fellow males? Eat less soy, it’s stripping you of your testosterone.
It’s good that you’re thinking about this, but “socialization” vs the effects of “external, societal forces” seems a distinction without a difference. What does socialization mean in a society with “systemic problems … (such as poverty, discrimination, stigma, etc.)”? How are “external, societal forces” not major components of/influences on “socialization”? To me, overcoming the systemic problems is part of what we expect in a properly socialized male. In _any_ society there will be problems for either sex to overcome. If we eliminate one set of problems. another set will arise, and people have to be trained (socialized) to resist succumbing to them whatever those problems are. As to biology, isn’t “Men carry a burden of performance: they have to prove themselves through their actions,” an effect we can attribute to biological differences and psychological evolution? I think that’s part of what Jordan Peterson is saying when he talks about the… Read more »
“Sociologist Robert K. Merton has theorized that people from lower socioeconomic classes often commit crimes because they have fewer legal opportunities to achieve the goals that are recognized as worthy by society, and are hence forced to turn to illegal methods” Sigh, no. These men who are in prison are disproportionately from the lower half of men. Their intelligence is average or below average. Lack of high intelligence means a lack of ability to plan ahead. Criminals think they won’t be caught. If criminals could think ahead, they’d realize that they’re much better off working a straight job that pays more long-term, than they are breaking in to cars or warehouses. But they can’t, so they don’t. Lower intelligence also expresses itself in a crippling lack of self-control. Men will get angry at some slight, real or perceived, and lash out in violence. The consequences are not considered. Many also… Read more »
It’s due to intense male intra-sexual competitiveness, a corollary of the far greater selection acting on males. The sexes function to purge mutations via selection on males, boosting the ability of sex to maintain genomic integrity Moxon, S.P. New Males Studies (2019) 8(1), 25-51 ABSTRACT The function of the sexes is revealed within the context of new understanding that sex maintains genome integrity. Whereas originally evolved features of sex, conserved in early stages of meiosis, repair gross DNA damage, later phases repair fine-scale DNA damage (mutations) via ploidy and the sexes effecting purifying selection. Rather than in anisogamy, the (proto-)male arises in mating-types, revealing that greater selection on the male is the male’s defining characteristic; this confirmed in experiment and modelling. The variation theory ignores all evidence from many fields that it’s asexual reproduction that produces variation. Recent tests unwittingly support the genome-integrity model. The profundity of male/female distinction in… Read more »
Red flags throughout this mainly biased opinion article that cherry picks information the author deemed worthy of focus but lacks any broad neurobiological studies or more importantly neuropsychological research which go further and examine through fMRIs how areas of the brain affect whether one has the capability to feel empathy, stop impulses, etc. Neurobiologists also study and share knowledge about cultural/societal influences which greatly effects behavior, beliefs but the article doesn’t give any consideration. Depending on cultural values which vary widely depending where one resides many of the stereotypical expectations of how a man or woman behaves have changed drastically from what the author gives focus. It reads like a 1950s era of male and female expectations of behavior. I mostly liked your first article but this one neglects to show the many valuable research studies from the various neurosciences which give a deeper understanding about the brain and why… Read more »
“Violence, Fairless freely allows, is something he craves, something that, when exerted in a just cause, feels intensely right. …
The questions of why he is the way he is and what he could (or should) do about it were both intellectual, for someone with a master’s degree in neuroscience, and personal, for the son of anti-Vietnam War American immigrants.
So, for Mad Blood Stirring: The Inner Lives of Violent Men, Fairless read the scientific research and spoke with men for whom violence was a constant presence, whether socially sanctioned (mixed martial arts fighters, soldiers), barely tolerated (drunken sports fans) or utterly beyond the pale (killers, rapists). ”
A fascinating read.
https://www.macleans.ca/society/mad-blood-stirring-daemon-fairless/
I was a bit distrusting you (if it were you) because of your first article defending ‘liberal’ feminism. But I like you better and better. This is very good.
I commend you for really wanting to understand the phenomenon rather than just using it to bash men.
But you and anyone else truly wanting to understand male violence might want to read the book “Mad Blood Stirring”: The Inner Lives of Violent Men” by Daemon Fairless which explores male violence in a very nuanced, personal, and original manner. It got zero attention of course because it goes against current thinking.
https://www.facebook.com/cbcasithappens/videos/1605597599487388/
https://twitter.com/theagenda/status/1019590112848408576?lang=en