Saturday 26 February 2011

What's all the fuss about male violence?

These excerpts are taken from an essay entitled "Masculinity, Violence, and Sexual Murder" co-written by Deborah Cameron and Elizabeth Frazer.

"They[feminists] say that men need, and feel entitled to have, unrestricted sexual access to women,..."
Actually I would argue that it's the other way around and not only in regards to sexual access but to access in general i.e. hookups, relationships, marriage. Women are now the majority of those receiving college degrees and most women look for men that are at least as if not more educated than themselves. Many assume (Lori Gottlieb) that another more perfect man is just around the never-ending corner. The statistics are not in our favor ladies. I think we need to collectively let go of this idea of Prince Charming.

"It expresses[rape, assault, etc.] not purely individual anger and frustration but a collective, culturally sanctioned misogyny which is important in maintaining the collective power of men."
It seems very difficult to make a case for "men rape, therefore they are all collectively violent unless they are feminists." The majority of men will never rape or assault anyone, let alone a woman, therefore I find this statement hard to deal with. What is the collective power of men? I'm not sure when this was written but men hold very little collective power in my opinion. Feel free to disagree if you have examples.

"Male violence against women is defined broadly by feminists to include not just the most obvious cases...but also and most importantly, a range of male behaviors ... like flashing, stealing underwear, and making obscene phone-calls."
Forgive me for taking this one on a personal level, but I find a lot of feminist claims to be very personal rather than logical so I don't feel too bad. I have never been flashed. In fact the majority of flashing I've seen in my life is of women flashing men (Girls Gone Wild anyone?) I've never had my underwear stolen and never even hear of this happening to anyone. The authors are going to have to be a little more specific with "obscene phone-calls." Sure they're are creepy people out there but you know what? They're not just men. Chances are you have caller ID and if you don't recognize a number then don't pick up. If it's legitimate they'll leave a message. No big deal really.

What's all the fuss about male violence? Yes violence happens and we should be working to reduce that (obviously) but I'm not sure how demonizing one sex is going to help overall. It seems to me that an awful lot of women like to write essays, but not many of them that write these words are actually out in the field. Interesting. Very interesting.

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