Real Men Do Hit Women

The prospect that the problem of gendered violence can be resolved by a return to ‘real masculinity’ has wide appeal. But who is a real man and who isn’t? And if real men don’t hit women, then who does?

https://meanjin.com.au/essays/real-men-do-hit-women/

This quote from Martin Luther King Jr is referenced a few times in the essay:

Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself.



From the essay:

In the sense that ‘a community at peace with itself’ is also the goal of gendered violence prevention, it would seem that we have a lot to learn from the civil rights movement. The urge to shame and reject perpetrators of violence is understandable but it risks the ‘spiral’ of mutual aggression King describes. It may be necessary to restrain or incapacitate perpetrators of violence but, ultimately, peace must be built and cannot be imposed. Notably, King’s promotion of non-violence still opposed racism in all its forms. He did not capitulate to ideologies of white supremacy in an attempt to appeal to those who disagreed with him. This is another important lesson for the prevention of violence against women. We wouldn’t dream of an anti-racism message such as ‘Real whites don’t hit blacks’. Attempting to reduce racist violence by endorsing racist notions of ‘real whites’ would be unconscionable. Yet gender inequality and ideologies of male power are so pervasive that many of us don’t blink at a slogan like ‘real men don’t hit women’, to the point where it is championed by successive prime ministers.

Non-violence offers new options for violence prevention. After all, every boy is born non-violent. No boy grows up aspiring to abuse his partner or his children. Men and women share a deep wish for lasting relationships. Under the conditions of male dominance, this wish can be fundamentally distorted. The experiences of men attending family violence perpetrator programs attest to the fact that violence destroys relationships and can produce deeply unsatisfying lives of alienation and frustration. Violent men are often left grieving for the loss of connection with their partners and children. In this sense, violence harms the men who commit it as well as those they hurt...

Care, patience and compassion are not the characteristics that, as a society, we generally value in men, compared to the strength and aggression of the ‘real men’ that dominate our television, movies and newspapers. Non-violence inverts this common logic by emphasising the weakness and destructiveness of violence in comparison to the enduring power of peace-making. Violence prevention efforts could have a critical role to play in affirming the choice of non-violence for boys and men, illustrating not only the pitfalls of violence but also the potential of non-violence as the basis for meaningful relationships and happy lives.

 

It’s unfair that men are stronger!”!

 

Nice pic

 

I don't hit people because thats a stupid way to handle problems. I've had the same group of family and friends and I've never had to hit anyone because were not a bunch of degenerates.

Self defense is another story. If you put hands on me, you better be able to take punches, knees and elbows. No one is above an asswhippin.