11 Comments

This is such an important article. One thing that strikes me is that, now that many artificial barriers for women have been removed, women are excelling. They're going to college in higher numbers, they're becoming doctors and lawyers and business people, they play sports, they're just fine living independently. (As an aside, when I was a kid 67 years ago, I couldn't get a paper route, which were reserved for boys only. I couldn't play sports, which I loved. Those times are not that far in the distance.)

Th removal of barrier for women is threatening to some men, who now face competition for jobs that used to be theirs or meet women who are strong and self sufficient. Maybe what they should do instead of crying, whining and attacking women is grow the heck up, put on their big boy pants and adjust to a world in which they're not automatically the top of the heap.

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Homo Sapiens are an extremely violent and exploitive species. Look at our 200,000 year history and how we are destroying (and exploiting) the natural world today.

An evolutionary psychologist can perhaps best answer your question. My educated guess is that since male homo sapiens are stronger than females, natural selection has placed them in the aggressive role of “fighter” and “defender of the tribe.”

Michael Ghiglieri’s book The Dark Side of Man describes this reality, and how a society with a lot of young men is much more inclined to violence and war than a society with a higher percentage of women.

Women are the peacemakers. It’s human nature. (I am not so sure about women who are inclined toward Trumpism.)

Thus, I think the better question is “What’s the Matter with Men?” I provide an answer above. The “cure” for this societal illness is a liberal (and liberally-educated) electorate, with meaningful (or better yet, equal) input from its female members. Jill makes the sound point that Republican women can be anti-women sexists, which as I see it is a hugely regressive problem.

In an educated, civil society, the aggressive instincts of the society’s male members are tempered. Men become “civilized.” Contrast a Trumpist society, where the aggressive male instincts are encouraged--revealing the dark side of our nature.

I believe what I write above complements Jill's excellent article.

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When I was a child and I said that my behavior was a reaction to something someone else had done, my father would tell my to "Act. Don't react." It took me a long time to internalize that. I finally reached the point where it caused me to examine my behavior long enough to recognize that I was reacting and not thinking.

I am confident that much of the testosterone-fueled acts of rage are thoughtless reactions. Too many people with guns and itchy trigger fingers.

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Whoops! Well anyway,the idea was that growing up with this entitled perception made him dangerous when reality didn’t match. Clearly, this is much broader than I knew then.

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This all makes so much sense. I worked in the field of domestic violence when I was younger & I remember noticing as I learned that the mindset of abusers was that if they weren’t getting their way that someone should fix that or. Else. There was also a sort of societal parable about a boy who was told he “owned” a large area of land (I think) but when he grew up and was told, no, it wasn’t his. His disappointment and anger at the unfairness of this being taken from him was

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Thank you for writing this, sobering statistics and really challenging data.

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Watch out. Someone is going to accuse you of channeling Andrea Dworkin. That's a complement.

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