The foundation of violence is from how it is viewed as part of male nature under the patriarchal mentality. This echoes that there is somehow a biological connection between having a penis and being violent. Violence is a statement of being a man. This is drilled very early in childhood.
I recall the fights over who fears who that were started with dirt in a person’s hand and the brave one pushing the hand towards the less aggressive one. In a jiffy, punches and kicks would fly and we would have ourselves a street fight that would end when one either cries or bleeds, sometimes both. The loser got laughed at while the victor was patted on the back.
This mentality is proliferated by violent television content of most action movies that paint the picture of the hero being the good man who wins the fight against the bad man through the use of guns and martial arts . This is the movie script of at least one of your favorite action movie stars from Sylvester Stallone to Chuck Norris.
Therefore, a United Nations report that spells out that violence against women is the world’s most pervasive form of human rights abuse must not come as something even close to a shock to you. Sounds unbelievable? Refer to Andrea Dworkin in Scapegoat.
What should be even more unbelievable is that there are documented cases of cultures in this world where men are not violent in their daily lives, where rape and murder are as rare as having snow in the summer. We are not talking about some alien planet, we are directly pointing at patriarchal planet earth. This patriarchy Ebola is so infectious that even females are starting to level up to their male counterparts with violent acts.
As male violence spreads like wildfire, the obvious relief pill might be studying those peaceful outlier cultures and replicating findings across the globe. Before that happens, there are various patriarchal demons dragging us to hell, one of them is emotional abuse.
Marti Tori Loring identifies emotional abuse as “an ongoing process in which one individual systematically diminishes and destroys the inner self of another. The essential ideas, feelings, perception and personality characteristics of the victim are constantly belittled… The most salient identifying characteristic of emotional is its patterned aspect… It is…It is the ongoing effort to demean and control, that constitutes emotional abuse.”
With the above definition in focus, how many times were you a victim? How many times have you been the culprit? You will appreciate that emotional abuse is not only restricted to those chained by marriage bonds but also spreads to infinite social circles, family, friends, and even a stranger is well capable of stabbing you with an emotional abuse spear.
Shall we talk about the instinctive vow of silence that women and children take against abusive men? There is a group think that involves covering up the heinous things that men do to women and children. The silence exhibits our communal cultural conspiracy with patriarchy.
In breaking the silence, Terrence Real, author of ‘How Can I Get Through to You?’ shares accounts from his family therapy sessions where clients break the news of their father’s sins. The sins include how fathers instituted rituals of power, using shaming, withdrawal, threats and violence if all else fails.
Hooks utters that self-help books uphold the notion that women choose men who will repeatedly ill treat them as a truism. These books barely bother mentioning patriarchy and the evolution of relationships. A woman can be wedded to a gentleman that becomes a barbarian during moments of crisis.
Furthermore, Hooks admits how she has come to believe violence as boyhood socialisation. The assertion reminds me of a documentary I saw about an initiation school of an African tribe. To complete initiation, a boy had to go between two rows of men facing each other and beating him with sticks. If he managed to withstand the pain and go through the two rows, he was declared as having graduated from boy to man.
Being a man means sucking it up and continuously moving. Disconnection is masculinity. Masculinity is being a glorified emotional cripple.
The ills of this socialisation exist in both two-parent and single female-headed households. Patriarchy leads to maternal sadism (sadism is the activity of getting pleasure, sometimes sexual, from being cruel to or hurting another person) in women who sympathize with its logic. Pardon me for including the definition of sadism, I wanted readers who did not know the word to get the message without dividing their attention to a dictionary.
It should be sensible that male rage is often geared particularly at women in intimate relationships. The nature of the relationships awakens the acrimony and slow burn they felt in childhood when their mothers did not protect them from their fathers’ brutalisation or ruthlessly cleave emotional bonds in the name of patriarchy. It is worth noting that single mothers are even more brutal than fathers in twisting their sons’ arms to obeying patriarchal standards.
How do we halt male violence?
By loving our boys correctly. We have to let go of Sesotho sayings such as “Ngoana moshanyana ke petsoa majoeng.” The general translation being that a boy child should be strong enough to survive being thrown on stones. This comes in mind when a boy has to leave home. Why won’t boys in their teens be given a chance of healthy independence like girls instead of being cut off like dead weight and being told to man up?
This is most critical in this day and age of high unemployment rate that boys are willing to make something of themselves under the hardship of unemployment and parent neglect. I see you brothers. Keep going. When the time comes, treat your sons differently. Treat your women well. Love your women and children. The cycle of violence against women and children ends with you.
Going deeper, Hooks highlights that adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in the past, incapable of allowing themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. Could you blame them? Given that the first women they loved many times over, their mother, betrayed her bond of love, then how can they ever trust that their partner will be true to love?
Talk to most men and they will tell you that a woman is maintained by money. Come to think of it, some cultural practices such as the issuing of dowry stamp this belief. A woman is just a tool to expand the family name and please a man. A toy and tool for his amusement. So what if he treats her badly? He paid for her. Marriage becomes another business transaction. No emotions involved, just child rearing business.
With the above in consideration, many men would rather put their trust in the power of domination than in love. Frank Pittman in Man Enough assures that “while most of us want to be loved, controllers are willing to forego love if that is what it takes to be the boss.” Such attitudes have given birth to sayings like it is better to be feared than be loved.
Hooks explains love with the assistance of M. Scott Peck’s perception of love as the will to nurture one’s own and another’s spiritual and emotional growth. Equally important is Eric Fromm’s sageness that love is action and not just merely feeling. She elaborates that she advised men who want to know love to conceptualize it as a union of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.
Patriarchal men are properly schooled in the art of being responsible and giving instrumental care. Being schooled in those is far from them doing them. The disability of men mixing caring with being violent makes it hard for anyone to fathom that male violence blocks the ability for males to give and receive love.
Wives want husbands who are sensitive to others, have the capacity to identity and share their feelings and a willingness to put their feelings aside in the service of the family. In our culture, boys and men must be socialised and raised to be intimate. That is the way to bring male violence to a complete stop. If men could acknowledge that they care, that they are emotionally connected, it would be easier to have heart to heart talks instead of having violence as a resort, first or last.
Throughout the entire book, the most moving fact was that women across all ages attested to the view that they are not being loved by the men in their lives as they feel they should. In short, men and boys are doing a terrible job at loving. A huge red X for all of us. Right here, right now, are you willing to make changes on the way you love? Are you willing to love the women in your life the way they want to be loved?
If you do, let’s complete this book together and learn how. The next chapter addresses male sexuality. We are still reading The Will to Change, Men, Masculinity and Love by Bell Hooks.