Who was it that said the answer to male violence against women wasn’t a curfew for women but one for men?

Golda Meir.

Isn’t there a study out there that shows that due to the degeneration of the Y chromosome, men will be extinct anyway in something like 33,000 years or something like that?

Thats bad science for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the y chromosome isn’t the only sex determining chromosome in the animal kingdom; it isn’t even the only one found in mammals. Second, the y chromosome has been around for about 300 million years. Humans in their modern form have been around for about 200,000 years. A drastic genetic change in 33,000 years is unlikely. Its taken around 50,000 years to develop the tiny differences we seen between races, something in the neighborhood of 10,000 years to develop blue eyes. The idea that something as fundamental as biological sex could somehow disappear in the evolutionary blip of 33,000 years is unlikely. Even beyond that you have the issue of recombination. I think it was at MIT, but recently a group of researchers discovered that the y chromosome is capable of rebuilding itself because of redundant gene sequences. On top of that, you’re looking at a civilization that is on the cusp of literally besting nature. I doubt that humanity won’t at least have the technology to design genes and chromosomes 100 years out from now. Think about it, do you really think the more technologically advances cultures on earth will even have gender in a recognizable form 200 or 300 years from now? What would gender mean in a world where people could try on whatever body they wanted for a day or a year at a time? What happens when gender reassignment becomes a reversible, outpatient procedure? What happens when men can give birth and technology makes the difference between men and women purely cosmetic?

Oh, and if “testosterone” or equivalently “men’s intrinsic nature” is what causes them to be violent, I’m afraid the solution would be to lock them all up. We have to protect innocent victims from those who can’t restrain themselves.

Why bother with a lock up at all? Admittedly I read about this from a book, but wouldn’t it make sense just to kill all the males instead? When you lock people up, they still have a chance of escaping, but if you kill them, unless technology allows us to bring back people from the dead sometime in the future, they stay dead.

Since we were all females before some of us got changed to males, then there are some who would view men as the mutants/abnormal, and as I’ve often heard, “poisoned” by their own vast amounts of testosterone. The natural conclusion that stems from the theory that men are the evil and violent ones in society is that if you kill all of them, then finally, all the violence and rapes and assaults, etc, will stop, and women can finally live free without worrying about being raped every second of their lives. Afterall, scientists have discovered ways to replicate sperm, or so I’ve heard, and since women and men are both humans and men have no additional biological purpose other than creating sperm, he is in essence, obsolete not essential for reproduction (assuming that sperm replication is totally without defects).

Isn’t there a study out there that shows that due to the degeneration of the Y chromosome, men will be extinct anyway in something like 33,000 years or something like that? Humanity probably won’t live that long (we’d have destroyed ourselves before then, most likely), but it is interesting nevertheless.

Sorry, but I’ve always been interested in the above scenarios, from a what if? point of view.

The above comment was meant to be a response to Muse, not Ashley, but it works well enough for both. To Ashley, I will only add — again, with respect for our differences, and appreciation for your reply — that I’m only asking that when you note that men are more violent than women, you also note that men *receive more of that violence* than women.

If men are the ones mainly causing AND receiving of the violence then wouldn’t more men be actively working AGAINST the grain of violent socialization of men, at least for their own safety and well being? Unfortunately, it is up to feminists and women (the ones not causing most of the violence, yet receiving their fair share) to try and show men how to behave and how not to behave. It is at its very core men’s problem, but it becomes women’s problem when men fail to fix themselves and each other.

Oh, and if “testosterone” or equivalently “men’s intrinsic nature” is what causes them to be violent, I’m afraid the solution would be to lock them all up. We have to protect innocent victims from those who can’t restrain themselves.

Exactly. If men want to fall back on some biological, irrepressible reason for being violent then there really is only one option left…they leave us no choice….

You can call that an attempt to use my privilege as a man in anti-feminist if you want, but I think it’s holding you to basic standards of intellectual and moral honesty. To write about the problem the way you wrote about it isn’t just focusing on women, it’s actively deceptive, and in an actively harmful way. I don’t think you meant to do that, but it’s what you did.

I think you’re missing the points that Ashley and Muse have been making, Mike. The fact of the matter is that the specific focus of discussion here was the ways in which gender and language factor into perceptions, reporting, and responses to violence. Moreover, this discussion is on a feminist web site. The point that was being made is that there is plenty of literature and discussion about the effects of violence on men because the focus of most social discussion is on the ruling class. Yes, men face more violence than women, but the violence women face is of such a substantially different nature that it deserves special discussion. Beyond that, the social response to that violence is different enough that it can’t really be considered the same thing. Discussions have boundaries, and sometimes you need to define just what you’re talking about in order to avoid mission creep.

Lets put it another way. Say I’m in a bar, a drink gets spilled, words are exchanged, and then it comes to blows. If I get in a fist fight at a bar with another guy, society isn’t going to respond very much. Unless someone is seriously injured charges are unlikely to be filed, the police might not care to arrest because its too much paperwork, none of my friends or acquaintances will be shocked or horrified, and a year or two down the road its just another story that gets traded around for laughs or nostalgia. Society deems it a non-issue, or even a badge of honor. Even then, the reasons for me getting into a fight are unlikely to be social but situational or interpersonal. No one is going to start swinging on me because I’m a man and I don’t matter. If a woman was involved in the same kind of conflict, in the same setting, with the same behaviors, the social responses, attributions, and reasons for someone attacking her are likely to be very different. The guy who starts swinging with me is going to be thinking “this guy is an asshole, I should hit him” if I were a woman the thought would more likely be “this bitch doesn’t know her place, I’ll show her.” Even at this fairly mundane level of violence, the reasons, reactions, and attributions are so different that they become different kinds of violence.

The point that Ashley and Muse were making was that pointing out men’s victimization is showing your privilege because you don’t seem to be making that very basic connection. Violence faced by men is a different creature than violence faced by women. Moreover, no matter how badly we might get our asses kicked in a bar fight, you and I can be pretty sure the fight isn’t going to end in rape. That simply isn’t true for a woman, and that makes all the difference in the world.

And to suggest that men are simply on their own when it comes to their issues because of privilege is deeply troubling to me. It ignores the class element in play here — the poor are not privileged, and they are disproportionately affected by what I’m talking about — and it seems rather bizarrely ungenerous. Why can’t you help me too? I’m not saying you have to, I’m asking you. I’m asking especially because, as I’ve said before, I think feminists are uniquely qualified to help here — because my privileged male brethren are not, generally speaking, very well equipped to handle the problem.

I’ll stop derailing now, and I apologize if you feel I’ve violated your space.