From: barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry)
Subject: Re: Living in a State of Siege
Organization: QQQCLC
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 09:39:06 GMT

In article <168C1CB92.SURGDM@mizzou1.missouri.edu> Diane writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.184824.10383@rat.csc.calpoly.edu>
>dgross@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu (Dave Gross) writes:
>>        "We men" are surrounded by violence from our circumcision in infancy
>>(no anaesthesia, thank you) to being bullied in elementary school; from trying
>>out for the football team in high school to registering for the draft; from
>>being several times more likely than our sisters to be murdered to watching
>>boxing on television; from visiting Arlington National Cemetery to running our
>>fingers along the Vietnam War Memorial.
>>
>Just a few questions/answers:
> 
>[summary: men perpetrate most violence]

	This misses the point. Whoever perpetrates the violence (not me,
honest :-), the victims are of both sexes, and actually predominantly
men. _All_ of us live with the fact that we're potentially going to be
victims of violence, and some of us have been, whatever our sex.

	I think the point Dave was making is that men live with an
approximately equal chance of being a victim of violence, and at least
as great an awareness of the danger. Even so, it seems undeniable that
women are, on average, more concerned about the possibility, and more
fearful, than are men.

	Why is that? I think part of the reason is the special dangers
of sexual assault women face. But it also has to do with the average
difference between the sexes in attitudes toward violence. Men are
trained more to deal with violence, women to shrink from it.

	If there is a problem of male violence toward women which is
distinct from the problem of violence in general (and I think there is),
this is part of it. Having given up some of the traditional protection
of women by men (do you know any women that never go out in public
without a male escort?), perhaps women need to be raised to a more
"male" attitude toward violence, so that fear of violence will not
inhibit their freedom to any greater degree than it does men.

>Are you seeing a trend here? If there's a problem with violence, it looks
>suspiciously like a male-problem that women are supposed to just put up with,
>because we may not make up the largest segment of victims.

	But why choose up sides by gender? Try to see the problem from
the point of view of the "good man", who doesn't go around bonking
people. If he hears of a man assaulting a woman, do you think he
identifies with the attacker as a fellow male, or with the victim, as a
potential victim himself? I should hope the answer is obvious to you. If
so, can you see why he'd feel wounded by being grouped with the
criminals instead of the victims and being blamed for the violence?

>You seem to be angry that women
>would dare to usurp whatever fear you claim to be living with. Deal with it.
>We have dealt with it, are dealing with it, and we're sick of it. You're
>going to have to get your sympathy from somewhere else.

	Men deal with it; we've been dealing with it longer than women
have :-). Up until recently there was a male response to the problem
which our culture employed: the good men protected women from the bad
men. Women were escorted nearly everywhere, so there'd be a man to
protect her if a bad man came along (and, yes, I'm talking about
middle- and upper-class women; they're the proper comparison to most
modern women reading this net). The problem with this system is that it
leaves women much less freedom of action than a man has. The best thing
would be to get rid of bad men, but no culture I know of has figured
out how to do this.

	Once you reject the traditional ideas of chivalry as too
restrictive of women, you've for the most part taken the good man out of
the loop. What can he do to help, other than stand guard? His options
are limited.

-  Nothing fails like success  -             Kenn Barry
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