From: mbisted@ssf-sys.dhl.com (Morris Bisted)
Subject: Re: Males Doing it to Themselves
Organization: DHL Systems, Inc.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 18:19:17 GMT
Keywords: feminist wish-fantasies; mesomorphic thugs

In article <18999@smoke.brl.mil> matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt) writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.182426.2921@gateway.ssf-sys.DHL.COM> 
>mbisted@ssf-sys.dhl.com (Morris Bisted) writes:
>
>>In article <18983@smoke.brl.mil> matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt) 
>>writes:
>
>>>Anyone who has ever looked around at boys and girls, men and women, in
>>>the real world, knows that boys and men are more aggressive and more
>>>violent than girls and women.  This is true in every society on earth.
>>>system on feminist wish-fantasies.  Any legal system that wound up fining 
>>>and jailing equal numbers of men and woman would have to be unjust.
>>>[Matt Rosenblatt]
>
>>I have read of non-western societies where women take on traditional male 
>>roles and are the aggressor and resolvers of violent conflict.
>>[Morris Bisted]
>
>I'm not surprised that Mr. Bisted has read of such societies.  Consider:
>
>    "In 1935, when [world-famous anthropologist] Margaret Mead published 

historical references to National Review article which concludes that 
Margaret Mead did not find any societies where the non-traditional 
sex roles existed deleted.

I concede that your evidence suggests that Margaret Mead does not
deny differences in sexes.  This discussion does little to convince me
of the validity of your statement. " Any legal system that wound up fining 
and jailing equal numbers of men and woman would have to be unjust" [Matt
Rosenblatt]. I thought the issue was crime and punishment based on sex.  

You go on later to say.
>I do not deny that environment affects how men and women behave.  I
>agree that it is possible for a violent, aggressive man to subdue his
>evil inclination and never harm anyone again. [Matt Rosenblatt] 

I see an inconsistency here.  If men can curb there violent tendancies
so they can live with in lawful confines, then how can any legal system
that punishes men and women equally be unjust.  It seems to be that if
you acknowledge a volitional argument, then a system that punishes people,
does so on the act committed not the sex of the offender.  If there is 
equal punishment, there must have been equal acts committed.  Unequal 
punishment shows unequal acts committed.  This argument does not take 
into a account racial/sexual bias shown in different sentencing or 
conviction rates for similar crimes, as that is an implementation 
issue (It is a problem, just not the subject matter of this discussion ).

By definition, equal punishment does not mean unjust.  It means equal
unlawful acts committed.

>
>If Mr. Bisted or anyone else read my posting as meaning something along
>the lines, "We can't help being violent and aggressive because we're
>born that way," that's not the message I intended to get across.  All
>I stated is that proportionately more men commit violent crimes because
>proportionately more men are born with aggressive impulses.  Men's
>greater innate aggressive impulse gives them a harder task than women
>have when it comes to controlling that impulse and staying out of jail.
>The fact that it is harder for men to control their violent impulse
>than it is for women in no way excuses those men who fail to do so.

I'm not convinced that "aggression" == "violence".  I see violence as one
possible manifestation of aggression.  Others may be verbal combat, sporting
competition and I'm sure a myriad of other things.  Isn't the guy who wants
to get to the top of the corporate latter at any cost "aggressive"?  So I
conclude that the mode chosen to implement this aggressiveness, if it
be violence, is inappropriate for the society in which we live.  Which
again circulates back to the volitional act.  So, I guess, I concede that
there may be more "aggressive" compounds produced in males than in females,
but it is unclear to me that this is causal to more violence without the 
added inputs from the aggressor of a desire to do violence.

I conclude that although men may have more aggressive chemical makeups, that
should not be causal to more violence, unless aggressiveness equates to
violence, and volition is non-existant.

Thanks for the good research regarding Margret Mead

Morris