Power, Privilege, Permission, Paradox, Psychic armour, Pressure cooker, Past
For a moment my eyes turned away from the workshop participants and out through
the windows of the small conference room and towards the Himalayas in the distance
north of Kathmandu.
I was there, leading a workshop, largely the result of remarkable work of Unicef
and Unifem which, a year earlier, had brought together women and men from throughout
South Asia to discuss the problem of violence against women and girls and, most
importantly, to work together to find solutions. (1)
As I turned back to the women and men in the group, it felt more familiar than
different: women taking enormous chances - in some cases risking their lives -
to fight the tide of violence against women and girls.
Men who were just beginning to find their anti-patriarchal voices and to find
ways to work alongside women.
And what pleasantly surprised me was a test of a series of ideas about men's
violence that, until then, I wasn't entirely sure if they were more about the
realities in North and South America and Europe - that is largely-Europeanized
cultures.
Here, then, is the kernel of this analysis:
The First "P": Patriarchal Power
Individual acts of violence by men occurs within what I have
described as 'the triad of men's violence.' Men's violence against women
does not occur in isolation but is linked to men's violence against other
men and to the internalization of violence, that is, a man's violence
against himself. (2)
Indeed male-dominated societies are not only based on a hierarchy of men
over women but some men over other men. Violence or the threat of violence
among men is a mechanism used from childhood to establish that pecking
order. One result of this is that men "internalize" violence, or perhaps,
the demands of patriarchal society encourage biological instincts that
otherwise might be more relatively dormant or benign. The result is not
only that boys and men learn to selectively use violence, but also, as we
shall later see, redirect a range of emotions into rage, which sometimes
takes the form of self-directed violence, as seen, for example in substance
abuse or self-destructive behaviour.
This triad of men's violence, each form of violence helping create the
others, occurs within a nurturing environment of violence: the organization
and demands of patriarchal or male dominant societies. What gives violence
its hold as a way of doing business, what has naturalized it as the de
facto standard of human relations, is the way it has been articulated into
our ideologies and social structures. Simply put, human groups create
self-perpetuating forms of social organization and ideologies that explain,
give meaning to, justify, and replenish these created realities.
Violence is also built into these ideologies and structures for the simpler
reason that it has brought enormous benefits to particular
groups: first and foremost, violence (or at least the threat of violence),
has helped confer on men (as a group) a rich set of privileges and forms
of power. If indeed the original forms of social hierarchy and power are
those based on sex, then this long ago formed a template for all the
structured forms of power and privilege enjoyed by others as a result of social
class or skin color, age, religion, sexual orientation, or physical
abilities. In such a context, violence or its threat become a means to ensure
the continued reaping of privileges and exercise of power. It is both a
result and a means to an end.
The Second "P": The Sense of Entitlement to Privilege
The individual experience of a man who commits violence may
not revolve around his desire to maintain power. His conscious
experience is not the key here. Rather, as feminist analysis has repeatedly
pointed out, such violence is often the logical outcome of his sense of
entitlement to certain privileges. If a man beats his wife for not having
dinner on the table right on time, it is not only to make sure that it
doesn't happen again, but is an indication of his sense of entitlement to be
waited on. Or, say a man sexually assaults a woman on a date, it is
about his sense of entitlement to his physical pleasure even if that pleasure is
entirely one sided. In other words, as many women have pointed out, it is not only
inequalities of power that lead to violence, but a conscious or often
unconscious sense of entitlement to privilege.
The Third "P": Permission
Whatever the complex social and psychological causes of men's
violence, it wouldn't continue if there weren't explicit or tacit
permission in social customs, legal codes, law enforcement, and certain religious
teachings. In many countries, laws against wife assault or sexual assault are lax or
non-existent; in many others laws are barely enforced; in
still others they are absurd, such as those countries where a charge of rape can only be
prosecuted if there are several male witnesses and where the
testimony of the woman isn't taken into account.
Meanwhile, acts of men's violence and violent aggression (in
this case, usually against other men) are celebrated in sport and cinema, in
literature and warfare. Not only is violence permitted, it
is glamorized and rewarded. The very historic roots of patriarchal
societies is the use of violence as a key means of solving disputes and
differences, whether among individuals, groups of men, or, later, between nations.
I am often reminded of this permission when I hear of a man
or women who fails to call the police when they hear a woman neighbour or
child being beaten. It is deemed a "private" affair. Can you imagine
someone seeing a store being robbed and declining to call the police because
it is a private affair between the robber and the store owner?
The Fourth "P": The Paradox of Men's Power
It is my contention, however, that such things do not in
themselves explain the widespread nature of men's violence, nor the connections
between men's violence against women and the many forms of violence among
men. Here we need to draw on the paradoxes of men's power or what I have
called "men's contradictory experiences of power." (3)
The very ways that men have constructed our social and
individual power is, paradoxically, the source of enormous fear, isolation, and
pain for men ourselves. If power is constructed as a capacity to dominate
and control, if the capacity to act in "powerful" ways requires the
construction of a personal suit of armor and a fearful distance from others, if the very
world of power and privilege removes us from the world of
child-rearing and nurturance, then we are creating men whose own experience of power is
fraught with crippling problems.
This is particularly so because the internalized expectations of
masculinity are themselves impossible to satisfy or attain.
This may well be a problem inherent in patriarchy, but it seems
particularly true in an era and in cultures where rigid gender boundaries have been
overthrown. Whether it is physical or financial accomplishment, or the
suppression of a range of human emotions and needs, the imperatives of
manhood (as opposed to the simple certainties of biological maleness), seem
to require constant vigilance and work, especially for younger men.
The personal insecurities conferred by a failure to make the masculine
grade, or simply, the threat of failure, is enough to propel many men,
particularly when they are young, into a vortex of fear, isolation, anger,
self-punishment, self-hatred, and aggression.
Within such an emotional state, violence becomes a compensatory
mechanism. It is a way of re-establishing the masculine equilibrium, of
asserting to oneself and to others ones masculine credentials. This
expression of violence usually includes a choice of a target who is
physically weaker or more vulnerable. This may be a child, or a woman, or,
as it may be social groups, such as gay men, or a religious or social
minority, or immigrants, who seem to pose an easy target for
the insecurity and rage of individual men, especially since such groups often haven't
received adequate protection under the law. (This compensatory mechanism
is clearly indicated, for example, in that most "gay-bashing" is committed
by groups of young men in a period of their life when they experience the
greatest insecurity about making the masculine grade.)
What allows violence as an individual compensatory mechanism
has been the wide-spread acceptance of violence as a means of solving
differences and asserting power and control. What makes it possible are the power and
privileges men have enjoyed, things encoded in beliefs,
practices, social structures, and the law.
Men's violence, in its myriad of forms, is therefore the result both of
men's power, the sense of entitlement to the privilege, the permission for
certain forms of violence, and the fear (or reality) of not having power.
But there is even more.
The Fifth "P": The Psychic Armour of Manhood
Men's violence is also the result of a character structure that is
typically based on emotional distance from others. As I and
many others have suggested, the psychic structures of manhood are created in early
childrearing environments that are often typified by the absence of fathers
and adult men, or, at least, by men's emotional distance. In this case,
masculinity gets codified by absence and constructed at the level of
fantasy. But even in patriarchal cultures where fathers are more present,
masculinity is codified as a rejection of the mother and femininity, that
is, a rejection of the qualities associated with caregiving and
nurturance. As various feminist psychoanalysts have noted,
this creates rigid ego barriers, or, in metaphorical terms, a strong suit
of armor.
The result of this complex and particular process of psychological
development is a dampened ability for empathy (to experience what others
are feeling) and an inability to experience other people's needs and
feelings as necessarily relating to one's own. Acts of violence against
another person are, therefore, possible. How often do we hear a man say he
"didn't really hurt" the woman he hit? Yes, he is making excuses, but part
of the problem is that he truly may not experience the pain he is
causing. How often do we hear a man say, "she wanted to have sex"? Again,
he may be making an excuse, but it may well be a reflection of his
diminished ability to read and understand the feelings of another.
The Sixth "P": Masculinity as a Psychic Pressure Cooker
Many of our dominant forms of masculinity hinge on the
internalization of a range of emotions and their redirection into anger. It is
not simply that men's language of emotions is often muted or that our
emotional antennae and capacity for empathy are somewhat stunted. It is also
that a range of natural emotions have been ruled off limits and invalid.
While this has a cultural specificity, it is rather typical for boys to learn
from an early age to repress feelings of fear and pain. On the sports
field we teach boys to ignore pain. At home we tell boys not to cry and act like
men. Some cultures celebrate a stoic manhood. (And, I should stress, boys
learn such things for survival: hence it is important we don't blame the
individual boy or man for the origins of his current behaviours, even if,
at the same time, we hold him responsible for his actions.)
Of course, as humans, we still experience events that cause
an emotional response. But the usual mechanisms of emotional response,
from actually experiencing an emotion to letting go of the feelings, are
short-circuited to varying degrees among many men. But, again for many men, the one
emotion that has some validation is anger. The result is that a range of
emotions get channeled into anger. While such channeling is not unique to
men (nor is it the case for all men), for some men, violent responses to
fear, hurt, insecurity, pain, rejection, or belittlement are not uncommon.
This is particularly true where the feeling produced is one
of not having power. Such a feeling only heightens masculine insecurities:
if manhood if about power and control, not being powerful means you are not a
man. Again, violence becomes a means to prove otherwise to yourself and
others.
The Seventh "P": Past experiences
This all combines with more blatant experiences for some men.
Far too many men around the world grew up in households where their mother
was beaten by their father. They grew up seeing violent behaviour towards
women as the norm, as just the way life is lived. For some men this results in a
revulsion towards violence, while in others it produces a learned
response. In many cases it is both: men who use violence
against women often feel deep self-loathing for themselves and their behaviour.
But the phrase "learned response" is almost too simplistic.
Studies have shown that boys and girls who grow up witnessing violence are far more
likely to be violent themselves. Such violence may be a way of getting
attention; it may be a coping mechanism, a way of externalizing
impossible-to-cope-with feelings. Such patterns of behaviour continue
beyond childhood: most men who end up in programs for men who use violence
either witnessed abuse against their mother or experienced abuse themselves.
The past experiences of many men also includes the violence they themselves
have experienced. In many cultures, while boys may be half as likely to
experience sexual abuse than girls, they are twice as likely to experience
physical abuse. Again, this produces no one fixed outcome, and, again,
such outcomes are not unique to boys. But in some cases these personal
experiences instill deep patterns of confusion and frustration, where boys
have learned that it is possible to hurt someone you love, where only
outbursts of rage can get rid of deeply-imbedded feelings of pain.
And finally, there is the whole reign of petty violence among boys which,
as a boy, doesn't seem petty at all. Boys in many cultures grow up with
experiences of fighting, bullying, and brutalization. Sheer survival
requires, for some, accepting and internalizing violence as a norm of
behaviour.
Ending the Violence
This analysis, even presented in such a condensed form,
suggests that challenging men's violence requires an articulated response
that includes:
Michael Kaufman
Toronto, Canada
October 1999
My thanks to those with whom I discussed a number of the ideas in this text:, Jean Bernard, Ruth Finney Hayward, Dale Hurst, Michael Kimmel, my colleagues in the White Ribbon Campaign, and a woman at Woman's World '99 in Tromso, Norway who didn't give her name but who, during a discussion period of an earlier version of this paper, suggested it was important to explicitly highlight "permission" as one of the "p's". An earlier version of this paper was published in a special issue of the magazine of the International Association for Studies of Men, v.6, n.2 (June 1999) (www.ifi.uio.no/~eivindr/iasom).
Michael Kaufman, Ph.D.
International Director, White Ribbon Campaign
(c) Copyright, Michael Kaufman, 1999 Not to be translated or distributed
in print or electronic form without permission, mkmk@sympatico.ca or
www.michaelkaufman.com